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Talk about flow control along with C-x C-s and C-s.
[gnu-emacs] / etc / TUTORIAL
1 Copyright (c) 1985 Free Software Foundation, Inc; See end for conditions.
2
3 You are looking at the Emacs tutorial.
4
5 Emacs commands generally involve the CONTROL key (sometimes labelled
6 CTRL or CTL) or the META key (sometimes labelled EDIT). Rather than
7 write out META or CONTROL each time we want you to prefix a character,
8 we'll use the following abbreviations:
9
10 C-<chr> means hold the CONTROL key while typing the character <chr>
11 Thus, C-f would be: hold the CONTROL key and type f.
12 M-<chr> means hold the META or EDIT key down while typing <chr>.
13 If there is no META or EDIT key, type <ESC>, release it,
14 then type the character <chr>. "<ESC>" stands for the
15 key labelled "ALT" or "ESC".
16
17 Important note: to end the Emacs session, type C-x C-c. (Two characters.)
18 The characters ">>" at the left margin indicate directions for you to
19 try using a command. For instance:
20 <<Blank lines inserted here by startup of help-with-tutorial>>
21 >> Now type C-v (View next screen) to move to the next screen.
22 (go ahead, do it by depressing the control key and v together).
23 From now on, you'll be expected to do this whenever you finish
24 reading the screen.
25
26 Note that there is an overlap when going from screen to screen; this
27 provides some continuity when moving through the file.
28
29 The first thing that you need to know is how to move around from
30 place to place in the file. You already know how to move forward a
31 screen, with C-v. To move backwards a screen, type M-v (depress the
32 META key and type v, or type <ESC>v if you don't have a META or EDIT
33 key).
34
35 >> Try typing M-v and then C-v to move back and forth a few times.
36
37
38 * SUMMARY
39 ---------
40
41 The following commands are useful for viewing screenfuls:
42
43 C-v Move forward one screenful
44 M-v Move backward one screenful
45 C-l Clear screen and redisplay everything
46 putting the text near the cursor at the center.
47 (That's control-L, not control-1.)
48
49 >> Find the cursor and remember what text is near it.
50 Then type a C-l.
51 Find the cursor again and see what text is near it now.
52
53
54 * BASIC CURSOR CONTROL
55 ----------------------
56
57 Getting from screenful to screenful is useful, but how do you
58 reposition yourself within a given screen to a specific place?
59 There are several ways you can do this. One way (not the best, but
60 the most basic) is to use the commands previous, backward, forward
61 and next. As you can imagine these commands (which are given to
62 Emacs as C-p, C-b, C-f, and C-n respectively) move the cursor from
63 where it currently is to a new place in the given direction. Here,
64 in a more graphical form are the commands:
65
66 Previous line, C-p
67 :
68 :
69 Backward, C-b .... Current cursor position .... Forward, C-f
70 :
71 :
72 Next line, C-n
73
74 >> Move the cursor to the line in the middle of that diagram
75 and type C-l to see the whole diagram centered in the screen.
76
77 You'll probably find it easy to think of these by letter. P for
78 previous, N for next, B for backward and F for forward. These are
79 the basic cursor positioning commands and you'll be using them ALL
80 the time so it would be of great benefit if you learn them now.
81
82 >> Do a few C-n's to bring the cursor down to this line.
83
84 >> Move into the line with C-f's and then up with C-p's.
85 See what C-p does when the cursor is in the middle of the line.
86
87 Lines are separated by Newline characters. For most applications
88 there should normally be a Newline character at the end of the text,
89 as well, but it is up to you to make sure of this. A file can
90 validly exist without a Newline at the end.
91
92 >> Try to C-b at the beginning of a line. Do a few more C-b's.
93 Then do C-f's back to the end of the line and beyond.
94
95 When you go off the top or bottom of the screen, the text beyond
96 the edge is shifted onto the screen so that your instructions can
97 be carried out while keeping the cursor on the screen.
98
99 >> Try to move the cursor off the bottom of the screen with C-n and
100 see what happens.
101
102 If moving by characters is too slow, you can move by words. M-f
103 (Meta-f) moves forward a word and M-b moves back a word.
104
105 >> Type a few M-f's and M-b's. Intersperse them with C-f's and C-b's.
106
107 Notice the parallel between C-f and C-b on the one hand, and M-f and
108 M-b on the other hand. Very often Meta characters are used for
109 operations related to English text whereas Control characters operate
110 on the basic textual units that are independent of what you are
111 editing (characters, lines, etc). There is a similar parallel between
112 lines and sentences: C-a and C-e move to the beginning or end of a
113 line, and M-a and M-e move to the beginning or end of a sentence.
