]> code.delx.au - gnu-emacs/blob - etc/FAQ
Apply typo patches from Paul Eggert.
[gnu-emacs] / etc / FAQ
1 GNU Emacs FAQ: Introduction
2
3 [To find what has changed, see the "Changes" posting.]
4
5 [The FAQ post date slipped big-time this time. Now that school is over
6 with and I can get on with the rest of my life, posting should become a
7 lot more regular. - sbyrnes]
8
9 This is the introduction to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) about
10 GNU Emacs with answers. This article contains a listing of the questions;
11 subsequent articles contain the questions and answers.
12
13 The FAQ list is posted to reduce the noise level in the `gnu.emacs.help'
14 newsgroup (which is also the `help-gnu-emacs' mailing list) which results from
15 the repetition of frequently asked questions, wrong answers to these questions,
16 corrections to the wrong answers, corrections to the corrections, debate, name
17 calling, etc. Also, it serves as a repository of the canonical "best" answers
18 to these questions. However, if you know a better answer or even a slight
19 change that improves an answer, please tell us!
20
21 If you know the answer of a question is in the FAQ list, please reply to the
22 question by e-mail instead of posting. Help reduce noise!
23
24 The FAQ list is crossposted to `comp.emacs' because some sites do not receive
25 the `gnu.*' newsgroups. The FAQ list is also crossposted to `news.answers'.
26
27 Please suggest new questions, answers, wording changes, deletions, etc. The
28 most helpful form for suggestions is a context diff (ie., the output of `diff
29 -c'). Include `FAQ' in the subject of messages sent to us about the FAQ list.
30
31 Please do not send questions to us just because you do not want to disturb a
32 lot of people and you think we would know the answer. We do not have time to
33 answer questions individually. :-(
34
35 Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22. Also see the
36 `Introduction to news.answers' posting in the `news.answers' newsgroup, or send
37 e-mail to `mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu' with `help' on a body line, or use FTP,
38 WAIS, or Prospero to rtfm.mit.edu.
39
40 These ideas have already been suggested, but we have not had time to
41 implement them:
42
43 * A Texinfo version.
44 * Marking questions in the table of contents that have been changed
45 recently.
46
47 --
48 Steven Byrnes <sbyrnes@rice.edu> (and Joe Wells <jbw@cs.bu.edu>)
49
50 E-mail lpf@uunet.uu.net for details about the League for Programming Freedom.
51
52 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
53
54 GNU Emacs FAQ: Table of Contents
55
56 Notation Used in FAQ
57
58 1: What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?
59 2: What does "M-x command" mean?
60 3: How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual?
61 4: What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el?
62 5: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, and GPL?
63
64 General Questions
65
66 6: What is the LPF and why should I join it?
67 7: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
68 8: What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug,
69 comp.emacs, etc.?
70 9: Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups?
71 10: Where should I report bugs and other problems with GNU Emacs?
72 11: How do I unsubscribe to this mailing list?
73 12: What is the current address of the FSF?
74
75 On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help
76
77 13: I'm just starting GNU Emacs; how do I do basic editing?
78 14: How do I find out how to do something in GNU Emacs?
79 15: How do I get a printed copy of the GNU Emacs manual?
80 16: Where can I get documentation on GNU Emacs Lisp?
81 17: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
82 18: How do I print a Texinfo file?
83 19: Can I view Info files without using GNU Emacs?
84 20: What informational files are available for GNU Emacs?
85 21: Where can I get help in installing GNU Emacs?
86 22: Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?
87
88 Status of Emacs
89
90 23: Where does the name "Emacs" come from?
91 24: What is the latest version of GNU Emacs?
92 25: When will GNU Emacs 19 be available?
93 26: What is different about GNU Emacs 19?
94 27: What variants of GNU Emacs exist?
95
96 Common Things People Want To Do
97
98 28: How do I set up a .emacs file properly?
99 29: How do I debug a .emacs file?
100 30: How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?
101 31: How do I turn on Abbrevs by default just in mode XXX?
102 32: How do I turn on Auto-Fill mode by default?
103 33: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?
104 34: How do I search for, delete, or replace unprintable (8-bit or control)
105 characters?
106 35: How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs?
107 36: How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing?
108 37: How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?
109 38: Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs?
110 39: How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents?
111 40: How do I change load-path?
112 41: How do I use an already running Emacs from another window?
113 42: How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?
114 43: How do I indent switch statements like this?
115 44: How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally?
116 45: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting?
117 46: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?
118 47: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?
119 48: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
120 indentation of the previous line?
121 49: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at?
122 50: In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef
123 commands are handled by the compiler?
124 51: Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?
125 52: What are the valid X resource settings (ie., stuff in .Xdefaults)?
126 53: How do I execute a piece of Emacs Lisp code?
127 54: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length?
128 55: How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line?
129 56: How do I insert `_^H' before each character in a paragraph to get an
130 underlined paragraph?
131 57: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible?
132 58: How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor
133 should stay in the same column even if the line is too short?
134 59: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself?
135 60: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs?
136 61: How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file?
137 62: Where is the documentation for `etags'?
138
139 Bugs/Problems
140
141 63: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?
142 64: Why can't Emacs find files in current directory on startup?
143 65: How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my Shell buffer?
144 66: Why do I get `Process shell exited abnormally with code 1'?
145 67: Why can't I cut from Emacs and paste in other X programs?
146 68: Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type `emacs'?
147 69: Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying `I-search:' and beeping?
148 70: Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?
149 71: Why does Emacs say `Error in init file'?
150 72: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?
151 73: Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file?
152 74: How do I edit a file with a `$' in its name?
153 75: Why does Shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory?
154 76: Why doesn't my change to load-path work?
155 77: Why does the cursor always go to the wrong column when I move up or
156 down one line?
157 78: Why does Emacs hang with message `Unknown XMenu error' with X11R4?
158 79: Why doesn't display-time show the load average in the mode line
159 anymore?
160 80: Why does ispell sometimes ignore the local dictionary?
161 81: Why does Ispell treat each line as a single word?
162 82: Are there any security risks in GNU Emacs?
163
164 Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs
165
166 83: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?
167 84: How do I stop Emacs from failing when the executable is stripped?
168 85: Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail?
169 86: Why does Emacs 18.55 say `Fatal error (6).Abort' under SunOS 4.1?
170
171 Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages
172
173 87: Where can I get GNU Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
174 88: How do I find a GNU Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?
175 89: Where can I get GNU Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs?
176 90: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
177 91: Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?
178 92: Where can I get an Emacs with better mouse and X window support?
179 93: What is the difference between GNU Emacs and Epoch?
180 94: What is the difference between GNU Emacs and Lucid GNU Emacs?
181 95: Where can I get the "unofficial HP GNU Emacs"?
182 96: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
183 97: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running Windows?
184 98: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?
185 99: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
186 100: Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?
187 101: Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?
188 102: Where can I get Emacs with NeWS support?
189 103: Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows?
190 104: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne Shell, Csh, C++,
191 Objective C, Pascal, Awk?
192 105: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?
193
194 Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs
195
196 106: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs
197 107: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs
198 108: GNUS -- news reader within Emacs
199 109: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs
200 110: Calendar/Diary -- calendar manager within Emacs
201 111: Ange-FTP -- transparent FTP access for Emacs's file access routines
202 112: VIP -- vi emulation for Emacs
203 113: Dired -- better directory editor for Emacs
204 114: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities
205 115: Hyperbole -- extensible hypertext management system within Emacs
206 116: Byte Compiler -- enhanced version of Emacs's byte compiler
207 117: comint -- hugely enhanced shell mode and other derived modes
208 118: BBDB -- personal info rolodex integrated with mail/news readers
209 119: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs
210 120: Epoch -- enhanced GNU Emacs with better X interface
211 121: Lucid GNU Emacs -- alternative Emacs 19 with better X interface
212 122: Demacs -- GNU Emacs altered to run on MS-DOS on 386/486 machines
213 123: Freemacs -- a small Emacs for MS-DOS
214 124: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files
215
216 Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems
217
218 125: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?
219 126: Why does Emacs say `Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters'?
220 127: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
221 .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
222 128: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
223 129: How do I tell what characters my function or arrow keys emit?
224 130: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?
225 131: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?
226 132: How do I use commands bound to C-s and C-q (or any key) if these keys
227 are filtered out?
228 133: Why does the `BackSpace' key invoke help?
229 134: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?
230 135: Why don't the arrow keys work?
231 136: How do I "swap" two keys?
232 137: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?
233 138: What if I don't have a Meta key?
234 139: What if I don't have an Escape key?
235 140: How do I type DEL on PC terminal emulators?
236 141: Can I make my `Compose Character' key behave like a Meta key?
237 142: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?
238 143: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?
239 144: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0?
240 145: Where can I get key bindings to make Emacs emulate WordStar?
241 146: Where can I get an XEDIT emulator for Emacs?
242
243 Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets
244
245 147: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?
246 148: How do I input 8-bit characters?
247 149: Where can I get an Emacs that can handle kanji characters?
248 150: Where can I get an Emacs that can handle Chinese?
249 151: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?
250
251 Mail and News
252
253 152: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
254 153: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
255 154: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
256 155: Why does RMAIL think all my saved messages are one big message?
257 156: How can I sort the messages in my RMAIL folder?
258 157: Why does RMAIL need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
259 158: How do I recover my mail files after RMAIL munges their format?
260 159: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
261 160: How do I read news under Emacs?
262 161: Why does `rnews' say "No News is good news" when there is news?
263 162: Why doesn't GNUS work anymore via NNTP?
264 163: How do I view text with embedded underlining (eg., ClariNews)?
265 164: When I try to post a long article in GNUS (about 10K or longer), I get
266 the error, "Writing to process: no more processes, nntpd"
267 165: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in GNUS?
268 166: Why does GNUS put the subjects in replies beyond the 80th column?
269 167: Why is GNUS so slow to start up?
270 168: How do I catch up all newsgroups in GNUS?
271 169: Why can't I kill in GNUS on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control line?
272 170: How do I get rid of flashing messages in GNUS for slow connections?
273 171: Why is catch up slow in Gnews/GNUS?
274 172: Why does GNUS hang for a long time when posting?
275 173: Why don't my news postings in GNUS get past the local machine?
276 174: Why is the GNUS-generated `Date:' header invalid?
277 175: Why doesn't GNUS generate the `Lines:' header?
278 176: Why do I get "Cannot open load file" "nntp" when compiling GNUS?
279 177: How do I kill all articles in GNUS but those matching a pattern?
280
281
282 GNU Emacs FAQ: Notation/General/Help/Status
283
284 If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x $" to
285 get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look at the text
286 of the answers, just type "C-x $".
287
288 To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a C-r if
289 that doesn't work, then type ESC to end the search.
290
291 A `+' in the 78th column means something was inserted on the line. A `-' means
292 something was deleted and a `!' means some combination of insertions and
293 deletions occurred.
294
295 Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22. Also see the
296 `Introduction to news.answers' posting in the `news.answers' newsgroup, or send
297 e-mail to `mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu' with `help' on a body line, or use FTP,
298 WAIS, or Prospero to rtfm.mit.edu.
299
300
301
302 Notation Used in FAQ
303
304 Skip this section and then come back if you don't understand some of the
305 later answers.
306
307 1: What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?
308
309 C-x means press the `x' key while holding down the Control key. M-x means
310 press the `x' key while holding down the Meta key. M-C-x means press the
311 `x' key while holding down both the Control key and the Meta key. C-M-a
312 is a synonym for M-C-a. RET, LFD, DEL, ESC, and TAB respectively refer to
313 pressing the Return, Linefeed (aka Newline), Delete, Escape, and Tab keys
314 and are equivalent to C-m, C-j, C-?, C-[, and C-i. SPC means press the
315 Space bar.
316
317 I put any key sequence that is longer than one key (and some single-key
318 sequences) inside double quotes or on a line by itself. Any real spaces
319 in such a key sequence should be ignored; only SPC really means press the
320 space key.
321
322 The ASCII code sent by C-x (except for C-?) is the value that would be
323 sent by pressing just `x' minus 96 (or 64 for uppercase `X') and will be
324 from 0 to 31. The ASCII code sent by M-x is the sum of 128 and the ASCII
325 code that would be sent by pressing just the `x' key. Essentially, the
326 Control key turns off bits 5 and 6 and the Meta key turns on bit 7.
327
328 For further information, see `Characters' and `Keys' in the online manual.
329
330 NOTE: C-? (aka DEL) is ASCII code 127. It is a misnomer to call C-? a
331 "control" key, since 127 has both bits 5 and 6 turned ON. Also, on very
332 few keyboards does Control-? generate ASCII code 127.
333
334 2: What does "M-x command" mean?
335
336 "M-x command" means type M-x, then type the name of the command, then
337 type RET.
338
339 M-x (by default) invokes the command `execute-extended-command'. This
340 command allows you to run any Emacs command if you can remember the
341 command's name. If you can't remember the command's name, you can type
342 TAB and SPC for completion, and "?" for a list of possibilities. An Emacs
343 "command" is any "interactive" Emacs function.
344
345 NOTE: Your system administrator may have bound other key sequences to
346 invoke execute-extended-command. A function key labeled `Do' is a good
347 candidate for this.
348
349 To run non-interactive Emacs functions, see question 53.
350
351 3: How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual?
352
353 When I refer you to topic XXX in the on-line manual, you can read this
354 manual node inside Emacs (assuming nothing is broken) by typing this:
355
356 C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET
357
358 This invokes the Info facility. If you don't already know how to use
359 Info, type "?" from within Info.
360
361 If I refer you to topic XXX:YYY, you need to type this:
362
363 C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET m YYY RET
364
365 WARNING: Your system administrator may not have installed the Info files,
366 or may have installed them properly. In this case you should complain.
367
368 4: What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el?
369
370 These are files that come with GNU Emacs. The GNU Emacs distribution is
371 divided into subdirectories; the important ones are `etc', `lisp', and
372 `src'.
373
374 If you use GNU Emacs, but don't know where it is kept on your system,
375 start Emacs, then type "C-h v exec-directory RET". The directory name
376 displayed by this will be the full pathname of the installed `etc'
377 directory.
378
379 Some of these files are available individually via FTP or e-mail, see
380 question 20. All are available in the source distribution.
381
382 5: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, and GPL?
383
384 FSF == Free Software Foundation
385 LPF == League for Programming Freedom
386 OSF == Open Software Foundation
387 GNU == GNU's Not Unix
388 RMS == Richard Matthew Stallman
389 FTP == File Transfer Protocol
390 GPL == GNU General Public Licence
391
392 NOTE: Avoid confusing the FSF, the LPF, and the OSF. The LPF opposes
393 look-and-feel copyrights and software patents. The FSF aims to make high
394 quality free software available for everyone. The OSF is a commercial
395 organization which wants to provide an alternative, standardized version
396 of Unix not controlled by AT&T.