114
115 >> Try a couple of C-a's, and then a couple of C-e's.
116 Try a couple of M-a's, and then a couple of M-e's.
117
118 See how repeated C-a's do nothing, but repeated M-a's keep moving
119 farther. Do you think that this is right?
120
121 Two other simple cursor motion commands are M-< (Meta Less-than),
122 which moves to the beginning of the file, and M-> (Meta Greater-than),
123 which moves to the end of the file. You probably don't need to try
124 them, since finding this spot again will be boring. On most terminals
125 the "<" is above the comma and you must use the shift key to type it.
126 On these terminals you must use the shift key to type M-< also;
127 without the shift key, you would be typing M-comma.
128
129 The location of the cursor in the text is also called "point". To
130 paraphrase, the cursor shows on the screen where point is located in
131 the text.
132
133 Here is a summary of simple moving operations including the word and
134 sentence moving commands:
135
136 C-f Move forward a character
137 C-b Move backward a character
138
139 M-f Move forward a word
140 M-b Move backward a word
141
142 C-n Move to next line
143 C-p Move to previous line
144
145 C-a Move to beginning of line
146 C-e Move to end of line
147
148 M-a Move back to beginning of sentence
149 M-e Move forward to end of sentence
150
151 M-< Go to beginning of file
152 M-> Go to end of file
153
154 >> Try all of these commands now a few times for practice.
155 Since the last two will take you away from this screen,
156 you can come back here with M-v's and C-v's. These are
157 the most often used commands.
158
159 Like all other commands in Emacs, these commands can be given
160 arguments which cause them to be executed repeatedly. The way you
161 give a command a repeat count is by typing C-u and then the digits
162 before you type the command. If you have a META or EDIT key, you can
163 omit the C-u if you hold down the META or EDIT key while you type the
164 digits. This is easier, but we recommend the C-u method because it
165 works on any terminal.
166
167 For instance, C-u 8 C-f moves forward eight characters.
168
169 >> Try giving a suitable argument to C-n or C-p to come as close
170 as you can to this line in one jump.
171
172 The only apparent exception to this is the screen moving commands,
173 C-v and M-v. When given an argument, they scroll the screen up or
174 down by that many lines, rather than screenfuls. This proves to be
175 much more useful.
176
177 >> Try typing C-u 8 C-v now.
178
179 Did it scroll the screen up by 8 lines? If you would like to
180 scroll it down you can give an argument to M-v.
181
182 If you are using X Windows, there is probably a rectangular area
183 called a scroll bar at the right hand side of the Emacs window. You
184 can scroll the text by clicking the mouse in the scroll bar.
185
186 >> Try pressing the middle button at the top of the highlighted area
187 within the scroll bar, then moving the mouse while holding that button
188 down.
189
190 >> Move the mouse to a point in the scroll bar about three lines from
191 the top, and click the left button a couple of times. Then try the
192 right button a couple of times.
193
194
195 * WHEN EMACS IS HUNG
196 --------------------
197
198 If Emacs gets into an infinite (or simply very long) computation which
199 you don't want to finish, you can stop it safely by typing C-g.
200 You can also use C-g to discard a numeric argument or the beginning of
201 a command that you don't want to finish.
202
203 >> Type C-u 100 to make a numeric arg of 100, then type C-g.
204 Now type C-f. How many characters does it move?
205 If you have typed an <ESC> by mistake, you can get rid of it
206 with a C-g.
207
208 If you type <ESC> <ESC>, you get a new window appearing on
209 the screen, telling you that M-ESC is a "disabled command"
210 and asking whether you really want to execute it. The command
211 M-ESC is marked as disabled because you probably don't want to
212 use it until you know more about Emacs, and we expect it would
213 confuse you if it were allowed to go ahead and run. If you really
214 want to try the M-ESC command, you could type a Space in answer
215 to the question and M-ESC would go ahead. Normally, if you do
216 not want to execute M-ESC, you would type "n" to answer the question.
217
218 >> Type <ESC> <ESC>, then type n.
219
220
221 * WINDOWS
222 ---------
223
224 Emacs can have several windows, each displaying its own text.
225 At this stage it is better not to go into the techniques of
226 using multiple windows. But you do need to know how to get
227 rid of extra windows that may appear to display help or
228 output from certain commands. It is simple:
229
230 C-x 1 One window (i.e., kill all other windows).
231
232 That is Control-x followed by the digit 1.
233 C-x 1 makes the window which the cursor is in become
234 the full screen, by getting rid of any other windows.