397
398 NOTE: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation refers
399 to "freedom", not "zero dollars". Anyone can charge any price for
400 GPL-covered software that they want to. However, in practice, the freedom
401 enforced by the GPL leads to low prices, because you can always get the
402 software for less money from someone else, because everyone has the right
403 to resell or give away GPL-covered software.
404
405
406
407 General Questions
408
409 6: What is the LPF and why should I join it?
410
411 The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and look-and-feel
412 copyrights. To get more information, feel free to contact the LPF via
413 e-mail or otherwise. {You may also contact me, jbw@cs.bu.edu; I will be
414 happy to talk with you about the LPF.} Here is the contact information:
415
416 E-mail address: league@prep.ai.mit.edu
417 Phone number: (617) 243-4091
418 Postal address:
419 League for Programming Freedom
420 1 Kendall Square, Number 143
421 Post Office Box 9171
422 Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
423
424 Papers describing the LPF's views are available on the internet and also
425 from the LPF:
426
427 Anonymous FTP:
428 /prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/lpf/
429 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/lpf/
430 Anonymous UUCP:
431 osu-cis!~/lpf/*
432
433 7: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
434
435 The real legal meaning of the GNU General Public Licence (copyleft) is
436 however it is interpreted by a judge. There has never been a copyright
437 infringement case involving the GPL to set any precedents. Please take any
438 discussion regarding this issue to the newsgroup gnu.misc.discuss, which
439 was created to hold the extensive flame wars on the subject.
440
441 RMS writes:
442
443 The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the spirit,
444 which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work pertaining
445 to Emacs should also be free software. "Free" means that all users have
446 the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs. To make sure
447 everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you distribute
448 any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the recipients the
449 same freedom that you enjoyed.
450
451 8: What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug,
452 comp.emacs, etc.?
453
454 The file etc/MAILINGLISTS discusses the purpose of each GNU mailing-list.
455 (See question 20 on how to get a copy.) For those which are gatewayed
456 with newsgroups, it lists both the newsgroup name and the mailing list
457 address.
458
459 comp.emacs is for discussion of Emacs programs in general. This
460 includes GNU Emacs along with various other implementations like JOVE,
461 MicroEmacs, Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, Epsilon, etc.
462
463 Many people post GNU Emacs questions to comp.emacs because they don't
464 receive any of the gnu.* newsgroups. Arguments have been made both for
465 and against posting GNU-Emacs-specific material to comp.emacs. You have
466 to decide for yourself.
467
468 Messages advocating "non-free" software are considered unacceptable on any
469 of the gnu.* newsgroups except for gnu.misc.discuss, which was created to
470 hold the extensive flame-wars on the subject. "non-free" software
471 includes any software for which the end user can't freely modify the
472 source code and exchange enhancements. Be careful to remove the gnu.*
473 groups from the `Newsgroups:' line when posting a followup that recommends
474 such software.
475
476 gnu.emacs.bug is a place where bug reports appear, but avoid posting bug
477 reports to this newsgroup, instead see question 10.
478
479 9: Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups?
480
481 The FSF has maintained archives of all of the GNU mailing lists for many
482 years, although there may be some unintentional gaps in coverage. The
483 archive is not particularly well organized or easy to retrieve individual
484 postings from, but pretty much everything is there.
485
486 Anonymous FTP:
487 /prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/MailingListArchives/
488
489 There is a WAIS database named `comp.emacs' on wais.oit.unc.edu that
490 makes available the last few days of articles in comp.emacs.
491
492 10: Where should I report bugs and other problems with GNU Emacs?
493
494 The correct way to report GNU Emacs bugs is by e-mail to
495 bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu. Anything sent here also appears in the
496 newsgroup gnu.emacs.bug, but please use e-mail instead of news to submit
497 the bug report. This way a reliable return address is available so you
498 can be contacted for further details.
499
500 RMS explains:
501
502 Sending bug reports to help-gnu-emacs (which has the effect of posting
503 on gnu.emacs.help) is undesirable because it takes the time of an
504 unnecessarily large group of people, most of whom are just users and
505 have no idea how to fix these problem. bug-gnu-emacs reaches a much
506 smaller group of people who are more likely to know what to do and have
507 expressed a wish to receive more messages about Emacs than the others.
508
509 However, RMS says there are circumstances when it is okay to post to
510 gnu.emacs.help:
511
512 If you have reported a bug and you don't hear about a possible fix, then
513 after a suitable delay (such as a week) it is okay to post on
514 gnu.emacs.help asking if anyone can help you.
515
516 If you are unsure whether you have a bug, RMS describes how to tell:
517
518 ... if Emacs crashes, that is a bug. If Emacs gets compilation errors
519 while building, that is a bug. If Emacs crashes while building, that is
520 a bug. If Lisp code does not do what the documentation says it does,
521 that is a bug.
522
523 11: How do I unsubscribe to this mailing list?
524
525 If you are receiving a GNU mailing list named `XXX', you might be able
526 to unsubscribe to it by sending a request to the address
527 `XXX-request@prep.ai.mit.edu'. However, this will not work if you are
528 not listed on the main mailing list, but instead receive the mail from a
529 distribution point. In that case, you will have to track down at which
530 distribution point you are listed. Inspecting the `Received:' headers
531 on the mail messages may help, along with liberal use of the `EXPN' or
532 `VRFY' sendmail commands through `telnet <site-address> smtp'. Ask your
533 postmaster for help.
534
535 12: What is the current address of the FSF?
536
537 E-mail address: gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
538 Phone number: (617) 876-3296
539 Postal address:
540 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
541 675 Massachusetts Avenue
542 Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
543
544
545
546 On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help
547
548 13: I'm just starting GNU Emacs; how do I do basic editing?
549
550 Type "C-h t" to invoke the self-paced tutorial. Typing just C-h is
551 how to enter the help system.
552
553 WARNING: Your system administrator may have changed C-h to act like DEL to
554 deal local keyboards. You can use M-x help-for-help instead to invoke
555 help. To discover what key (if any) invokes help on your system, type
556 "M-x where-is RET help-for-help RET". This will print a comma-separated
557 list of key sequences in the echo area. Ignore the last character in each
558 key sequence listed. Each of the resulting key sequences invokes help.
559
560 NOTE: Emacs's help facility works best if help is invoked by a single key
561 whose value should be stored in the variable help-char. Andrew
562 Arensburger <arensb@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote a patch that allows the help
563 facility to work properly when invoked by multiple character sequences.
564
565 14: How do I find out how to do something in GNU Emacs?
566
567 There are several methods for finding out how to do things in Emacs.
568
569 * The complete text of the Emacs manual is available online via the Info
570 hypertext reader. Type "C-h i" to invoke Info.
571
572 * You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF. See question 15.
573
574 * You can get a printed reference card listing commands and keys to invoke
575 them. You can order one from the FSF for $1 (or 10 for $5), or you can
576 print your own from the etc/refcard.tex file in the Emacs distribution.
577 {Are PostScript versions of this available for FTP?}
578
579 * You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word
580 (actually which match a regular expression) using "C-h a"
581 (M-x command-apropos).
582
583 * You can list all of the functions and variables whose names contain a
584 certain word using M-x apropos.
585
586 * There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and information.
587 To get a list of these commands, type "C-h C-h C-h".
588
589 NOTE: You may find that command-apropos and apropos are extremely slow
590 on your system. This will be fixed in Emacs 19. If you can't wait that
591 long, there is a fast-apropos.el file available in the Emacs Lisp
592 Archive (see question 89) that contains the fix.
593
594 15: How do I get a printed copy of the GNU Emacs manual?
595
596 You can order a printed copy of the GNU Emacs manual from the FSF for
597 $20. For 6 or more manuals the price is $13 each. The price may be
598 tax-deductible as a business expense.
599
600 The full TeX source for the manual also comes in the `man' directory of
601 the Emacs distribution, if you're daring enough to try to print out this
602 300 page manual yourself (see question 18).
603
604 If you absolutely have to print your own copy, and you don't have TeX, you
605 can get a PostScript version via anonymous FTP:
606
607 /cs.ubc.ca:pub/archive/gnu/manuals_ps/emacs-18.57.ps.Z !
608
609 which site requests that you please CONFINE ANY MAJOR FTPING TO LATE
610 EVENINGS OR EARLY MORNINGS OUR TIME (pacific time zone, GMT-8)). A DVI
611 version is also available via FTP:
612
613 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/emacs-manual-6.0.dvi.Z
614
615 If you don't have TeX you can convert the Texinfo sources into
616 {t,n,ps}roff format with the `texi2roff' program, which is available via
617 anonymous FTP:
618
619 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/texi2roff/texi2roff.shar.Z
620
621 See also question 14 for how to view the manual online.
622
623 16: Where can I get documentation on GNU Emacs Lisp?
624
625 Within Emacs, you can type "C-h f" to get the documentation for a
626 function, "C-h v" for a variable.
627
628 For more information, obtain the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for Emacs
629 18 under Unix. It is available from the FSF for $50 (or 5 for $200). The
630 latest revision available for FTP is edition 1.03 dated 28 January 1991.
631
632 For online use, a set of pregenerated Info files is available with the
633 Texinfo source for the Emacs Lisp manual via anonymous FTP:
634
635 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/
636 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/elisp-manual-1.03.tar.Z
637
638 (You can also create the Info files from the Texinfo source.) See
639 question 17 for details on how to install these files online.
640
641 If you are daring enough to try to print this 550 page manual out
642 yourself, for instructions see question 18.
643
644 Also, as a popular USENET saying goes, "Use the Force, Read the Source".
645
646 17: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
647
648 First create Info files from the Texinfo files with the `makeinfo'
649 program. makeinfo is available as part of the latest Texinfo package:
650
651 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/texinfo-2.14.tar.Z
652
653 For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
654 comes with Emacs. This manual also comes installed in Info format, so you
655 can read it online.
656
657 Neither texinfo-format-buffer nor the makeinfo program install the
658 resulting Info files in Emacs's Info tree. To install Info files:
659
660 1. Move the files to the `info' directory in the installed Emacs
661 distribution. See question 4 if you don't know where that
662 is.
663
664 2. Edit the file info/dir in the installed Emacs distribution, and add a
665 line for the top level node in the Info package that you are
666 installing. Follow the examples are already in this file. The format
667 is:
668
669 * Topic: (relative-pathname). Short description of topic.
670
671 If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
672 privileges, you have several options:
673
674 * Info files don't actually need to be installed before being used. You
675 can feed a file name to the Info-goto-node command (invoked by pressing
676 "g" in Info mode) by typing the name of the file in parentheses. This
677 goes to the node named `Top' in that file. For example, to view a Info
678 file named `XXX' in your home directory, you can type this:
679
680 C-h i g (~/XXX) RET
681
682 * You can create your own Info directory. You can tell Emacs where the
683 Info directory is by setting the value of the variable Info-directory
684 to its pathname. For example, to use a private Info directory which
685 is a subdirectory of your home directory named `Info', you could do
686 this:
687
688 (setq Info-directory (expand-file-name "~/Info"))
689
690 You will need a top-level Info file named `dir' in this directory.
691 You can include the system-wide Info directory in your private Info
692 directory with symbolic links or by copying it.
693
694 * You can use an enhanced version of lisp/info.el that handles multiple
695 Info directories. Then you can more easily use a mix of private and
696 shared Info files. Dave Gillespie <daveg@synaptics.com,
697 daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> has written one such enhancement and I
698 believe there are others. Dave's info.el also handles compressed Info
699 files.
700
701 Anonymous FTP:
702 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:modes/info.el.Z
703 /ftp.uu.net:languages/emacs-lisp/modes/info.el.Z !
704
705 According to Jay Bourland <jayb@math.stanford.edu>, a version of Dave's
706 info.el comes with `xinfo' (see question 19).
707
708 18: How do I print a Texinfo file?
709
710 NOTE: You can't get nice printed output from Info files; you must still
711 have the original Texinfo source file for the manual you want to print.
712
713 1. Make sure the first line of the Texinfo file looks like this:
714
715 \input texinfo
716
717 You may need to alter `texinfo' to the full pathname of the
718 texinfo.tex file, which comes with Emacs as man/texinfo.tex (or copy
719 or link it into the current directory).
720
721 2. tex XXX.texinfo
722
723 3. texindex XXX.??
724
725 The `texindex' program comes with Emacs as man/texindex.c.
726
727 4. tex XXX.texinfo
728
729 5. Print the DVI file XXX.dvi in the normal way for printing DVI files
730 at your site.
731
732 To get more general instructions, retrieve the latest Texinfo package
733 mentioned in question 17.
734
735 19: Can I view Info files without using GNU Emacs?
736
737 Yes, the `info', `xinfo', and `ivinfo' programs do this. info uses
738 curses, xinfo uses standard X11 libraries, and ivinfo uses InterViews.
739 You can get info as part of the latest Texinfo package (see question
740 17). xinfo is available separately:
741
742 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.Z
743 /export.lcs.mit.edu:
744
745 ivinfo is available in a comp.sources.misc archive or from Tom Horsley
746 <tom@ssd.csd.harris.com>. For ivinfo, you need Stanford's InterViews C++
747 X library, available via anonymous FTP (interviews.stanford.edu).
748
749 20: What informational files are available for GNU Emacs?
750
751 This isn't a frequently asked question, but it should be! A variety of
752 informational files about GNU Emacs and relevant aspects of the GNU
753 project are available for you to read.
754
755 The following files are available in the `etc' directory of the GNU
756 Emacs distribution, and also the latest versions are available
757 individually via anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/):
758
759 APPLE -- Why the FSF doen't support GNU Emacs on Apple computers
760 DISTRIB -- GNU Emacs Availability Information,
761 including the popular "Free Software Foundation Order Form"
762 FTP -- How to get GNU Software by Internet FTP or by UUCP
763 GNU -- The GNU Manifesto
764 INTERVIEW -- Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain
765 UNIX-compatible software system
766 with BYTE editors
767 MACHINES -- Status of GNU Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
768 MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists
769 SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory
770 SUN-SUPPORT -- including "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs"
771
772 These files are available in the `etc' directory of the GNU Emacs
773 distribution:
774
775 DIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and Twenex Emacs
776 CCADIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and CCA Emacs
777 GOSDIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and Gosling (Unipress??) Emacs
778 COPYING -- GNU Emacs General Public License
779 NEWS -- GNU Emacs News, a history of user-visible changes
780 LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom
781 FAQ -- GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions (You're reading it)
782 OPTIONS -- a complete explanation of startup option handling
783
784 These files are available via anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/):
785
786 tasks -- GNU Task List
787 standards.text -- GNU Coding Standards
788
789 In addition, all of the above files are available directly from the FSF
790 via e-mail. Of course, please try to get them from a local source
791 first.