235
236 >> Move the cursor to this line and type C-u 0 C-l.
237 >> Type Control-h k Control-f.
238 See how this window shrinks, while a new one appears
239 to display documentation on the Control-f command.
240
241 >> Type C-x 1 and see the documentation listing window disappear.
242
243
244 * INSERTING AND DELETING
245 ------------------------
246
247 If you want to insert text, just type it. Characters which you can
248 see, such as A, 7, *, etc. are taken by Emacs as text and inserted
249 immediately. Type <Return> (the carriage-return key) to insert a
250 Newline character.
251
252 You can delete the last character you typed by typing <Rubout>.
253 <Rubout> is a key on the keyboard, which might be labelled "Delete"
254 instead of "Rubout" on some terminals. More generally, <Rubout>
255 deletes the character immediately before the current cursor position.
256
257 >> Do this now, type a few characters and then delete them
258 by typing <Rubout> a few times. Don't worry about this file
259 being changed; you won't affect the master tutorial. This is just
260 a copy of it.
261
262 >> Now start typing text until you reach the right margin, and keep
263 typing. When a line of text gets too big for one line on the
264 screen, the line of text is "continued" onto a second screen line.
265 The backslash at the right margin indicates a line which has
266 been continued.
267 >> Use <Rubout>s to delete the text until the line fits on one screen
268 line again. The continuation line goes away.
269
270 >> Move the cursor to the beginning of a line and type <Rubout>. This
271 deletes the newline before the line and merges the line onto
272 the previous line. The resulting line may be too long to fit, in
273 which case it has a continuation line.
274 >> Type <Return> to reinsert the Newline you deleted.
275
276 Remember that most Emacs commands can be given a repeat count;
277 this includes characters which insert themselves.
278
279 >> Try that now -- type C-u 8 * and see what happens.
280
281 You've now learned the most basic way of typing something in
282 Emacs and correcting errors. You can delete by words or lines
283 as well. Here is a summary of the delete operations:
284
285 <Rubout> delete the character just before the cursor
286 C-d delete the next character after the cursor
287
288 M-<Rubout> kill the word immediately before the cursor
289 M-d kill the next word after the cursor
290
291 C-k kill from the cursor position to end of line
292 M-k kill to the end of the current sentence
293
294 Notice that <Rubout> and C-d vs M-<Rubout> and M-d extend the parallel
295 started by C-f and M-f (well, <Rubout> isn't really a control
296 character, but let's not worry about that). C-k and M-k are like C-e
297 and M-e, sort of, in that lines are opposite sentences.
298
299 Now suppose you kill something, and then you decide that you want to
300 get it back? Well, whenever you kill something bigger than a
301 character, Emacs saves it for you. To yank it back, use C-y. You
302 can kill text in one place, move elsewhere, and then do C-y; this is
303 a good way to move text around. Note that the difference
304 between "Killing" and "Deleting" something is that "Killed" things
305 can be yanked back, and "Deleted" things cannot. Generally, the
306 commands that can destroy a lot of text save it, while the ones that
307 attack only one character, or nothing but blank lines and spaces, do
308 not save.
309
310 For instance, type C-n a couple times to position the cursor
311 at some line on this screen.
312
313 >> Do this now, move the cursor and kill that line with C-k.
314
315 Note that a single C-k kills the contents of the line, and a second
316 C-k kills the line itself, and make all the other lines move up. If
317 you give C-k a repeat count, it kills that many lines AND their
318 contents.
319
320 The text that has just disappeared is saved so that you can
321 retrieve it. To retrieve the last killed text and put it where
322 the cursor currently is, type C-y.
323
324 >> Try it; type C-y to yank the text back.
325
326 Think of C-y as if you were yanking something back that someone
327 took away from you. Notice that if you do several C-k's in a row
328 the text that is killed is all saved together so that one C-y will
329 yank all of the lines.
330
331 >> Do this now, type C-k several times.
332
333 Now to retrieve that killed text:
334
335 >> Type C-y. Then move the cursor down a few lines and type C-y
336 again. You now see how to copy some text.
337
338 What do you do if you have some text you want to yank back, and then
339 you kill something else? C-y would yank the more recent kill. But
340 the previous text is not lost. You can get back to it using the M-y
341 command. After you have done C-y to get the most recent kill, typing
342 M-Y replaces that yanked text with the previous kill. Typing M-y
343 again and again brings in earlier and earlier kills. When you
344 have reached the text you are looking for, you can just go away and
345 leave it there. If you M-y enough times, you come back to the
346 starting point (the most recent kill).
347
348 >> Kill a line, move around, kill another line.
349 Then do C-y to get back the second killed line.
350 Then do M-y and it will be replaced by the first killed line.
351 Do more M-y's and see what you get. Keep doing them until
352 the second kill line comes back, and then a few more.
353 If you like, you can try giving M-y positive and negative
354 arguments.
355
356
357 * UNDO
358 ------
359
360 Any time you make a change to the text and wish you had not done so,
361 you can undo the change (return the text to its previous state)
362 with the undo command, C-x u. Normally, C-x u undoes one command's
363 worth of changes; if you repeat the C-x u several times in a row,
364 each time undoes one more command. There are two exceptions:
365 commands that made no change (just moved the cursor) do not count,
366 and self-inserting characters are often lumped together in groups
367 of up to 20. This is to reduce the number of C-x u's you have to type.
368
369 >> Kill this line with C-k, then type C-x u and it should reappear.
370
371 C-_ is another command for undoing; it is just the same as C-x u
372 but easier to type several times in a row. The problem with C-_ is
373 that on some keyboards it is not obvious how to type it. That is
374 why C-x u is provided as well. On some DEC terminals, you can type
375 C-_ by typing / while holding down CTRL. Illogical, but what can
376 you expect from DEC?
377
378 Giving a numeric argument to C-_ or C-x u is equivalent to repeating
379 it as many times as the argument says.
380
381
382 * FILES
383 -------
384
385 In order to make the text you edit permanent, you must put it in a
386 file. Otherwise, it will go away when your invocation of Emacs goes
387 away. You put your editing in a file by "finding" the file. What
388 finding means is that you see the contents of the file in your Emacs;
389 and, loosely speaking, what you are editing is the file itself.
390 However, the changes still don't become permanent until you "save" the
391 file. This is so you can have control to avoid leaving a half-changed
392 file around when you don't want to. Even then, Emacs leaves the
393 original file under a changed name in case your changes turn out
394 to be a mistake.
395
396 If you look near the bottom of the screen you will see a line that
397 begins and ends with dashes, and contains the string "Emacs: TUTORIAL".
398 Your copy of the Emacs tutorial is called "TUTORIAL". Whatever
399 file you find, that file's name will appear in that precise
400 spot.
401
402 The commands for finding and saving files are unlike the other
403 commands you have learned in that they consist of two characters.
404 They both start with the character Control-x. There is a whole series
405 of commands that start with Control-x; many of them have to do with
406 files, buffers, and related things, and all of them consist of
407 Control-x followed by some other character.
408
409 Another thing about the command for finding a file is that you have
410 to say what file name you want. We say the command "reads an argument
411 from the terminal" (in this case, the argument is the name of the
412 file). After you type the command
413
414 C-x C-f Find a file
415
416 Emacs asks you to type the file name. It echoes on the bottom
417 line of the screen. You are using the minibuffer now! this is
418 what the minibuffer is for. When you type <Return> to end the
419 file name, the minibuffer is no longer needed, so it disappears.
420
421 >> Type C-x C-f, then type C-g. This cancels the minibuffer,
422 and also cancels the C-x C-f command that was using the
423 minibuffer. So you do not find any file.
424
425 In a little while the file contents appear on the screen. You can
426 edit the contents. When you wish to make the changes permanent,
427 issue the command
428
429 C-x C-s Save the file
430
431 The contents of Emacs are written into the file. The first time you
432 do this, the original file is renamed to a new name so that it
433 is not lost. The new name is made by appending "~" to the end
434 of the original file's name.
435
436 When saving is finished, Emacs prints the name of the file written.
437 You should save fairly often, so that you will not lose very much
438 work if the system should crash.
439
440 >> Type C-x C-s, saving your copy of the tutorial.
441 This should print "Wrote .../TUTORIAL" at the bottom of the screen.
442 On VMS it will print "Wrote ...[...]TUTORIAL."
443
444 NOTE: On some systems, typing C-x C-s will freeze the screen and you
445 will see no further output from Emacs. This indicates that an
446 operating system "feature" called "flow control" is intercepting the
447 C-s and not letting it get through to Emacs. To unfreeze the screen,
448 type C-q. Then see the section "Spontaneous Entry to Incremental
449 Search" in the Emacs manual for advice on dealing with this "feature".
450
451 To make a new file, just find it "as if" it already existed. Then
452 start typing in the text. When you ask to "save" the file, Emacs
453 will really create the file with the text that you have inserted.