792
793 These additional files are available from the FSF via e-mail:
794
795 * GNU's Bulletin, June, 1991 -- this file includes:
796 GNU'S Who
797 What Is the Free Software Foundation?
798 What Is Copyleft?
799 A Small Way to Help Free Software
800 GNUs Flashes (important recent developments for project GNU)
801 Free Software Support (and how to get it!)
802 Copyrighted Programming Languages
803 AT&T Threatens Users of X Windows (and other software patent threats)
804 Project Gutenberg
805 GNU Project Status Report
806 GNU in Japan
807 GNU Wish List
808 Help Keep Government Software Free
809 GNU Software Available Now
810 Contents of the Emacs Tape
811 Contents of the Compiler Tape
812 Contents of the X11 Tapes
813 VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
814 GNU Documentation
815 How to Get GNU Software
816 Free Software for Microcomputers
817 GNU Software on Apple computers
818 GNU Software on the Amiga
819 GNU Software on the Atari
820 GNUish MS-DOS project
821 Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
822 GNU in Japan
823 FSF Order Form
824 Thank GNUs
825 * Legal issues about contributing code to GNU
826 * GNU Project Status Report
827
828 A collection of past GNU's Bulletins is available via anonymous FTP:
829
830 /ftp.funet.fi:pub/gnu/Bulletins/
831
832 21: Where can I get help in installing GNU Emacs?
833
834 Look in etc/SERVICE for names of companies and individuals who will sell
835 you this type of service. An up-to-date version of the SERVICE file is
836 available on prep.ai.mit.edu (also see question 20).
837
838 22: Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?
839
840 The GNU Emacs FAQ is available in several ways:
841
842 * Via USENET. If you can read news, the FAQ should be available in your
843 news spool, in both the gnu.emacs.help and comp.emacs newsgroups. Every
844 news reader of which I know will allow you to read any news article that
845 is still in the news spool, even if you have read the article before.
846 You may need to read the instructions for your news reader to discover
847 how to do this. In `rn', this command will do this for you at the
848 article selection level:
849
850 ?GNU Emacs FAQ?rc:m
851
852 In GNUS, you should type "C-u G" from the *Subject* buffer or "C-u SPC"
853 from the *Newsgroup* buffer to view all articles in a newsgroup.
854
855 The FAQ articles' message IDs are:
856
857 <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-0.1993.05.04.025218@rice.edu> !
858 <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-1.1993.05.04.025218@rice.edu> !
859 <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-2.1993.05.04.025218@rice.edu> !
860 <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-3.1993.05.04.025218@rice.edu> !
861 <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-4.1993.05.04.025218@rice.edu> !
862 <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-5.1993.05.04.025218@rice.edu> !
863
864 If you are viewing this in the GNUS *Article* buffer, you can move point
865 within one of the above message IDs and type "r" to fetch the referenced
866 article. Type "o" in the *Article* buffer to restore the previous
867 contents. If this text is not in the GNUS *Article* buffer, use M-r
868 from the *Subject* buffer instead.
869
870 If the FAQ articles have expired and been deleted from your news spool,
871 it might (or might not) do some good to complain to your news
872 administrator, because the most recent FAQ should not expire before
873 July 3, 1993. !
874
875 * Via anonymous FTP. You can fetch the FAQ articles via anonymous FTP
876
877 /rtfm.mit.edu:pub/usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/ part*
878
879 * Via e-mail. You can send the following magical incantation in the body
880 of a message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu:
881
882 send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part0
883 send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part1
884 send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part2
885 send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part3
886 send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part4
887 send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5
888
889 * Via WAIS. The GNU Emacs FAQ is available via WAIS indexed on a
890 per-question basis from the `faq' database on bigbird.bu.edu on the
891 non-standard IP port number of 2210. This is probably the best way to
892 find out if there is something in the FAQ related to your question. I
893 use this myself to answer questions I see posted on gnu.emacs.help.
894
895 The articles of the GNU Emacs FAQ are also available from the `usenet'
896 database on rtfm.mit.edu (on the standard IP port: 210), along with a
897 lot of other FAQ articles. However, these are all indexed at the whole
898 article level instead of at the question level. This is a better place
899 to look if you want to fetch the entire FAQ.
900
901 * In the GNU Emacs distribution. Since GNU Emacs 18.56, the latest
902 available version of the FAQ at the time of release has been part of the
903 GNU Emacs distribution as file etc/FAQ. 18.59 is the latest version,
904 and it was released in October 1992.
905
906 * There is an old version of the FAQ list available for FTP in the GNU
907 archives at MIT:
908
909 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/GNUinfo/FAQ.emacs
910
911 * As the very last resort, you can e-mail a request to
912 gnu-emacs-faq-maintainers@bigbird.bu.edu. Don't do this unless you have
913 made a serious effort to obtain the FAQ list via one of the methods
914 listed above.
915
916
917
918 Status of Emacs
919
920 23: Where does the name "Emacs" come from?
921
922 Emacs originally was an acronym for Editor MACroS. RMS says he "picked
923 the name `Emacs' because `E' was not in use as an abbreviation on ITS at
924 the time.". The first Emacs was a set of macros written in 1976 at MIT by
925 RMS for the editor TECO (Text Editor and COrrector (originally Tape Editor
926 and COrrector)) under ITS on a PDP-10. RMS had already extended TECO with
927 a "real-time" full screen mode with active keys. Emacs was started by Guy
928 Steele <gls@think.com> as a project to unify the many divergent TECO
929 command sets and keybindings at MIT.
930
931 Many people have told me that TECO code looks a lot like line noise. See
932 alt.lang.teco if you are interested. I think someone has written a TECO
933 implementation in Emacs Lisp. It would be an interesting project to run
934 the original TECO Emacs inside of GNU Emacs.
935
936 24: What is the latest version of GNU Emacs?
937
938 GNU Emacs 18.59 is the current version. Fixes from 18.57 include better
939 mail address parsing, an X visual bell speedup, a call-process
940 enhancement, a regexp matching change, the ability to apply a numeric
941 argument to a self-inserting digit, getting X resource values from the
942 RESOURCE_MANAGER property, more reliable shell mode job control, and a
943 change to copy-keymap. Also, support has been added for many new system
944 types. Fixes from 18.55 include the removal of arbitrary limits on the
945 undo facility.
946
947 According to the January 1992 GNU's Bulletin, "Emacs 18 maintenance
948 continues for simple bug fixes.".
949
950 To visit a file with information about what has changed in recent
951 versions, type "C-h n".
952
953 25: When will GNU Emacs 19 be available?
954
955 Richard Stallman recently (February 19, 1993) posted in gnu.emacs.help !
956 the following: !
957 !
958 People should keep in mind that the successor of Emacs 18 does not !
959 come from Lucid. Its is GNU Emacs 19. I still can't say exactly when !
960 public release is going to be, but we are about to start testing at a !
961 number of sites. !
962 !
963 GNU Emacs 19 will support a broad spectrum of machines, like Emacs !
964 18. Ensuring this is the purpose of the testing we are about to do. !
965 !
966 (Please don't volunteer; we have enough pretesters, and if more people !
967 offer, dealing with those messages will slow things down.) !
968 !
969 Once we make sure it is indeed working reliably on various different !
970 systems, we will have a public beta test release. !
971 !
972 Emacs 19 does support adding properties to ranges of text, and using !
973 these to switch fonts. In the future, the Epoch people will help !
974 merge support for variable-width fonts. !
975 !
976 Meanwhile, I have almost finished updating the Emacs Lisp manual. Its !
977 next edition will describe Emacs 19. There will be an announcement !
978 when we know when this edition will be available. !
979
980 Lucid has released Lucid GNU Emacs 19.6, which is based on an early !
981 unreleased version of GNU Emacs 19. This will be similar to Emacs 19 when
982 it finally arrives, but they are not the same. See question 121.
983
984 Work has begun on features for Emacs 20.
985
986 26: What is different about GNU Emacs 19?
987
988 From the January 1992 GNU's Bulletin:
989
990 Version 19 will enter beta test late this year. Among its new features
991 are: before and after change hooks, source-level debugging of Emacs Lisp
992 programs, X selection processing (including clipboard selections),
993 scrollbars, support for European character sets, floating point numbers,
994 per-buffer mouse commands, X resource manager interfacing,
995 mouse-tracking, Lisp-level binding of function keys, multiple X windows
996 (`screens' to Emacs), a new input system, and buffer allocation, which
997 uses a new mechanism capable of returning storage to the system when a
998 buffer is killed.
999
1000 The input stream is now a sequence of Lisp objects, instead of a
1001 sequence of characters. This allows a reasonable representation for
1002 mouse clicks, function keys, menu selections, etc.
1003
1004 Thanks go to Alan Carroll and the people who worked on Epoch for
1005 generating initial feedback to a multi-windowed Emacs, and to Eric
1006 Raymond for help in polishing the Emacs 19 Lisp libraries.
1007
1008 The June 1991 GNU's bulletin had this to say about future plans for Emacs:
1009
1010 Features being considered for later releases of Emacs include:
1011 associating property lists with regions of text in a buffer; multiple
1012 fonts, color, and pixmaps defined by those properties; different
1013 visibility conditions for the regions, and for various windows showing
1014 one buffer; hooks to be run if point or mouse moves outside a certain
1015 range; incrementally saving undo history in a file; static menu bars;
1016 and better pop-up menus.
1017
1018 Mention of this feature disappeared in the January 1992 GNU's bulletin:
1019
1020 Emacs 19 supports two styles of multiple windows, one with a separate
1021 screen for the minibuffer, and another with a minibuffer attached to
1022 each screen.
1023
1024 Mention of these two proposed features disappeared in the January 1991
1025 GNU's bulletin:
1026
1027 * Incremental syntax analysis for various programming languages (Leif).
1028 * A more sophisticated emacsclient/server model, which would provide
1029 network transparent Emacs widget functionality.
1030
1031 27: What variants of GNU Emacs exist?
1032
1033 * Nemacs (Nihongo Emacs), which can handle Japanese text, is derived from
1034 GNU Emacs 18.55. See question 149.
1035
1036 * Demacs, which can run under MS-DOS on 386 machines, is derived from
1037 Nemacs. See question 122.
1038
1039 * Epoch, which has better X support, is derived from GNU Emacs 18.58.
1040 See question 120 and 92.
1041
1042 * Nepoch (Nihongo Epoch), which can handle Japanese text, is derived from
1043 Epoch.
1044
1045 * Mule (the MULtilingual Enhancement of GNU Emacs) can handle many
1046 character sets simultaneously. It is derived from Emacs 18.58. It is
1047 available for FTP:
1048
1049 /sh.wide.ad.jp:/JAPAN/mule/
1050 /etlport.etl.go.jp:/pub/mule/
1051
1052 * Lucid GNU Emacs is derived from an early unreleased version of GNU Emacs
1053 19. See question 121 and 92.
1054
1055
1056
1057 GNU Emacs FAQ: Common Requests/Problems
1058
1059 If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x $" to
1060 get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look at the text
1061 of the answers, just type "C-x $".
1062
1063 To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a C-r if
1064 that doesn't work, then type ESC to end the search.
1065
1066 A `+' in the 78th column means something was inserted on the line. A `-' means
1067 something was deleted and a `!' means some combination of insertions and
1068 deletions occurred.
1069
1070 Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22. Also see the
1071 `Introduction to news.answers' posting in the `news.answers' newsgroup, or send
1072 e-mail to `mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu' with `help' on a body line, or use FTP,
1073 WAIS, or Prospero to rtfm.mit.edu.
1074
1075
1076
1077 Common Things People Want To Do
1078
1079 28: How do I set up a .emacs file properly?
1080
1081 See `Init File' in the on-line manual.
1082
1083 WARNING: In general, new Emacs users should not have .emacs files, because
1084 it causes confusing non-standard behavior. Then they send questions to
1085 help-gnu-emacs asking why Emacs isn't behaving as documented. :-)
1086
1087 29: How do I debug a .emacs file?
1088
1089 First start Emacs with the `-q' command line option. Then, in the
1090 *scratch* buffer, type the following:
1091
1092 (setq debug-on-error t) LFD
1093 (load-file "~/.emacs") LFD
1094
1095 (Type LFD by pressing C-j.)
1096
1097 If you have an error in your .emacs file, this will invoke the debugger
1098 when the error occurs. If you don't know how to use the debugger do
1099 (setq stack-trace-on-error t) instead.
1100
1101 WARNING: this will not discover errors caused by trying to do something
1102 that requires the terminal/window-system initialization code to have
1103 been loaded. See question 127.
1104
1105 30: How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?
1106
1107 To find out what line of the buffer you are on right now, do "M-x
1108 what-line". Use "M-x goto-line" to go to a specific line. To find the
1109 current column number, type "M-ESC (current-column)".
1110
1111 Typing "C-x l" will also tell you what line you are on, provided the
1112 buffer isn't separated into "pages" with C-l characters. In that case, it
1113 will only tell you what line of the current "page" you are on. WARNING:
1114 "C-x l" gives the wrong value when point is at the beginning of a line.
1115
1116 There is no "correct" way to constantly display the current (or total)
1117 line (or column) number on the mode line in Emacs 18, or to display the
1118 line numbers next to the lines like vi can. Emacs is not a line-oriented
1119 editor, and really has no idea what "lines" of the buffer are displayed in
1120 the window. It would require a lot of work at the C code level to make
1121 Emacs keep track of this. It would not be that hard to get the column
1122 number, but it would still require changes at the C code level.
1123
1124 None of the vi emulation modes provide the `set number' capability of vi
1125 (as far as I know).
1126
1127 Emacs 19 will probably be able to show the line number on the mode-line,
1128 but probably very inefficiently.
1129
1130 People have written various kludges to display line numbers. One is
1131 `display-line-numbers' by Wayne Mesard <wmesard@tofu.oracle.com,
1132 Mesard@bbn.com>. Look in the Lisp Code Directory. (See question
1133 88.)
1134
1135 31: How do I turn on Abbrevs by default just in mode XXX?
1136
1137 Put this in your .emacs file:
1138
1139 (condition-case ()
1140 (read-abbrev-file nil t)
1141 (file-error nil))
1142
1143 (setq XXX-mode-hook
1144 (function
1145 (lambda ()
1146 (setq abbrev-mode t))))
1147
1148 32: How do I turn on Auto-Fill mode by default?
1149
1150 To turn on Auto-Fill mode just once for one buffer, use "M-x
1151 auto-fill-mode". To turn it on for every buffer in, for example, Text
1152 mode, do this:
1153
1154 (setq text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
1155
1156 If you want Auto-Fill mode on in all major modes, do this:
1157
1158 (setq-default auto-fill-hook 'do-auto-fill)
1159
1160 33: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?
1161
1162 If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension
1163 `.YYY', this will do it for you:
1164
1165 (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode) auto-mode-alist))
1166
1167 Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to
1168 edit in XXX mode:
1169
1170 -*-XXX-*-
1171
1172 34: How do I search for, delete, or replace unprintable (8-bit or control)
1173 characters?
1174
1175 To search for a single character that appears in the buffer as, for
1176 example, `\237', you can type "C-s C-q 2 3 7". (This assumes the value of
1177 search-quote-char is 17 (ie., C-q).) Searching for ALL unprintable
1178 characters is best done with a "regexp" search. The easiest regexp to use
1179 for the unprintable chars is the complement of the regexp for the
1180 printable chars.
1181
1182 Regexp for the printable chars: [\t\n\r\f -~]
1183
1184 Regexp for the unprintable chars: [^\t\n\r\f -~]
1185
1186 To type some of these special characters in an interactive argument to
1187 isearch-forward-regexp or re-search-forward, you need to use C-q. (`\t',
1188 `\n', `\r', and `\f' stand respectively for TAB, LFD, RET, and C-l.) So,
1189 to search for unprintable characters using re-search-forward:
1190
1191 M-x re-search-forward RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET
1192
1193 Using isearch-forward-regexp:
1194
1195 M-C-s [^ TAB RET C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~]
1196
1197 To delete all unprintable characters, simply use a replace-regexp:
1198
1199 M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET RET
1200
1201 Replacing is similar to the above. {I need to write the text for this
1202 part of the answer!}
1203
1204 Notes:
1205
1206 * With isearch, you can type RET to get a quoted LFD (not a quoted RET).
1207
1208 * You don't need to quote TAB with either isearch or typing something in
1209 the minibuffer.
1210
1211 Here are the Emacs Lisp forms of the above regexps:
1212
1213 ;; regexp matching all printable characters:
1214 "[\t\n\r\f -~]"
1215
1216 ;; regexp matching all unprintable characters:
1217 "[^\t\n\r\f -~]"
1218
1219 35: How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs?
1220
1221 There are ways to get highlighting (reverse video, inverse video) in GNU
1222 Emacs 18.59, but either they require patching the C code of Emacs and
1223 rebuilding, or they are slow and the highlighting disappears if you scroll
1224 or redraw the screen and it can not follow the point. Howard Gayle's
1225 patches for 8-bit output appear to allow highlighting (see question
1226 ^8-bit-output). Another patch for highlighting is by Kenichi Handa
1227 <handa@etl.go.jp>. There is a patch for use with X by Andy Norman
1228 <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com> (and modified for 18.57 by Matthieu Herrb
1229 <matthieu@laas.fr>), which is available for FTP:
1230
1231 /laas.laas.fr:pub/emacs/patch-X11-18.55
1232 /laas.laas.fr:pub/emacs/patch-X11-18.57
1233
1234 You can highlight regions in a variety of ways in Epoch and Lucid Emacs.
1235 GNU Emacs 19 may not be able to just temporarily highlight a region.
1236
1237 Similar comments apply to displaying text in different fonts, except that
1238 it is even harder.
1239
1240 36: How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing?
1241
1242 For searching, the value of the variable case-fold-search determines
1243 whether they are case sensitive:
1244
1245 (setq case-fold-search nil) ; make searches case sensitive
1246 (setq case-fold-search t) ; make searches case insensitive
1247
1248 Similarly, for replacing the variable case-replace determines whether
1249 replacements preserve case.
1250
1251 To change the case sensitivity just for one major mode, use the major
1252 mode's hook. For example:
1253
1254 (setq XXX-mode-hook
1255 (function
1256 (lambda ()
1257 (setq case-fold-search nil))))
1258
1259 37: How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?
1260
1261 M-x auto-fill-mode. The default maximum line width is 74, determined by
1262 the variable fill-column. To find how to turn this on automatically see
1263 question 32.
1264
1265 38: Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs?
1266
1267 Use Ispell. See question 119.
1268
1269 39: How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents?
1270
1271 If you want to spell-check TeX or *roff documents with Ispell, you need to
1272 arrange for a filter program that understands how to strip TeX or *roff
1273 formatting commands to be run. In the TeX distribution, there are several
1274 different programs named `detex', all with incompatible options, and a
1275 very old pair of programs named `detex' and `delatex', which should
1276 probably be avoided. The most useful one for Ispell is `detex' by Daniel
1277 Trinkle. A more recent version is available via FTP:
1278
1279 /arthur.cs.purdue.edu:pub/trinkle/detex-2.4.tar
1280
1281 Raphael Cerf <cerf@clipper.ens.fr> recently released a program for this
1282 named `xetal':
1283
1284 /spi.ens.fr:pub/unix/tex/
1285
1286 There is a program that comes with Unix named `deroff' for stripping
1287 formatting commands from *roff files.
1288
1289 Here is an example of code you can put in a .emacs file to use these
1290 programs:
1291
1292 ;; Based on suggestions by David G. Grubbs <dgg@ksr.com> and Paul Palmer
1293 ;; <palmerp@math.orst.edu>.
1294
1295 ;; Assuming the use of detex 2.3 by Daniel Trinkle:
1296 ;; -w means one word per line.
1297 ;; -n means don't expand \input or \include commands.
1298 ;; -l means force LaTeX mode.
1299
1300 (require 'ispell) ; for the make-variable-buffer-local statements
1301 (setq plain-TeX-mode-hook
1302 (function
1303 (lambda ()
1304 (setq ispell-filter-hook "detex")
1305 (setq ispell-filter-hook-args '("-nw")))))
1306 (setq LaTeX-mode-hook
1307 (function
1308 (lambda ()
1309 (setq ispell-filter-hook "detex")
1310 (setq ispell-filter-hook-args '("-lnw")))))
1311 (setq nroff-mode-hook
1312 (function
1313 (lambda ()
1314 (setq ispell-filter-hook "deroff")
1315 (setq ispell-filter-hook-args '("-w")))))
1316
1317 You will have to adjust the arguments for programs other than Trinkle's
1318 detex or for other versions of deroff. Experiment running the command
1319 from the shell to find the correct options. If you don't have a filter
1320 that knows how to output one word per line, you must pipe its output
1321 through another filter to break up the output.
1322
1323 40: How do I change load-path?
1324
1325 In general, you should only *add* to the load-path. You can add
1326 directory /XXX/YYY to the load path like this:
1327
1328 (setq load-path (append load-path '("/XXX/YYY/")))
1329
1330 To do this relative to your home directory:
1331
1332 (setq load-path (append load-path (list (expand-file-name "~/YYY/"))))
1333
1334 41: How do I use an already running Emacs from another window?
1335
1336 The `emacsclient' program is for editing a file using an already running
1337 Emacs rather than starting up a new Emacs. It does this by sending a
1338 request to the already running Emacs, which must be expecting the request.
1339
1340 * Setup
1341
1342 Emacs must have executed the `server-start' function for emacsclient to
1343 work. This can be done either by a command line option:
1344
1345 emacs -f server-start
1346
1347 or by invoking server-start from the .emacs file:
1348
1349 (if (some conditions are met) (server-start))
1350
1351 When this is done, Emacs starts a subprocess running a program called
1352 `server'. `server' creates a Unix domain socket in the user's home
1353 directory named `.emacs_server'.
1354
1355 To get your news reader, mail reader, etc., to invoke emacsclient, try
1356 setting the environment variable EDITOR (or sometimes VISUAL) to the
1357 value `emacsclient'. You may have to specify the full pathname of the
1358 emacsclient program instead. Examples:
1359
1360 # csh commands:
1361 setenv EDITOR emacsclient
1362 setenv EDITOR /usr/local/emacs/etc/emacsclient # using full pathname
1363
1364 # sh command:
1365 EDITOR=emacsclient export EDITOR
1366
1367 * Normal use
1368
1369 When emacsclient is run, it connects to the `.emacs_server' socket and
1370 passes its command line options to `server'. When `server' receives
1371 these requests, it sends this information on the the Emacs process,
1372 which at the next opportunity will visit the files specified. (Line
1373 numbers can be specified just like with Emacs.) The user will have to
1374 switch to the Emacs window by hand. When the user is done editing a
1375 file, the user can type "C-x #" to indicate this. This will switch to
1376 another buffer created at the request of emacsclient if there are any.
1377 When "C-x #" has been invoked on all of the files that the emacsclient
1378 requested to be edited, Emacs will send notification of this to `server'
1379 which will pass this on to the emacsclient, which will then exit.
1380
1381 NOTE: `emacsclient' and `server' must be running on machines which share
1382 the same filesystem for this to work. The pathnames that emacsclient
1383 specifies should be correct for the filesystem that the Emacs process
1384 sees. The Emacs process should not be suspended at the time emacsclient
1385 is invoked. emacsclient should either be invoked from another X window or
1386 from a shell window inside Emacs itself.
1387
1388 There is an enhanced version of emacsclient/server called `gnuserv' by
1389 Andy Norman <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com> which is available in the Emacs Lisp
1390 Archive. gnuserv uses Internet domain sockets, so it can work across most
1391 network connections. It also supports the execution of arbitrary Emacs
1392 Lisp forms and also does not require the client program to wait for
1393 completion. It is available via anonymous FTP (Emacs Lisp Archive:
1394 packages/gnuserv.shar).
1395
1396 42: How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?
1397
1398 Write a program which runs the compiler as a child and filters its output,
1399 rearranging as necessary. Install with same name as compiler somewhere in
1400 path.
1401
1402 Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu> wrote one such for a C compiler under AIX.
1403 Available via FTP:
1404
1405 /cs.utk.edu:readonly/aixcc.lex
1406
1407 Jim Frost <jimf@saber.com> wrote another for the IBM xlc compiler on the
1408 RS/6000. (I don't know if these are both for the same compiler.)
1409 Johnathan Vail <vail@tegra.COM> wrote something for a High C compiler
1410 (`hc', which is one of the compilers on the RS/6000, although I think
1411 Johnathan wrote his program for hc on a different computer).
1412
1413 43: How do I indent switch statements like this?
1414
1415 Many people want to indent their switch statements like this:
1416
1417 f()
1418 {
1419 switch(x) {
1420 case A:
1421 x1;
1422 break;
1423 case B:
1424 x2;
1425 break;
1426 default:
1427 x3;
1428 }
1429 }
1430
1431 I don't believe there is any way to do this exactly without modifying the
1432 Lisp code in c-mode.el. You can set c-indent-level to 4 and
1433 c-label-offset to -2, but this has bad effects elsewhere. {Anyone have a
1434 solution?}
1435
1436 44: How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally?
1437
1438 There is no completely correct way of doing this that does not involve
1439 rewriting all commands or writing your own top-level command loop (not a
1440 completely bad idea). Wayne Mesard <wmesard@pescadero.stanford.edu> has
1441 written a particularly advanced kludge called `hscroll.el' that checks
1442 once a second to make sure point is visible.
1443
1444 45: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting?
1445
1446 M-x overwrite-mode (a minor mode).
1447
1448 46: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?
1449
1450 Martin R. Frank <martin@cc.gatech.edu> writes:
1451
1452 Tell Emacs to use the 'visible bell' instead of the audible bell, and
1453 set the visible bell to nothing.
1454
1455 Put this in your TERMCAP environment variable:
1456
1457 ... :vb=: ...
1458
1459 And evaluate this:
1460
1461 (setq visible-bell t)
1462
1463 47: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?
1464
1465 Under versions of Emacs before 18.58, the bell volume was annoying loud
1466 and difficult to turn off. So upgrading to 18.58 or higher will reduce
1467 the volume. If you want to turn it off completely, use `xset'. There is
1468 no way to turn the bell off just for Emacs without affecting all other
1469 programs.
1470
1471 Under Epoch you can do:
1472
1473 (setq epoch::bell-volume 20)
1474
1475 Stu Grossman <grossman@sunburn.stanford.edu> wrote a patch that allows the
1476 bell volume to be adjusted from inside Emacs just for Emacs.
1477
1478 48: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
1479 indentation of the previous line?
1480
1481 One solution is Indented Text Mode (M-x indented-text-mode).
1482
1483 If you have Auto-Fill mode on (a minor mode, see question 32), you can
1484 tell Emacs to prefix every line with a certain character sequence, the
1485 "fill prefix". Type the prefix at the beginning of a line, position point
1486 after it, and then type "C-x ." (set-fill-prefix) to set the fill prefix.
1487 Thereafter, auto-filling will automatically put the fill prefix at the
1488 beginning of new lines, and M-q (fill-paragraph) will maintain any fill
1489 prefix when refilling the paragraph.
1490
1491 NOTE: If you have paragraphs with different levels of indentation, you
1492 will have to set the fill prefix to the correct value each time you move
1493 to a new paragraph. To avoid this hassle, try one of the many packages
1494 available from the Emacs Lisp Archive. Look up `fill' and `indent' in the
1495 Lisp Code Directory for guidance.
1496
1497 49: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at?
1498
1499 If you're looking at a right parenthesis (or brace or bracket) you can
1500 delete it and reinsert it. Emacs will blink the cursor on the matching
1501 parenthesis.
1502
1503 M-C-f (forward-sexp) and M-C-b (backward-sexp) will skip over balanced
1504 parentheses, so you can see which parentheses match. (You can train it to
1505 skip over balanced brackets and braces at the same time by modifying the
1506 syntax table.)
1507
1508 Here is some Emacs Lisp that will make the % key show the matching
1509 parenthesis, like in vi. In addition, if the cursor isn't over a
1510 parenthesis, it simply inserts a % like normal.
1511
1512 ;; By an unknown contributor
1513
1514 (global-set-key "%" 'match-paren)
1515
1516 (defun match-paren (arg)
1517 "Go to the matching parenthesis if on parenthesis otherwise insert %."
1518 (interactive "p")
1519 (cond ((looking-at "\\s\(") (forward-list 1) (backward-char 1))
1520 ((looking-at "\\s\)") (forward-char 1) (backward-list 1))
1521 (t (self-insert-command (or arg 1)))))
1522
1523 50: In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef
1524 commands are handled by the compiler?
1525
1526 M-x hide-ifdef-mode. (This is a minor mode.)
1527
1528 You may have to (load "hideif") first. If you want to do this regularly,
1529 put this in your .emacs file:
1530
1531 (autoload 'hide-ifdef-mode "hideif" nil t)
1532
1533 {Yes, I know, this should be in lisp/loaddefs.el already.}
1534
1535 51: Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?
1536
1537 (`.' is the redo command in vi. It redoes the last insertion/deletion.)
1538
1539 No, not really.
1540
1541 You can type "C-x ESC" (repeat-complex-command) to reinvoke commands that
1542 used the minibuffer to get arguments. In repeat-complex-command you can
1543 type M-p and M-n to scan through all the different complex commands you've
1544 typed.
1545
1546 To repeat something on each line I recommend using keyboard macros.
1547
1548 52: What are the valid X resource settings (ie., stuff in .Xdefaults)?
1549
1550 See the Emacs man page, or the etc/OPTIONS file. Ignore the information
1551 in etc/XDOC which is way out of date.
1552
1553 53: How do I execute a piece of Emacs Lisp code?