454 From then on, you can consider yourself to be editing an already
455 existing file.
456
457
458 * BUFFERS
459 ---------
460
461 If you find a second file with C-x C-f, the first file remains
462 inside Emacs. You can switch back to it by finding it again with
463 C-x C-f. This way you can get quite a number of files inside Emacs.
464
465 The object inside Emacs which holds the text read from one file
466 is called a "buffer." Finding a file makes a new buffer inside Emacs.
467 To see a list of the buffers that exist in Emacs, type
468
469 C-x C-b List buffers
470
471 >> Try C-x C-b now.
472
473 See how each buffer has a name, and it may also have a file name
474 for the file whose contents it holds. Some buffers do not correspond
475 to files. For example, the buffer named "*Buffer List*" does
476 not have any file. It is the buffer which contains the buffer
477 list that was made by C-x C-b. ANY text you see in an Emacs window
478 has to be in some buffer.
479
480 >> Type C-x 1 to get rid of the buffer list.
481
482 If you make changes to the text of one file, then find another file,
483 this does not save the first file. Its changes remain inside Emacs,
484 in that file's buffer. The creation or editing of the second file's
485 buffer has no effect on the first file's buffer. This is very useful,
486 but it also means that you need a convenient way to save the first
487 file's buffer. It would be a nuisance to have to switch back to
488 it with C-x C-f in order to save it with C-x C-s. So we have
489
490 C-x s Save some buffers
491
492 C-x s goes through the list of all the buffers you have
493 and finds the ones that contain files you have changed.
494 For each such buffer, C-x s asks you whether to save it.
495
496
497 * EXTENDING THE COMMAND SET
498 ---------------------------
499
500 There are many, many more Emacs commands than could possibly be put
501 on all the control and meta characters. Emacs gets around this with
502 the X (eXtend) command. This comes in two flavors:
503
504 C-x Character eXtend. Followed by one character.
505 M-x Named command eXtend. Followed by a long name.
506
507 These are commands that are generally useful but used less than the
508 commands you have already learned about. You have already seen two
509 of them: the file commands C-x C-f to Find and C-x C-s to Save.
510 Another example is the command to tell Emacs that you'd like to stop
511 editing and get rid of Emacs. The command to do this is C-x C-c.
512 (Don't worry; it offers to save each changed file before it kills the
513 Emacs.)
514
515 C-z is the usual way to exit Emacs, because it is always better not to
516 kill the Emacs if you are going to do any more editing. On systems
517 which allow it, C-z exits from Emacs to the shell but does not destroy
518 the Emacs; if you use the C shell, you can resume Emacs with the `fg'
519 command (or, more generally, with `%emacs', which works even if your
520 most recent job was some other). On systems where suspending is not
521 possible, C-z creates a subshell running under Emacs to give you the
522 chance to run other programs and return to Emacs afterward, but it
523 does not truly "exit" from Emacs. In this case, the shell command
524 `exit' is the usual way to get back to Emacs from the subshell.
525
526 You would use C-x C-c if you were about to log out. You would
527 also use it to exit an Emacs invoked under mail handling programs
528 and other random utilities, since they may not believe you have
529 really finished using the Emacs if it continues to exist.
530
531 There are many C-x commands. The ones you know are:
532
533 C-x C-f Find file.
534 C-x C-s Save file.
535 C-x C-b List buffers.
536 C-x C-c Quit Emacs.
537 C-x u Undo.
538
539 Named eXtended commands are commands which are used even less
540 frequently, or commands which are used only in certain modes. These
541 commands are usually called "functions". An example is the function
542 replace-string, which globally replaces one string with another. When
543 you type M-x, Emacs prompts you at the bottom of the screen with
544 M-x and you should type the name of the function you wish to call; in
545 this case, "replace-string". Just type "repl s<TAB>" and Emacs will
546 complete the name. End the command name with <Return>.
547 Then type the two "arguments"--the string to be replaced, and the string
548 to replace it with--each one ended with a Return.
549
550 >> Move the cursor to the blank line two lines below this one.
551 Then type M-x repl s<Return>changed<Return>altered<Return>.
552
553 Notice how this line has changed: you've replaced
554 the word c-h-a-n-g-e-d with "altered" wherever it occurred
555 after the cursor.