1554
1555 There are a number of ways to execute (called "evaluate") an Emacs Lisp
1556 "form":
1557
1558 * If you want it evaluated every time you run Emacs, put it in a file
1559 named `.emacs' in your home directory.
1560
1561 * You can type the form in the *scratch* buffer, and then type LFD (or
1562 C-j) after it. The result of evaluating the form will be inserted in
1563 the buffer.
1564
1565 * In Emacs-Lisp mode, typing M-C-x evaluates a top-level form before or
1566 around point.
1567
1568 * Typing "C-x C-e" in any buffer evaluates the Lisp form immediately
1569 before point and prints its value in the echo area.
1570
1571 * Typing M-ESC or M-x eval-expression allows you to type a Lisp form in
1572 the minibuffer which will be evaluated.
1573
1574 * You can use M-x load-file to have Emacs evaluate all the Lisp forms in
1575 a file. (To do this from Lisp use the function `load' instead.)
1576
1577 These functions are also used for evaluating Lisp forms:
1578
1579 load-library, eval-region, eval-current-buffer, require, autoload
1580
1581 54: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length?
1582
1583 Example: (setq default-tab-width 10).
1584
1585 55: How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line?
1586
1587 Type "M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET > RET".
1588
1589 To do this only in the region, type "C-x n M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET
1590 > RET C-x w".
1591
1592 WARNING: The command narrow-to-region (C-x n) is disabled by default
1593 because it can be very confusing (ie., "Oh no! Where did my file go?").
1594
1595 56: How do I insert `_^H' before each character in a paragraph to get an
1596 underlined paragraph?
1597
1598 M-x underline-region.
1599
1600 57: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible?
1601
1602 Use "C-x (" and "C-x )" to make a keyboard macro that invokes the command
1603 and then type "M-0 C-x e".
1604
1605 WARNING: any messages your command prints in the echo area will be
1606 suppressed.
1607
1608 58: How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor
1609 should stay in the same column even if the line is too short?
1610
1611 M-x picture-mode. (This is a minor mode, in theory anyway ...)
1612
1613 59: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself?
1614
1615 You need to modify C source and recompile. Either that or get Epoch or
1616 Lucid Emacs instead. Patches have been written by Robert Forsman
1617 <thoth@reef.cis.ufl.edu> and Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> to allow Emacs to
1618 iconify itself and by Matt Wette <mwette@mr-ed.jpl.nasa.gov> and
1619 Manavendra K. Thakur <thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu> (for 18.57, plus icon
1620 geometry) to allow Emacs to start up iconified. I don't know which of
1621 these patches work together.
1622
1623 Anonymous FTP:
1624 /csi.jpl.nasa.gov:pub/emax.patch1 (Matt Wette)
1625 /ftp.eu.net:gnu/emacs/FP-Xfun.Z (Johan Vromans)
1626 /ftp.urc.tue.nl:/pub/tex/emacs/FP-Xfun (Johan Vromans)
1627
1628 60: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs?
1629
1630 See `Regexps' in the online manual.
1631
1632 WARNING: The "or" operator is `\|', not `|', and the grouping operators
1633 are `\(' and `\)'. Also, the string syntax for a backslash is "\\".
1634 Thus, the string syntax for a regular expression like xxx\(foo\|bar\) is
1635 "xxx\\(foo\\|bar\\)". Notice the duplicated backslashes!
1636
1637 WARNING: Unlike in Unix grep, sed, etc., a complement character set
1638 ([^...]) can match a newline character (LFD aka C-j aka \n), unless
1639 newline is mentioned as one of the characters not to match.
1640
1641 WARNING: The character syntax regexps (eg. `\sw') are not meaningful
1642 inside character set regexps (eg. `[aeiou]'). (This is actually typical
1643 for regexp syntax.)
1644
1645 61: How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file?
1646
1647 The "tags" feature of Emacs includes the command tags-query-replace which
1648 performs a query-replace across all the files mentioned in the TAGS file.
1649 See `Tags:Tags Search' in the online manual.
1650
1651 In addition, Martin Boyer has written a package named global-replace which
1652 will perform a query-replace across all the files mentioned in the
1653 *compilation* buffer (usually done after a `grep'), which is available via
1654 anonymous FTP:
1655
1656 /ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca:pub/emacs/lisp/compile.el.Z
1657 /ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca:pub/emacs/lisp/global-replace.el.Z
1658 /ireq-robot.hydro.qc.ca:pub/emacs/lisp/query.el.Z
1659
1660 62: Where is the documentation for `etags'?
1661
1662 `etags' takes options just like a prior version of ctags, so your ctags
1663 manual (if any) may be useful. Eoin Woods, in comp.emacs, writes the !
1664 following: !
1665 !
1666 From reading the source (!) the way I use it is: !
1667 !
1668 for f in `find <args>` !
1669 do !
1670 etags -at -f ETAGS $f !
1671 done !
1672 !
1673 The "-t" option means to create tags for typedefs as well as functions. !
1674 The "-a" option tells it to append to the output file. If you have a !
1675 small number of files (up to a few hundred I think) you can use it !
1676 direct as: !
1677 !
1678 etags -f ETAGS file1 file2 file3 ... filen !
1679 !
1680 The option list is: !
1681 !
1682 -f file - Specify the output file name (Default is "TAGS") !
1683 -a - Append to the output file. (Default is to rewrite it) !
1684 -t - Create tags for typedefs (default is just functions) !
1685 -u - Update the output file. Do not re-create it. !
1686 -w - Suppress warnings !
1687 -v - Create vgrind style indexed output (What is vgrind??) !
1688 -x - Create cxref style output (default is Emacs Tags) !
1689 -e - Emacs tags style output (the default the way I !
1690 compile it) !
1691 !
1692 Having got it working, it works fine! !
1693
1694
1695
1696 Bugs/Problems
1697
1698 63: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?
1699
1700 Most installed versions of GNU Emacs will use 24-bit signed integers (and
1701 24-bit pointers) internally. This limits the file size that Emacs can
1702 handle to 8,388,607 bytes (2^23 - 1).
1703
1704 Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@lucid.com> suggests putting the following two
1705 lines in src/config.h before compiling Emacs to allow for 26-bit integers
1706 and pointers (and thus filesizes of up to 33,554,431 bytes):
1707
1708 #define VALBITS 26
1709 #define GCTYPEBITS 5
1710
1711 WARNING: This method may result in `ILLEGAL DATATYPE' and other random
1712 errors on some machines.
1713
1714 David Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> gives an explanation of why
1715 Emacs uses 24 bit integers and pointers:
1716
1717 Emacs is largely written in a dialect of Lisp; Lisp is a freely-typed
1718 language in the sense that you can put any value of any type into any
1719 variable, or return it from a function, and so on. So each value must
1720 carry a "tag" along with it identifying what kind of thing it is, eg.,
1721 integer, pointer to a list, pointer to an editing buffer, and so on.
1722 Emacs uses standard 32-bit integers for data objects, taking the top 8
1723 bits for the tag and the bottom 24 bits for the value. So integers (and
1724 pointers) are somewhat restricted compared to true C integers and
1725 pointers.
1726
1727 Emacs uses 8-bit tags because that's a little faster on byte-oriented
1728 machines, but there are only really enough tags to require 6 bits.
1729
1730 64: Why can't Emacs find files in current directory on startup?
1731
1732 The PWD bug has been fixed as of GNU Emacs 18.59. Read on if you are
1733 running an older version of Emacs.
1734
1735 Most likely, you have an environment variable named PWD that is set to a
1736 value other than the name of your current directory. This is most
1737 likely caused by using two different shell programs. `ksh' and (some
1738 versions of) `csh' set and maintain the value of the PWD environment
1739 variable, but `sh' doesn't. If you start sh from ksh, change your
1740 current directory inside sh, and then start Emacs from inside sh, PWD
1741 will have the wrong value but Emacs will use this value. An invalid
1742 setting for PWD can also be a problem if you use X Windows and csh on an
1743 RS/6000. See the etc/OPTIONS file for more details.
1744
1745 Perhaps an easier solution is not to use two shells. The `chsh' program
1746 can often be used to change one's default login shell.
1747
1748 You may have PWD set for other reasons. Another possibility is that you
1749 are setting default-directory from your .emacs file.
1750
1751 Here is a fix by Jim Blandy <jimb@occs.cs.oberlin.edu>:
1752
1753 >--- emacs/jjj/emacs-18.58/lisp/startup.el Tue Jan 15 23:19:04 1991
1754 >+++ startup.el Mon Apr 20 00:21:01 1992
1755 >@@ -81,5 +81,7 @@
1756 > ;; In presence of symlinks, switch to cleaner form of default directory.
1757 > (if (and (not (eq system-type 'vax-vms))
1758 >- (getenv "PWD"))
1759 >+ (getenv "PWD")
1760 >+ (equal (nthcdr 10 (file-attributes default-directory))
1761 >+ (nthcdr 10 (file-attributes (getenv "PWD")))))
1762 > (setq default-directory (file-name-as-directory (getenv "PWD"))))
1763 > (unwind-protect
1764
1765 65: How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my Shell buffer?
1766
1767 For tcsh, put this in your `.cshrc' (or `.tcshrc') file:
1768
1769 if ($?EMACS) then
1770 if ("$EMACS" == t) then
1771 if ($?tcsh) unset edit
1772 stty nl
1773 endif
1774 endif
1775
1776 Or put this in your .emacs_tcsh file:
1777
1778 unset edit
1779 stty nl
1780
1781 Alternatively, use csh in your Shell buffers instead of tcsh. One way
1782 is:
1783
1784 (setq explicit-shell-file-name "/bin/csh")
1785
1786 and another is to do this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file:
1787
1788 setenv ESHELL /bin/csh
1789
1790 (You must start Emacs over again with the environment variable properly
1791 set for this to take effect.)
1792
1793 66: Why do I get `Process shell exited abnormally with code 1'?
1794
1795 The most likely reason for this message is that the `env' program is not
1796 properly installed. This program should be compiled (for the correct
1797 architecture!) and installed with execute permission for everyone in
1798 Emacs's program directory, which is normally /usr/local/emacs/etc. You
1799 can find what this directory is at your site by inspecting the value of
1800 the variable exec-directory by typing "C-h v exec-directory RET". `env'
1801 should also be for the correct architecture (check using `file' command).
1802
1803 You should also check for other programs named `env' in your path (eg.,
1804 SunOS has a program named /usr/bin/env). I don't understand why this can
1805 cause a failure and I don't know a general solution for working around the
1806 problem in this case.
1807
1808 The `make clean' command will remove `env' and other vital programs, so be
1809 careful when using it.
1810
1811 It has been reported that this sometimes happened when Emacs was started
1812 as an X client from an xterm window (ie. had a controlling tty) but the
1813 xterm was later terminated.
1814
1815 See also etc/PROBLEMS for other possible causes of this message.
1816
1817 67: Why can't I cut from Emacs and paste in other X programs?
1818
1819 Emacs stores things you "cut" in the X "cut buffers". It also pastes from
1820 the cut buffer `CUT_BUFFER0'. This is obsolete. Most modern X programs
1821 now expect to work with "selections" instead of cut buffers, although some
1822 like `xterm' will try to use the cut buffers if the selection is null.
1823
1824 Emacs 18.58 contains a "fix" that makes xterm work by default. This
1825 "fix" is that Emacs clears the `PRIMARY' selection when it stores
1826 something in the cut buffer. By making the selection null, xterm will
1827 then fetch from the cut buffer when you try to paste.
1828
1829 For versions of Emacs prior to 18.58, you can make pasting from Emacs into
1830 xterm work with the following X resources:
1831
1832 ! Solution by Thomas Narten, should work under X11R3 and later GNU
1833 ! Emacs only copies to CUT_BUFFER0. xterm by default wants to paste
1834 ! from the PRIMARY selection.
1835 XTerm*VT100.Translations: #override \
1836 ~Meta <Btn2Up>: insert-selection(CUT_BUFFER0,PRIMARY)
1837
1838 You may have problems copying between Emacs and programs other than xterm
1839 that won't store cut text in the cut buffers or look in the cut buffers
1840 for text to paste (for backwards compatibility with obsolete applications
1841 like Emacs :-). The best workaround is to use the `xcutsel' program as an
1842 intermediary.
1843
1844 This problem does not exist for Epoch or Lucid Emacs.
1845
1846 68: Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type `emacs'?
1847
1848 The termcap entry for terminal type `emacs' is ordinarily put in the
1849 TERMCAP environment variable of subshells. It may help in certain
1850 situations (eg., using rlogin from shell buffer) to add an entry for
1851 `emacs' to the system-wide termcap file. Here is a correct termcap entry
1852 for `emacs':
1853
1854 emacs:tc=unknown:
1855
1856 To make a terminfo entry for `emacs', use `tic' or `captoinfo'. You need
1857 to generate /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs. It may work to simply copy
1858 /usr/lib/terminfo/d/dumb to /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs.
1859
1860 Having a termcap/terminfo entry will not enable the use of full screen
1861 programs in shell buffers. Use M-x terminal-emulator for that instead.
1862
1863 A workaround to the problem of missing termcap/terminfo entries is to
1864 change terminal type `emacs' to type `dumb' or `unknown' in your shell
1865 start up file. `csh' users could put this in their .cshrc files:
1866
1867 if ("$term" == emacs) set term=dumb
1868
1869 69: Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying `I-search:' and beeping?
1870
1871 Your terminal (or something between your terminal and the computer) is
1872 sending C-s and C-q for flow control, and Emacs is receiving these
1873 characters and interpreting them as commands. (The C-s character normally
1874 invokes the isearch-forward command.) For possible solutions, see
1875 question 131.
1876
1877 70: Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?
1878
1879 The problem may be that Emacs is linked with a wimpier version of
1880 gethostbyname than the rest of the programs on the machine. This is often
1881 manifested as a message on startup of `X server not responding. Check
1882 your DISPLAY environment variable.' or a message of `Unknown host' from
1883 open-network-stream.
1884
1885 On a Sun, this may be because Emacs had to be linked with the static C
1886 library. The version of gethostbyname in the static C library may only
1887 look in /etc/hosts and the NIS (YP) maps, while the version in the dynamic
1888 C library may be smart enough to check DNS in addition to or instead of
1889 NIS. On a Motorola Delta running System V R3.6, the version of
1890 gethosbyname in the standard library works, but the one that works with
1891 NIS doesn't (the one you get with -linet). Other operating systems have
1892 similar problems.
1893
1894 Try these options:
1895
1896 * Explicitly add the host you want to communicate with to /etc/hosts.
1897
1898 * Relink Emacs with this line in src/config.h:
1899
1900 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
1901
1902 * Replace gethostbyname and friends in libc.a with more useful versions
1903 such as the ones in libresolv.a. Then relink Emacs.
1904
1905 * If you are actually running NIS, make sure that `ypbind' is properly
1906 told to do DNS lookups with the correct command line switch.