556
557
558 * MODE LINE
559 -----------
560
561 If Emacs sees that you are typing commands slowly it shows them to you
562 at the bottom of the screen in an area called the "echo area." The echo
563 area contains the bottom line of the screen. The line immediately above
564 it is called the MODE LINE. The mode line says something like
565
566 --**-Emacs: TUTORIAL (Fundamental)--58%----------------------
567
568 This is a very useful "information" line.
569
570 You already know what the filename means--it is the file you have
571 found. What the --NN%-- means is that NN percent of the file is
572 above the top of the screen. If the top of the file is on the screen,
573 it will say --Top-- instead of --00%--. If the bottom of the file is
574 on the screen, it will say --Bot--. If you are looking at a file so
575 small it all fits on the screen, it says --All--.
576
577 The stars near the front mean that you have made changes to the text.
578 Right after you visit or save a file, there are no stars, just dashes.
579
580 The part of the mode line inside the parentheses is to tell you what
581 modes you are in. The default mode is Fundamental which is what you
582 are in now. It is an example of a "major mode". There are several
583 major modes in Emacs for editing different languages and text, such as
584 Lisp mode, Text mode, etc. At any time one and only one major mode is
585 active, and its name can always be found in the mode line just where
586 "Fundamental" is now. Each major mode makes a few commands behave
587 differently. For example, there are commands for creating comments in
588 a program, and since each programming language has a different idea of
589 what a comment should look like, each major mode has to insert
590 comments differently. Each major mode is the name of an extended
591 command, which is how you get into the mode. For example,
592 M-x fundamental-mode is how to get into Fundamental mode.
593
594 If you are going to be editing English text, such as this file, you
595 should probably use Text Mode.
596 >> Type M-x text-mode<Return>.
597
598 Don't worry, none of the commands you have learned changes Emacs in
599 any great way. But you can observe that apostrophes are now part of
600 words when you do M-f or M-b. Major modes are usually like that:
601 commands don't change into completely unrelated things, but they work
602 a little bit differently.
603
604 To get documentation on your current major mode, type C-h m.
605
606 >> Use C-u C-v once or more to bring this line near the top of screen.
607 >> Type C-h m, to see how Text mode differs from Fundamental mode.
608 >> Type C-x 1 to remove the documentation from the screen.
609
610 Major modes are called major because there are also minor modes.
611 They are called minor because they aren't alternatives to the major
612 modes, just minor modifications of them. Each minor mode can be
613 turned on or off by itself, regardless of what major mode you are in,
614 and regardless of the other minor modes. So you can use no minor
615 modes, or one minor mode, or any combination of several minor modes.
616
617 One minor mode which is very useful, especially for editing English
618 text, is Auto Fill mode. When this mode is on, Emacs breaks the line
619 in between words automatically whenever the line gets too long. You
620 can turn this mode on by doing M-x auto-fill-mode<Return>. When the
621 mode is on, you can turn it off by doing M-x auto-fill-mode<Return>.
622 If the mode is off, this function turns it on, and if the mode is on,
623 this function turns it off. This is called "toggling".
624
625 >> Type M-x auto-fill-mode<Return> now. Then insert a line of "asdf "
626 over again until you see it divide into two lines. You must put in
627 spaces between them because Auto Fill breaks lines only at spaces.
628
629 The margin is usually set at 70 characters, but you can change it
630 with the C-x f command. You should give the margin setting you want
631 as a numeric argument.
632
633 >> Type C-x f with an argument of 20. (C-u 2 0 C-x f).
634 Then type in some text and see Emacs fill lines of 20
635 characters with it. Then set the margin back to 70 using
636 C-x f again.
637
638 If you makes changes in the middle of a paragraph, Auto Fill mode
639 does not re-fill it for you.
640 To re-fill the paragraph, type M-q (Meta-q) with the cursor inside
641 that paragraph.
642
643 >> Move the cursor into the previous paragraph and type M-q.
644
645 * SEARCHING
646 -----------
647
648 Emacs can do searches for strings (these are groups of contiguous
649 characters or words) either forward through the file or backward
650 through it. To search for the string means that you are trying to
651 locate it somewhere in the file and have Emacs show you where the
652 occurrences of the string exist. This type of search is somewhat
653 different from what you may be familiar with. It is a search that is
654 performed as you type in the thing to search for. The command to
655 initiate a search is C-s for forward search, and C-r for reverse
656 search. BUT WAIT! Don't do them now. When you type C-s you'll
657 notice that the string "I-search" appears as a prompt in the echo
658 area. This tells you that Emacs is in what is called an incremental
659 search waiting for you to type the thing that you want to search for.