1907
1908 * Use tcp.el and tcp.c from GNUS. This has the additional advantage that
1909 you can use numeric IP addresses instead of names. open-network-stream
1910 currently can't handle numeric addresses. Brian Thomson
1911 <thomson@hub.toronto.edu> has a enhancement to open-network-stream to
1912 allow it to handle numeric addresses.
1913
1914 71: Why does Emacs say `Error in init file'?
1915
1916 An error occurred while loading either your .emacs file or the system-wide
1917 lisp/default.el file. For information on how to debug your .emacs file,
1918 see question 29.
1919
1920 It may be the case that you may need to load some package first, or use a
1921 hook that will be evaluated after the package is loaded. A common case of
1922 this is explained in question 127.
1923
1924 72: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?
1925
1926 * Try compiling Emacs with the XBACKWARDS macro defined. There is a bug
1927 in some implementations of XGetDefault, which do not correspond to the
1928 documentation or the header files.
1929
1930 * Make sure you are either using the class name of `Emacs' (oops,
1931 apparently this is buggy in Emacs 18.58!) or the correct instance name.
1932 The instance name is normally the same as the name of the file Emacs is
1933 in (ie., the last part of argv[0]), but this can be overridden by -rn
1934 command line option or the WM_RES_NAME environment variable.
1935
1936 WARNING: Reports say using the class name fails in Emacs 18.58.
1937
1938 WARNING: The advice the man page gives to use `emacs' is often wrong.
1939
1940 WARNING: Older versions of Emacs got the class name wrong.
1941
1942 * Emacs currently ignores the -xrm command line argument.
1943
1944 * Emacs does not yet handle X11R5 screen-specific resources.
1945
1946 * Emacs has a bug where it ignores color specifications if running on a
1947 1-bit display (ie. a non-color display).
1948
1949 * I don't think Emacs will use either of the application-specific resource
1950 files. Thus these environment variables don't affect it: XAPPLRESDIR,
1951 XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, XFILESEARCHPATH. {Correct?}
1952
1953 73: Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file?
1954
1955 The usual cause is that the master lock file, `!!!SuperLock!!!' has been
1956 left in the lock directory somehow. Delete it.
1957
1958 Mark Meuer <meuer@geom.umn.edu> says that NeXT NFS has a bug where an
1959 exclusive create succeeds but returns an error status. This can cause the
1960 same problem. Since Emacs's file locking doesn't work over NFS anyway,
1961 the best solution is to recompile Emacs with CLASH_DETECTION undefined.
1962
1963 74: How do I edit a file with a `$' in its name?
1964
1965 When entering a filename in the minibuffer, Emacs will attempt to expand
1966 a `$' followed by a word as an environment variable. To suppress this
1967 behavior, type "$$" instead.
1968
1969 75: Why does Shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory?
1970
1971 Emacs has no way of knowing when the shell actually changes its directory.
1972 This is an intrinsic limitation of Unix. So it tries to guess by
1973 recognizing `cd' commands. If you type `cd' followed by a directory name
1974 with a variable reference (`cd $HOME/bin') or with a shell metacharacter
1975 (`cd ../lib*'), Emacs will fail to correctly guess the shell's new current
1976 directory. A huge variety of fixes and enhancements to Shell mode for
1977 this problem have been written to handle this problem. Check the Lisp
1978 Code Directory (see question 88).
1979
1980 76: Why doesn't my change to load-path work?
1981
1982 If you added a directory name containing a tilde (~) to your load-path,
1983 expecting the tilde to be interpreted as your home directory, then you
1984 need to do something like this:
1985
1986 (setq load-path (mapcar 'expand-file-name load-path))
1987
1988 77: Why does the cursor always go to the wrong column when I move up or
1989 down one line?
1990
1991 You have inadvertently typed "C-x C-n" (set-goal-column) which sets the
1992 "goal column" to the column where the cursor was. To undo this type
1993 "C-u C-x C-n".
1994
1995 If you make this mistake frequently, you might want to unbind or disable
1996 this command by doing one of these two:
1997
1998 (define-key ctl-x-map "\C-n" nil)
1999 (put 'set-goal-column 'disabled t)
2000
2001 78: Why does Emacs hang with message `Unknown XMenu error' with X11R4?
2002
2003 Many different X errors can produce this message. Here is the solution
2004 to one problem:
2005
2006 X11 Release 4 (and later, including OpenWindows) enforces some conditions
2007 in the X protocol that were previously allowed to pass unnoticed. You
2008 need to put the X11R4 server into X11R3 bug compatibility mode for Emacs's
2009 Xmenu code to work. You can do this with the command `xset bc'.
2010
2011 79: Why doesn't display-time show the load average in the mode line
2012 anymore?
2013
2014 In GNU Emacs 18.56, a change was made in the display-time code.
2015 Formerly, in version 18.55, Emacs used a program named `loadst' to
2016 notify Emacs of the change in time every minute. loadst also sent Emacs
2017 the system load average if it was installed with sufficient privilege to
2018 get that information (or was on a system where no such privilege was
2019 needed). Emacs then displayed this information in the mode line.
2020
2021 In version 18.56, this code was changed to use a program named `wakeup'.
2022 wakeup doesn't send Emacs any information, it's only purpose is to send
2023 Emacs *something* every minute, thus invoking the filter function in
2024 Emacs once a minute. The filter function in Emacs does all the work of
2025 finding the time, date, and load average. However, getting the load
2026 average requires the privilege to read kernel memory on most systems.
2027 Since giving Emacs this privilege would destroy any security a system
2028 might have, for almost everyone this is not an option. In addition,
2029 Emacs does not have the code built into it to get this information on
2030 the systems which have special system calls for this purpose, even
2031 though loadst had code for this.
2032
2033 The solution I use is to get the files lisp/display-time.el and
2034 etc/loadst.c from version 18.55 and use those with 18.58. (I have heard
2035 a rumor that loadst disappeared because of the legal action Unipress
2036 threatened against IBM.)
2037
2038 WARNING: Do not install Emacs setgid kmem unless you wish to destroy
2039 any security your system might have!!!!!!!!!!
2040
2041 If you are using Emacs 18.55 or earlier, or already using the solution I
2042 describe above, read further:
2043
2044 The most likely cause of the problem is that `loadst' can't read the
2045 special file /dev/kmem. To properly install loadst, it should be either
2046 setuid to the owner of /dev/kmem, or is should be setgid to the group to
2047 which /dev/kmem belongs. In either case, /dev/kmem should be readable by
2048 its owner or its group, respectively. Assuming the existence of a group
2049 named `kmem', here is an example of how to do this:
2050
2051 chgrp kmem /dev/kmem
2052 chmod g+r /dev/kmem
2053 chgrp kmem /usr/local/emacs/etc/loadst
2054 chmod g+s /usr/local/emacs/etc/loadst
2055
2056 Another possibility is that your version of Unix doesn't have the load
2057 average data available in /dev/kmem. Your version of Unix might have a
2058 special system call to retrieve this information (eg., inq_stats under
2059 UMAX), and loadst might not have been enhanced to cope with this.
2060
2061 80: Why does ispell sometimes ignore the local dictionary?
2062
2063 You need to update the version of Ispell to 2.0.02. (Or you can switch to
2064 version 3.0 which is still in beta-testing.) A patch is available via
2065 anonymous FTP:
2066
2067 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/ispell/patch2.Z
2068
2069 You also need to change a line in ispell.el from:
2070
2071 (defconst ispell-version "2.0.01") ; Check against output of "ispell -v".
2072
2073 to:
2074
2075 (defconst ispell-version "2.0.02") ; Check against output of "ispell -v".
2076
2077 81: Why does Ispell treat each line as a single word?
2078
2079 Ispell expects to get its input one word per line. The ispell filter,
2080 which is specified by the variables ispell-filter-hook and
2081 ispell-filter-hook-args, should output at most one word per line.
2082
2083 82: Are there any security risks in GNU Emacs?
2084
2085 * the `movemail' incident (No, this is not a risk.)
2086
2087 Cliff Stoll in his book `The Cuckoo's Egg' describes this in chapter 4.
2088 The site at LBL had installed the `etc/movemail' program setuid root.
2089 Since `movemail' had not been designed for this situation, a security
2090 hole was created and users could get root privileges.
2091
2092 `movemail' has since been changed so that even if it is installed setuid
2093 root this security hole will not be a result.
2094
2095 I have heard unverified reports that the Internet worm took advantage of
2096 this configuration problem.
2097
2098 * the file-local-variable feature (Yes, a risk, but easy to change.)
2099
2100 There is an Emacs feature that allows the setting of local values for
2101 variables when editing a file by including specially formatted text near
2102 the end of the file. This feature also includes the ability to have
2103 arbitrary Emacs Lisp code evaluated when the file is visited.
2104 Obviously, there is a potential for Trojan horses to exploit this
2105 feature.
2106
2107 If you set the variable inhibit-local-variables to a non-nil value,
2108 Emacs will display the special local variable settings of a file that
2109 you visit and ask you if you really want them. This variable is not
2110 mentioned in the manual.
2111
2112 It is wise to do this in lisp/site-init.el before building Emacs:
2113
2114 (setq inhibit-local-variables t)
2115
2116 If Emacs has already been built, the expression can be put in
2117 lisp/default.el instead, or an individual can put it in their own .emacs
2118 file.
2119
2120 The ability to exploit this feature by sending e-mail to an RMAIL user
2121 was fixed sometime after Emacs 18.52. However, any new package that
2122 uses find-file or find-file-noselect has to be careful about this.
2123
2124 For more information, see `File Variables' in the online manual (which,
2125 incidentally, does not describe how to disable the feature).
2126
2127 There is a new variable in Emacs 18.58 named ignore-local-eval which
2128 turns out to be useless as currently implemented. Ignore it.
2129
2130 * synthetic X events (Yes, a risk, use MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 or better.)
2131
2132 Emacs accepts synthetic X events generated by the SendEvent request as
2133 though they were regular events. As a result, if you are using the
2134 trivial host-based authentication, other users who can open X
2135 connections to your X workstation can make your Emacs process do
2136 anything, including run other processes with your privileges.
2137
2138 The only fix for this is to prevent other users from being able to open
2139 X connections. The standard way to prevent this is to use a real
2140 authentication mechanism, such as MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1. If using the
2141 `xauth' program has any effect, then you are probably using
2142 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1. Your site may be using a superior authentication
2143 method; ask your system administrator.
2144
2145 If real authentication is not a possibility, you may be satisfied by
2146 just allowing hosts access for brief intervals while you start your X
2147 programs, then removing the access. This reduces the risk somewhat by
2148 narrowing the time window when hostile users would have access, but DOES
2149 NOT ELIMINATE THE RISK.
2150
2151 Lucid GNU Emacs does not accept synthetic X events unless you set a
2152 variable.
2153
2154 * autosave file permissions (Yes, a risk, hard to work around.)
2155
2156 The file permissions for autosave files are determined solely by the
2157 Emacs process's `umask' value. The permissions of the file being
2158 autosaved are not used. The easiest workaround is to keep sensitive
2159 files in protected directories. Sebastian Kremer has written an
2160 enhanced version of the autosave file name picking code that can avoid
2161 this problem by keeping autosave files in a protected directory. {FTP
2162 information please?} This problem will be fixed in Emacs 19.
2163
2164
2165
2166 Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs
2167
2168 83: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?
2169
2170 First look in the file etc/PROBLEMS to see if there is already a solution
2171 for your problem. Next check the FAQ (you're reading it). If you don't
2172 find a solution, then report your problem via e-mail to
2173 bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu. Please do not post it to gnu.emacs.help or
2174 e-mail it to help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu. For further guidelines, see
2175 question 8.
2176
2177 84: How do I stop Emacs from failing when the executable is stripped?
2178
2179 Don't do that.
2180
2181 This problem has been reported on SGI Indigo machines running Irix 4.0.*
2182 and RS/6000 machines. Scott Henry <scotth@hoshi.corp.SGi.COM> posted a
2183 patch that fixes the problem for Irix.
2184
2185 85: Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail?
2186
2187 Emacs needs to be linked with the static version of the X11 library,
2188 libX11.a. This may be missing.
2189
2190 Under OpenWindows, you may need to use `add_services' to add the
2191 `OpenWindows Programmers' optional software category from the CD-ROM.
2192
2193 Under HP-UX 8.0, you may need to run `update' again to load the
2194 X11-PRG `fileset'. This may be missing even if you specified `all
2195 filesets' the first time. If libcurses.a is missing, you may need to load
2196 the `Berkeley Development Option' {???}.
2197
2198 If you are building the MIT X11 sources, you may need to modify your
2199 `site.cf' file to get static versions of the libraries. (Info from David
2200 Zuhn <zoo@cygnus.com>.)
2201
2202 Other systems may have similar problems. You can always define
2203 CANNOT_DUMP and link with the shared libraries instead.
2204
2205 To get the Xmenu stuff to work, you need to find a copy of MIT's
2206 liboldX.a.
2207
2208 86: Why does Emacs 18.55 say `Fatal error (6).Abort' under SunOS 4.1?
2209
2210 I had hoped this question would go away after Emacs 18.57 was released,
2211 but people continue to compile 18.55. Easiest solution: upgrade.
2212
2213 This is a result of the SunOS localtime/tzsetwall malloc bug, which was
2214 (finally!) fixed in SunOS 4.1.2. If you actually need the full
2215 explanation, send me e-mail. If you absolutely must compile Emacs 18.55
2216 (eg., you are compiling Nemacs), the easiest workaround was to put
2217 `#define SYSTEM_MALLOC' in src/config.h.
2218
2219
2220
2221 GNU Emacs FAQ: Getting Emacs/Packages
2222
2223 If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x $" to
2224 get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look at the text
2225 of the answers, just type "C-x $".
2226
2227 To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a C-r if
2228 that doesn't work, then type ESC to end the search.
2229
2230 A `+' in the 78th column means something was inserted on the line. A `-' means
2231 something was deleted and a `!' means some combination of insertions and
2232 deletions occurred.
2233
2234 Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22. Also see the
2235 `Introduction to news.answers' posting in the `news.answers' newsgroup, or send
2236 e-mail to `mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu' with `help' on a body line, or use FTP,
2237 WAIS, or Prospero to rtfm.mit.edu.
2238
2239
2240
2241 Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages
2242
2243 87: Where can I get GNU Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
2244
2245 Look in the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for information on nearby
2246 archive sites. If you don't already have GNU Emacs, see question 20
2247 for how to get these two files.
2248
2249 The latest version is always available via anonymous FTP at MIT:
2250
2251 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/emacs-18.59.tar.Z
2252
2253 See question 91.
2254
2255 88: How do I find a GNU Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?
2256
2257 A listing of Emacs Lisp packages, called the Lisp Code Directory, is being
2258 maintained by Dave Brennan <brennan@hal.com> and Dave Sill <de5@ornl.gov>.