660 <RET> terminates a search.
661
662 >> Now type C-s to start a search. SLOWLY, one letter at a time,
663 type the word 'cursor', pausing after you type each
664 character to notice what happens to the cursor.
665 >> Type C-s to find the next occurrence of "cursor".
666 >> Now type <Rubout> four times and see how the cursor moves.
667 >> Type <RET> to terminate the search.
668
669 Did you see what happened? Emacs, in an incremental search, tries to
670 go to the occurrence of the string that you've typed out so far. To go
671 to the next occurrence of 'cursor' just type C-s again. If no such
672 occurrence exists Emacs beeps and tells you that it is a failing
673 search. C-g would also terminate the search.
674
675 NOTE: On some systems, typing C-s will freeze the screen and you will
676 see no further output from Emacs. This indicates that an operating
677 system "feature" called "flow control" is intercepting the C-s and not
678 letting it get through to Emacs. To unfreeze the screen, type C-q.
679 Then see the section "Spontaneous Entry to Incremental Search" in the
680 Emacs manual for advice on dealing with this "feature".
681
682 If you are in the middle of an incremental search and type <Rubout>,
683 you'll notice that the last character in the search string is erased
684 and the search backs up to the last place of the search. For
685 instance, suppose you currently have typed 'cu' and you see that your
686 cursor is at the first occurrence of 'cu'. If you now type <Rubout>,
687 the 'u' on the search line is erased and you'll be repositioned in the
688 text to the occurrence of 'c' where the search took you before you
689 typed the 'u'. This provides a useful means for backing up while you
690 are searching.
691
692 If you are in the middle of a search and type a control or meta
693 character (with a few exceptions--characters that are special in
694 a search, such as C-s and C-r), the search is terminated.
695
696 The C-s starts a search that looks for any occurrence of the search
697 string AFTER the current cursor position. But what if you want to
698 search for something earlier in the text? To do this, type C-r for
699 Reverse search. Everything that applies to C-s applies to C-r except
700 that the direction of the search is reversed.
701
702
703 * MULTIPLE WINDOWS
704 ------------------
705
706 One of the nice features of Emacs is that you can display more than one
707 window on the screen at the same time.
708
709 >> Move the cursor to this line and type C-u 0 C-l.
710
711 >> Now type C-x 2 which splits the screen into two windows.
712 Both windows display this tutorial. The cursor stays in the top window.
713
714 >> Type C-M-v to scroll the bottom window.
715 (If you don't have a real Meta key, type ESC C-v.)
716
717 >> Type C-x o ("o" for "other") to move the cursor to the bottom window.
718 >> Use C-v and M-v in the bottom window to scroll it.
719 Keep reading these directions in the top window.
720
721 >> Type C-x o again to move the cursor back to the top window.
722 The cursor is still just where it was in the top window before.
723
724 You can keep using C-x o to switch between the windows. Each
725 window has its own cursor position, but only one window actually
726 shows the cursor. All the ordinary editing commands apply to the
727 window that the cursor is in.
728
729 The command C-M-v is very useful when you are editing text in one
730 window and using the other window just for reference. You can keep
731 the cursor always in the window where you are editing, and edit
732 there as you advance through the other window.
733
734 >> Type C-x 1 (in the top window) to get rid of the bottom window.
735
736 (If you had typed C-x 1 in the bottom window, that would get rid
737 of the top one. Think of this command as "Keep just one
738 window--the window I am already in.")
739
740 You don't have to display the same buffer in both windows. If
741 you use C-x C-f to find a file in one window, the other window
742 doesn't change. You can pick a file in each window
743 independently.
744
745 Here is another way to use two windows to display two different
746 things:
747
748 >> Type C-x 4 C-f followed by the name of one of your files.
749 End with <RETURN>. See the specified file appear in the bottom
750 window. The cursor goes there, too.
751
752 >> Type C-x o to go back to the top window, and C-x 1 to delete
753 the bottom window.
754
755
756 * RECURSIVE EDITING LEVELS
757 --------------------------
758
759 Sometimes you will get into what is called a "recursive editing
760 level". This is indicated by square brackets in the mode line,
761 surrounding the parentheses around the major mode name. For
762 example, you might see [(Fundamental)] instead of (Fundamental).