2259 You can search through this list to find if someone has written something
2260 that fits your needs.
2261
2262 This list is file LCD-datafile.Z in the Emacs Lisp Archive. (See
2263 question 89 for methods for getting this file.) The files lispdir.el.Z
2264 and lispdir.doc.Z in the archive contain information to help you use the
2265 list. Once you have installed lispdir.el and LCD-datafile, then you can
2266 use the "M-x lisp-dir-apropos" command to look things up in the database.
2267 For example, the command "M-x lisp-dir-apropos RET ange-ftp RET" produces
2268 this (outdated) output:
2269
2270 GNU Emacs Lisp Code Apropos -- "ange-ftp"
2271
2272 ange-ftp (3.112) 91-08-12
2273 Andy Norman, <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
2274 archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:
2275 /pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/as-is/ange-ftp.el.Z
2276 transparent FTP Support for GNU Emacs
2277
2278 89: Where can I get GNU Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs?
2279
2280 First, check the Lisp Code Directory to find the name of the package you
2281 are looking for. (See question 88). Then check local archives and
2282 the Emacs Lisp Archive to find a copy of the relevant files. Then, if
2283 you still haven't found it, you can send e-mail to the author asking for
2284 a copy.
2285
2286 You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive via anonymous FTP:
2287
2288 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/
2289
2290 Fetch the file README first.
2291
2292 NOTE: The archive maintainers do not have time to answer individual
2293 requests for packages or the list of packages in the archive. If you
2294 cannot use FTP or UUCP to access the archive yourself, try to find a
2295 friend who can, but please don't ask the maintainers.
2296
2297 NOTE: Any files with names ending in `.Z' are compressed, and you should
2298 use `binary' mode in FTP to retrieve them. You should also use binary
2299 mode whenever you retrieve any files with names ending in `.elc'.
2300
2301 90: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
2302
2303 Submissions should be mailed to elisp-archive@cis.ohio-state.edu. The
2304 lispdir.el package has a function named submit-lcd-entry which will help
2305 you with this. Mail messages (submissions) are automatically saved and
2306 periodically archived. Urgent mail may be sent directly to Dave Sill
2307 <de5@ornl.gov> or Dave Brennan <brennan@hal.com> or should contain the
2308 string `urgent' in the subject. The incoming ftp directory is no longer
2309 available at the request of Ohio State. {Is this still true?}
2310
2311 However, if someone has a submission with multiple files (which would be
2312 archived as a tar file) or binary files, then FTP transfer is preferred
2313 and can be arranged via an anonymous FTP site. This is faster than
2314 uudecoding, unsharing, etc., and re-packaging files.
2315
2316 Before submitting anything, please read the file guidelines.Z, which is
2317 available in the archive. Whenever possible, submissions should contain a
2318 complete LCD entry since this helps reduce administrative overhead for the
2319 maintainers. You can include an entry in this format:
2320
2321 ;; LCD Archive Entry:
2322 ;; package name|author's name|email address
2323 ;; |description
2324 ;; |date|version|archive path
2325
2326 For example:
2327
2328 ;; LCD Archive Entry:
2329 ;; tex-complete|Sebastian Kremer|sk@thp.Uni-Koeln.DE
2330 ;; |Minibuffer name completion for editing [La]TeX.
2331 ;; |91-03-26|$Revision: 1.4 $|~/packages/tex-complete.el.Z !
2332
2333 Dave Brennan has software which automatically looks for data in this
2334 format. The format is fairly flexible. The entry ends when a line is
2335 reached with a different prefix or the seventh field terminator is
2336 seen.
2337
2338 If you are submitting a multi-file submission you should include a file
2339 named "LCD-entry" which contains the archive entry, instead of placing
2340 it in one or more of the individual files.
2341
2342 91: Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?
2343
2344 The most up-to-date official GNU stuff is normally kept on prep.ai.mit.edu
2345 and is available for anonymous FTP in the pub/gnu directory. See the
2346 files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information. (To get copies of
2347 these files, see question 20.)
2348
2349 The following sites are all mirror images of the GNU distribution area:
2350
2351 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/
2352 /ftp.uu.net:packages/gnu/
2353 /src.doc.ic.ac.uk:gnu/ (available via FTP, NIFTP, FTAM)
2354 /ftp.win.tue.nl:pub/gnu/
2355 /utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp:ftpsync/prep/
2356 /nic.funet.fi:pub/gnu/
2357
2358 The directory at ftp.uu.net is a mirror of prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu,
2359 except that files larger than 1 megabyte {right?} are automatically
2360 split into multiple parts. If you have trouble transferring large
2361 files, you should try here. A file normally named `XXX' is split into
2362 files XXX-split/part[0-9][0-9], and there will be a file named
2363 XXX-split/README which contains the list of parts (especially helpful
2364 when FTP-ing by e-mail), their checksums, and reassembly instructions.
2365 Some of the other mirror sites may have the same property. {Can someone
2366 check this out? Thanks!}
2367
2368 Information was provided by Lee McLoughlin <lmjm@doc.ic.ac.uk>, Jonathan
2369 R. Ferro <jf41+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU>, Arjan de Vet <devet@win.tue.nl>, and
2370 Simon Marshall <S.Marshall@sequent.cc.hull.ac.uk>.
2371
2372 92: Where can I get an Emacs with better mouse and X window support?
2373
2374 Emacs 18 has some limited X Window System support, but there are
2375 problems. Emacs 19 will have amazing mouse and window support. Right
2376 now, there are Epoch which is derived from GNU Emacs 18.58 and Lucid GNU
2377 Emacs which is derived from an early unreleased version of GNU Emacs 19,
2378 both of which have greatly improved mouse and window support. See
2379 questions 120 and 121.
2380
2381 The HP unofficial GNU Emacs also has nice mouse support. See question
2382 95.
2383
2384 There are numerous Emacs Lisp packages that have been written to extend
2385 Emacs 18's mouse handling capabilities. Some of these packages also have
2386 patches to the C code to provide enhanced capabilities. Look up `mouse'
2387 in the Lisp Code Directory (see question 88).
2388
2389 There is a package called BAM (Born Again Menus) which provides menus for
2390 GNU Emacs via an external C program. It does not provide mouse support in
2391 the Emacs window such as scrollbars, cut-and-paste, etc.
2392
2393 NOTE: Epoch only works with the X Window System; it works on ordinary
2394 terminals by invoking regular GNU Emacs. Lucid Emacs does not currently
2395 work on ordinary terminals, although there are plans to fix this.
2396
2397 93: What is the difference between GNU Emacs and Epoch?
2398
2399 Marc Andreessen <marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu> writes:
2400
2401 Epoch is GNU Emacs on steroids: an adaptation of GNU Emacs with lots of
2402 additional support for features made possible by the X11 windowing
2403 system. These features include multiple editing windows, arbitrary
2404 colors and fonts (fixed-width and proportional), selectable zones per
2405 buffer with arbitrary display styles (font, color, underline, stipple,
2406 pixmap), an optional separate minibuffer window, improved keyboard and
2407 mouse handling, full 8-bit character set support, and more.
2408
2409 94: What is the difference between GNU Emacs and Lucid GNU Emacs?
2410
2411 This information is condensed from the release notice:
2412
2413 Lucid GNU Emacs is based on an early version of GNU Emacs version 19
2414 with many enhancements. It currently requires X Windows to run. For
2415 information on where to get Lucid GNU Emacs see 121. X Windows support
2416 is greatly enhanced over GNU Emacs version 18, including support for
2417 multiple X Windows (a.k.a. screens in Emacs), Zmacs/Lispm style region
2418 highlighting, a customizable, Motif-like menubar, more powerful keymap
2419 support (allowing different actions to be associated with Backspace,
2420 Control-h, etc.), flexible text attribute (e.g. font, color) support on
2421 regional and screen-local basis through X resources and/or lisp, and
2422 support for the X11 selection mechanism. Some other features include
2423 run-time computation of the load-path, support for floating point
2424 numbers, native timer support, and sound file support on Sun
2425 SPARCstations. To build Lucid GNU Emacs, an ANSI C compiler (e.g. gcc)
2426 is required.
2427
2428 95: Where can I get the "unofficial HP GNU Emacs"?
2429
2430 The unofficial HP GNU Emacs is available via anonymous FTP:
2431
2432 /ee.utah.edu:HUGE/ (PLEASE FTP DURING NON-WORK HOURS!!!)
2433
2434 and takes about 35 megabytes of disk space to build. It is useful for
2435 non-HP machines, but some of the added features will only work under
2436 HP-UX.
2437
2438 You will need to get patches to work with HP-UX 8.0 or on 700 series
2439 machines via e-mail from Darryl Okahata <darrylo@sr.hp.com>.
2440
2441 96: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
2442
2443 * Demacs
2444
2445 For 386 or 486 PCs running MS-DOS, there is a version of GNU Emacs
2446 called Demacs. To get Demacs see question 122.
2447
2448 From the announcement message:
2449
2450 Demacs is almost a full set of GNU Emacs but does not support some
2451 features: asynchronous process, locking a file, etc.
2452
2453 Demacs provides following DOS specific features:
2454
2455 * File type: text or binary file translation.
2456 * "8-bit clean" display mode.
2457 * 8086 software interrupt call by int86 lisp function.
2458 * Machine specific features such as function key support.
2459 * File name completion with drive name.
2460 * Child process (suspend-emacs, call-process).
2461 * Enhanced dired mode which can work without 'ls.exe'.
2462
2463 To our regret `shell-mode' does not work, but `compile' command works
2464 properly.
2465
2466 Demacs was developed using an MS-DOS version of gcc called djgpp by
2467 D. J. Delorie <dj@ctron.com> which can compile and run large programs
2468 under MS-DOS, but not under MS Windows. Demacs was derived from Nemacs
2469 rather than straight from GNU Emacs.
2470
2471 There are a variety of other Emacses for MS-DOS including among them the
2472 following.
2473
2474 * Freemacs
2475
2476 Russ Nelson <nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, the author, describes
2477 Freemacs:
2478
2479 * Freemacs is free, and it was designed from the start to be
2480 programmable.
2481 * Freemacs is the only IBM-PC editor that tries to be like GNU Emacs.
2482 * Freemacs can only edit files less than 64K in length.
2483 * Freemacs doesn't have undo.
2484
2485 Carl Witty <cwitty@cs.stanford.edu> reviews Freemacs:
2486
2487 Better is Freemacs, which follows the tradition of ITS and GNU Emacs
2488 by having an full, turing-complete extension language which is
2489 incompatible with everything else. In fact, it's even closer to ITS
2490 Emacs than GNU Emacs is, because Mint (Freemacs' extension language)
2491 is absolutely illegible without weeks of study, much like TECO.
2492
2493 To get Freemacs see question 123.
2494
2495 * MicroEmacs
2496
2497 MicroEmacs is a descendant of Microemacs {originally by Dave Conroy?}.
2498 It is programmable in a BASIC-like language. Many of the keybindings
2499 are different from GNU Emacs. The author is Daniel Lawrence -
2500 <dan@mdbs.uucp, mdbs!dan@ee.ecn.purdue.edu>. The latest version is 3.12 !
2501 and it is available via anonymous FTP:
2502
2503 /midas.mgmt.purdue.edu:dist/uemacs312/ (outside business hours) !
2504 !
2505 Version 3.12 includes Windows and Windows NT versions and a DOS !
2506 protected mode (DMPI) version. !
2507
2508 * JOVE
2509
2510 Another Emacs for small machines is JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of
2511 Emacs). The latest official version is 4.14. There appears to be a
2512 newer version. People rumored to be working on JOVE include Mark Moraes
2513 <moraes@cs.toronto.edu> and Bill Marsh <bmarsh@cod.nosc.mil>. It is
2514 available via anonymous FTP:
2515
2516 /cs.toronto.edu:/pub/moraes/jove4.14.7.tar.Z
2517
2518 * MG
2519
2520 MG is another descendant of Microemacs. MG used to stand for
2521 MicroGNUEmacs, but now just stands for MG. The look-and-feel of MG is
2522 intended to be close to that of GNU Emacs. It is rumored that MG can
2523 not correctly edit files larger than memory. The current version is
2524 rumored to be 2. There is a version 3 in beta which works on the Amiga.
2525 It is also available via anonymous FTP:
2526
2527 /ftp.white.toronto.edu:pub/mg/
2528 /wuarchive.wustl.edu:/mirrors/unix-c/editors/
2529 /procyon.cis.ksu.edu: (source and executable)
2530
2531 97: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running Windows?
2532
2533 I believe that no version of GNU Emacs runs under Windows. Pierre Perret
2534 <pap@myths.az05.bull.com> has ported MicroEMACS 3.11c to Windows.
2535
2536 Anonymous FTP:
2537 /ftp.cica.indiana.edu:pub/pc/win3/util/mewin10.zip
2538 /ftp.cica.indiana.edu:pub/pc/win3/util/mewin10s.zip
2539 /ftp.cica.indiana.edu:pub/pc/win3/util/mewri.zip
2540
2541 98: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?
2542
2543 From the OS/2 Programmer's FAQ:
2544
2545 GNU Emacs 18.58 is available. It requires you to have EMX installed
2546 on your machine, but it comes with all the EMX files you will need.
2547 Emacs is available on ftp-os2 in /pub/os2/2.0/gnu/emacs. (If you want
2548 to recompile emacs, you will need the full EMX distribution see
2549 question 1.2.)
2550
2551 The above quote may be out of date. See the latest OS/2 Programmer's FAQ
2552 {perhaps in comp.os.os2.misc?} for the latest news. Anonymous FTP info:
2553
2554 /ftp-os2.nmsu.edu:pub/os2/2.0/gnu/emacs/
2555 ("ftp-os2" was formerly named "hobbes")
2556
2557 Thanks go to Stephen Simpson <simpson@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>, Jonathan
2558 Miller <jem+@andrew.cmu.edu>, Terry Kane <terryk@cc.gatech.edu>, J. D.
2559 Baldwin <baldwin@csservera.usna.navy.mil>, and Ken Bass
2560 <kbass@gmuvax2.gmu.edu>.
2561
2562 99: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
2563
2564 Emacs 18.57 is the latest version for TOS. Stefan Mueller-Pfeiffer
2565 <iff327@zam001.zam.kfa-juelich.de> says:
2566
2567 There is also a version for MiNT, the multitasking enhancement for
2568 ATARI's TOS, which behaves almost like EMACS on a "real computer". This
2569 port was done by Erling Henanger <erlingh@idt.unit.no>.
2570
2571 Anonymous FTP:
2572 /atari.archive.umich.edu:atari/gnustuff/tos/ (TOS Emacs 18.57)
2573 /atari.archive.umich.edu:atari/new/mntemacs.zoo (MiNT Emacs)
2574 /cs.uni-sb.de:/pub/atari/emacs/
2575
2576 100: Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?