763
764 To get out of the recursive editing level, type
765 M-x top-level<Return>.
766
767 >> Try that now; it should display "Back to top level"
768 at the bottom of the screen.
769
770 In fact, you were ALREADY at top level (not inside a recursive editing
771 level) if you have obeyed instructions. M-x top-level does not care;
772 it gets out of any number of recursive editing levels, perhaps zero,
773 to get back to top level.
774
775 You can't use C-g to get out of a recursive editing level because C-g
776 is used for discarding numeric arguments and partially typed commands
777 WITHIN the recursive editing level.
778
779
780 * GETTING MORE HELP
781 -------------------
782
783 In this tutorial we have tried to supply just enough information to
784 get you started using Emacs. There is so much available in Emacs that
785 it would be impossible to explain it all here. However, you may want
786 to learn more about Emacs since it has numerous desirable features
787 that you don't know about yet. Emacs has a great deal of internal
788 documentation. All of these commands can be accessed through
789 the character Control-h, which we call "the Help character"
790 because of the function it serves.
791
792 To use the HELP features, type the C-h character, and then a
793 character saying what kind of help you want. If you are REALLY lost,
794 type C-h ? and Emacs will tell you what kinds of help it can give.
795 If you have typed C-h and decide you don't want any help, just
796 type C-g to cancel it.
797
798 (Some sites rebind the character C-h. They really shouldn't do this
799 as a blanket measure, so complain to the operator. Meanwhile, if C-h
800 does not display a message about help at the bottom of the screen, try
801 typing M-x help RET instead.)
802
803 The most basic HELP feature is C-h c. Type C-h, a c, and a
804 command character or sequence, and Emacs displays a very brief
805 description of the command.
806
807 >> Type C-h c Control-p.
808 The message should be something like
809
810 C-p runs the command previous-line
811
812 This tells you the "name of the function". That is important in
813 writing Lisp code to extend Emacs; it also is enough to remind
814 you of what the command does if you have seen it before but did
815 not remember.
816
817 Multi-character commands such as C-x C-s and (if you have no META or
818 EDIT key) <ESC>v are also allowed after C-h c.
819
820 To get more information on the command, use C-h k instead of C-h c.
821
822 >> Type C-h k Control-p.
823
824 This displays the documentation of the function, as well as its
825 name, in an Emacs window. When you are finished reading the
826 output, type C-x 1 to get rid of the help text. You do not have
827 to do this right away. You can do some editing while referring
828 to the help text and then type C-x 1.
829
830 Here are some other useful C-h options:
831
832 C-h f Describe a function. You type in the name of the
833 function.
834
835 >> Try typing C-h f previous-line<Return>.
836 This prints all the information Emacs has about the
837 function which implements the C-p command.
838
839 C-h a Command Apropos. Type in a keyword and Emacs will list
840 all the commands whose names contain that keyword.
841 These commands can all be invoked with Meta-x.
842 For some commands, Command Apropos will also list a one
843 or two character sequence which has the same effect.
844
845 >> Type C-h a file<Return>.
846
847 This displays in another window a list of all M-x commands with
848 "file" in their names. You will also see commands like C-x C-f
849 and C-x C-w, listed beside the command names find-file and
850 write-file.
851
852 >> Type C-M-v to scroll the help window. Do this a few times.
853
854 >> Type C-x 1 to delete the help window.
855
856
857 * CONCLUSION
858 ------------
859
860 Remember, to exit Emacs permanently use C-x C-c. To exit to a shell
861 temporarily, so that you can come back in, use C-z.
862
863 This tutorial is meant to be understandable to all new users, so if
864 you found something unclear, don't sit and blame yourself - complain!
865
866
867 COPYING
868 -------
869
870 This tutorial descends from a long line of Emacs tutorials
871 starting with the one written by Stuart Cracraft for the original Emacs.
872
873 This version of the tutorial, like GNU Emacs, is copyrighted, and
874 comes with permission to distribute copies on certain conditions:
875
876 Copyright (c) 1985 Free Software Foundation
877
878 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
879 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
880 copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
881 and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
882 for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
883
884 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
885 of this document, or of portions of it,
886 under the above conditions, provided also that they
887 carry prominent notices stating who last altered them.
888
889 The conditions for copying Emacs itself are slightly different
890 but in the same spirit. Please read the file COPYING and then
891 do give copies of GNU Emacs to your friends.
892 Help stamp out software obstructionism ("ownership") by using,
893 writing, and sharing free software!