2577
2578 All of the files are lharc-ed.
2579
2580 Anonymous FTP:
2581 /oes.orst.edu:/pub/almanac/comp/amiga/software/gnuemacs-1.10/
2582
2583 Via e-mail:
2584 To: almanac@oes.orst.edu
2585 body:
2586 mode uuencode
2587 send computer amiga software gnuemacs <file>
2588 <file> is replaced by one of the following:
2589 Required: d1.lzh d2.lzh
2590 Recommended: d3_info.lzh d3_infolisp.lzh
2591 Optional: d3_autoloaded.lzh d3_entertainmentetc.lzh
2592 d3_entertainmentlisp.lzh d4_src.lzh d5_languagelisp.lzh
2593 d5_viclone.lzh d6_gnulibsrc.lzh d6_mailpackage.lzh
2594 d6_mathpackage.lzh d6_misc.lzh d6_textformat.lzh
2595 The `d#' at the beginning of each file is its disk number, which is
2596 referred to by the documentation.
2597
2598 101: Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?
2599
2600 The FSF is a participant in a boycott of Apple because of Apple's "look
2601 and feel" copyright suits. See the file etc/APPLE for more details.
2602 Because of this boycott, the FSF doesn't include support in GNU software
2603 for Apple computers such as the Macintosh.
2604
2605 Please don't help people port or develop software for Apple computers.
2606
2607 102: Where can I get Emacs with NeWS support?
2608
2609 Chris Maio's NeWS support package for GNU Emacs is available via anonymous
2610 FTP:
2611
2612 /columbia.edu:pub/ps-emacs.tar.Z
2613 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/ps-emacs.tar.Z
2614
2615 and via e-mail:
2616
2617 To: archive-server@columbia.edu
2618 body: send NeWS emacs-support
2619
2620 103: Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows?
2621
2622 Hal R. Brand <BRAND@addvax.llnl.gov> is said to have a VMS save set with a
2623 ready-to-run VMS version of Emacs 18.55 for X Windows. It is available
2624 via anonymous FTP (addvax.llnl.gov). It is possible that the VMS versions
2625 of Emacs at other sites have X support compiled in. See etc/FTP for
2626 locations.
2627
2628 Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> writes:
2629
2630 Getting Emacs to run on VMS with DECwindows requires a number of changes
2631 to the sources. Fortunately this has been done already. Joshua Marantz
2632 <josh@viewlogic.com> did most of the work for Emacs 18.52, and the mods
2633 were ported to 18.55 by Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl>. Also included is the
2634 handling of DEC's LK201 keyboard. You need to apply the changes to a
2635 fresh Emacs 18.55 distribution on a Unix system, and then you can copy
2636 the sources to VMS to perform the compile/link/build.
2637
2638 The set of changes have been posted a number of times three times the
2639 last 12 months, so they should be widely available.
2640
2641 Richard Levitte <levitte@e.kth.se> tells us that there are patches for
2642 Emacs 18.57, 18.58, and 18.59 available via e-mail: !
2643
2644 To: EMACS-FILESERV@e.kth.se !
2645 body: SEND EMACS-1857-PATCHES
2646 or: SEND EMACS-1858-PATCHES
2647 or: SEND EMACS-1859-PATCHES +
2648 +
2649 or via anonymous ftp at: +
2650 +
2651 /lucy.merrimack.edu:emacs-1859-patches.share +
2652 +
2653 The set of patches weighs in at around 2.7 MB. +
2654
2655 104: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne Shell, Csh, C++,
2656 Objective C, Pascal, Awk?
2657
2658 As usual, look in the Lisp Code Directory (see question 88). For C++,
2659 if you use lisp-dir-apropos, you must specify the pattern like this:
2660
2661 M-x lisp-dir-apropos RET c\+\+ RET
2662
2663 105: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?
2664
2665 If you are at a site with a deficient nameserver, you may need to know
2666 the IP address of a host to FTP files from it. You can get this
2667 information in two ways:
2668
2669 * By telnet:
2670
2671 telnet nic.ddn.mil hostnames (or `telnet 192.112.36.5 101')
2672 hname XXX.YYY.ZZZ
2673
2674 * By e-mail:
2675
2676 To: service@nic.ddn.mil
2677 Subject: host XXX.YYY.ZZZ
2678 or: whois XXX.YYY.ZZZ
2679 or: help
2680
2681 or:
2682
2683 To: resolve@cs.widener.edu
2684 body: site XXX.YYY.ZZZ
2685
2686 Information from Brendan Kehoe <brendan@cs.widener.edu>.
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691 Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs
2692
2693 This section lists version numbers, FTP sites, mailing lists, newsgroups,
2694 and other information for many important packages, extensions, and related
2695 programs. There is some overlap with the Lisp Code Directory, but these
2696 entries give more detailed information.
2697
2698 If you know of any other packages that are so substantial that they
2699 deserve to be mentioned here, please tell me. Having its own mailing list
2700 or newsgroup or more than half a megabyte of source code are good signs.
2701
2702 106: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs
2703
2704 Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@uunet.uu.net>
2705 Latest released version: 4.41
2706 Beta test version: 5.32
2707 Anonymous FTP:
2708 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/vm-4.41.tar.Z
2709 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/as-is/timer.shar.Z
2710 /ftp.uu.net:mail/vm-4.41.tar.Z
2711 /ftp.uu.net:mail/vm-5.32beta.tar.Z
2712 Newsgroups and mailing lists:
2713 Info-VM:
2714 gnu.emacs.vm.info
2715 info-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions)
2716 info-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions)
2717 Bug-VM:
2718 gnu.emacs.vm.bug
2719 bug-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions)
2720 bug-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions)
2721
2722 107: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs
2723
2724 Author: Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@cen.com>
2725 Mailing list: supercite-request@anthem.nlm.nih.gov (for subscriptions)
2726 supercite@anthem.nlm.nih.gov (for submissions)
2727 Latest version: 2.3 !
2728 Anonymous FTP:
2729 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/sc-2.3.tar.Z !
2730 /ftp.cme.nist.gov:pub/gnu/sc2.3.tar.Z !
2731 Via e-mail:
2732 To: library@cme.nist.gov
2733 Subject: help
2734 NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite.
2735
2736 108: GNUS -- news reader within Emacs
2737
2738 Author: Masanobu Umeda <umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp>
2739 Latest official version: 3.13
2740 Unofficial test version: 3.14.1
2741 Anonymous FTP:
2742 /aun.uninett.no:pub/gnus-3.14.1.tar.Z -
2743 /wnoc-fuk.wide.ad.jp:pub/GNU/etc/gnus-3.14.1.tar.Z
2744 /liasun3.epfl.ch:pub/gnu/emacs/gnus-3.14.1.tar.Z
2745 /aix370.rrz.uni-koeln.de:/pub/gnu/emacs/gnus-3.14.1.tar.Z
2746 /funet.fi:/networking/news/gnus-3.14.1.tar.Z
2747 /src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/gnu/EmacsBits/gnus/gnus-3.14.1.tar.Z
2748 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/gnus-3.13.tar.Z
2749 Newsgroups and mailing lists:
2750 English-only:
2751 gnu.emacs.gnus
2752 info-gnus-english-request@cis.ohio-state.edu (for subscriptions)
2753 info-gnus-english@cis.ohio-state.edu (for submissions)
2754 Japanese (and some English):
2755 info-gnus-request@flab.fujitsu.co.jp (for subscriptions)
2756 info-gnus@flab.fujitsu.co.jp (for submissions)
2757
2758 109: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs
2759
2760 Author: Dave Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu>
2761 Latest released version: 2.02
2762 Anonymous FTP:
2763 /csvax.cs.caltech.edu:pub/calc-2.02.tar.Z
2764 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/calc-2.02.tar.Z
2765 NOTE: Unlike Wolfram Research, Dave has never threatened to sue anyone
2766 for having a program with a similar command language to Calc. :-)
2767
2768 110: Calendar/Diary -- calendar manager within Emacs
2769
2770 Author: Edward M. Reingold <reingold@cs.uiuc.edu>
2771 Latest version: 4.02
2772 Anonymous FTP:
2773 /emr.cs.uiuc.edu:pub/emacs/calendar {???}
2774 Via e-mail:
2775 To: reingold@cs.uiuc.edu
2776 Subject: send-emacs-cal
2777 Put your best internet e-mail address in the body.
2778
2779 111: Ange-FTP -- transparent FTP access for Emacs's file access routines
2780
2781 Author: Andy Norman <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
2782 Latest official version: 4.20
2783 Anonymous FTP:
2784 /alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu:ange-ftp/ange-ftp.tar.Z
2785 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/ange-ftp.tar.Z
2786 /ugle.unit.no:pub/gnu/emacs-lisp/ange-ftp.tar.Z
2787 Mailing lists:
2788 ange-ftp-lovers-request@anorman.hpl.hp.com (for subscriptions)
2789 Ange-FTP Lovers:
2790 ange-ftp-lovers@anorman.hpl.hp.com (for submissions)
2791 /ftp.reed.edu:pub/mailing-lists/ange-ftp/ (archives)
2792 Ange-FTP Announcements:
2793 ange-ftp-lovers-announce@anorman.hpl.hp.com
2794 NOTE: now with support for accessing VMS, CMS, and MTS systems
2795
2796 112: VIP -- vi emulation for Emacs
2797
2798 Author: Aamod Sane <sane@cs.uiuc.edu>
2799 Latest released version: 4.3
2800 Anonymous FTP:
2801 /cs.uiuc.edu:pub/vip4.3.tar.Z
2802 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/modes/vip-mode.tar.Z
2803 NOTE: This version much more closely emulates vi than the one
2804 distributed with Emacs.
2805
2806 113: Dired -- better directory editor for Emacs
2807
2808 Author: Sebastian Kremer <sk@thp.uni-koeln.de>
2809 Latest released version: 5.239
2810 Anonymous FTP: /ftp.cs.buffalo.edu:pub/Emacs/diredall.tar.Z
2811 /ftp.uni-koeln.de:pub/gnu/emacs/diredall.tar.Z
2812 NOTE: This is a huge improvement over the Dired distributed with Emacs.
2813 This version will be in Emacs 19.
2814
2815 114: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities
2816
2817 Author: Kresten Krab Thorup <krab@iesd.auc.dk>
2818 Latest released version: 6.1 {???}
2819 Anonymous FTP:
2820 /iesd.auc.dk:pub/emacs-lisp/auctex_6_1d.tar.Z
2821 /iesd.auc.dk:pub/emacs-lisp/auctex.tar.Z
2822 Mailing list:
2823 auc-tex-request@iesd.auc.dk (for subscriptions)
2824 auc-tex@iesd.auc.dk (for submissions)
2825 auc-tex_mgr@iesd.auc.dk (auc-tex development team)
2826
2827 115: Hyperbole -- extensible hypertext management system within Emacs
2828
2829 Author: Bob Weiner <rsw@cs.brown.edu>
2830 Anonymous FTP:
2831 /wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/hyperbole/ h*.tar.Z
2832 Mailing lists:
2833 hyperbole-announce -- Hyperbole release announcements only.
2834 Subscriptions:
2835 To: hyperbole-request@cs.brown.edu
2836 Subject: Add <mailbox@domain.name> to hyperbole-announce
2837 hyperbole -- Hyperbole discussion.
2838 Subscriptions:
2839 To: hyperbole-request@cs.brown.edu
2840 Subject: Add <mailbox@domain.name> to hyperbole
2841 Submissions:
2842 hyperbole@cs.brown.edu
2843 NOTE: Any member of the hyperbole mailing list is automatically a
2844 member of the hyperbole-announce mailing list.
2845 NOTE: No .UUCP or ! addresses are allowed on these mailing lists.
2846
2847 116: Byte Compiler -- enhanced version of Emacs's byte compiler
2848
2849 Author: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@lucid.com>,
2850 Hallvard B. Furuseth <hallvard@ifi.uio.no>
2851 Anonymous FTP:
2852 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/bytecomp.tar.Z
2853 /ftp.uu.net:languages/elisp/packages/bytecomp.tar.Z
2854 /src.doc.ic.ac.uk:gnu/EmacsBits/elisp-archive/packages/bytecomp.tar.Z
2855
2856 117: comint -- hugely enhanced shell mode and other derived modes
2857
2858 Author: Olin Shivers <Olin.Shivers@cs.cmu.edu>
2859 Anonymous FTP:
2860 /cs.cmu.edu:/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/shivers/lib/emacs/
2861 {comint,cmu{tex,shell,scheme,lisp},ml}.el
2862 (anonymous password must contain `@',
2863 cannot cd to intermediate directories)
2864
2865 118: BBDB -- personal info rolodex integrated with mail/news readers
2866
2867 Author: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@lucid.com>
2868 Latest released version: 1.47
2869 Anonymous FTP:
2870 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/bbdb.tar.Z
2871 Mailing list:
2872 info-bbdb-request@lucid.com (for subscriptions)
2873 info-bbdb@lucid.com
2874 bbdb-announce-request@lucid.com (to be informed of new releases)
2875 Note: BBDB does not work with VM 4. It does work with VM 5, RMAIL, GNUS,
2876 and MH-E.
2877
2878 119: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs
2879
2880 Author: Geoff Kuenning <geoff@itcorp.com>
2881 Latest released version: 2.0.02
2882 Beta test version: 3.0 (9 patches)
2883 Anonymous FTP:
2884 /archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/ispell/ (version 2.0.02)
2885 /ftp.cs.ucla.edu:/pub/ispell/ (version 3.0, patches, dictionaries)
2886 /argus.math.orst.edu:pub/ispell/ (version 3.0, patches, dictionaries)
2887 /ftp.th-darmstadt.de:pub/dicts/ispell/ (mirror of argus)
2888 NOTE: Do not send mail to Geoff asking him to send you the latest
2889 version of Ispell. He does not have free e-mail.
2890
2891 120: Epoch -- enhanced GNU Emacs with better X interface
2892
2893 Latest released version: 4.2
2894 Anonymous FTP:
2895 /cs.uiuc.edu:pub/epoch-files/epoch/epoch-4.2.tar.Z
2896 /cs.uiuc.edu:pub/epoch-files/epoch/epoch-diff-4.1-4.2.tar.Z
2897 /src.doc.ic.ac.uk:gnu/epoch/
2898 /aix370.rrz.uni-koeln.de:gnu/emacs/epoch/
2899 Newsgroup and mailing lists:
2900 Epoch:
2901 gnu.emacs.epoch
2902 epoch-request@cs.uiuc.edu (for subscriptions)
2903 epoch@cs.uiuc.edu (for submissions)
2904 Epoch-Design:
2905 epoch-design-request@cs.uiuc.edu (for subscriptions)
2906 epoch-design@cs.uiuc.edu (for submissions)
2907 FAQ list:
2908 Maintainer: Marc Andreessen <marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
2909 Anonymous FTP:
2910 /rtfm.mit.edu:pub/usenet/news.answers/epoch-faq
2911 /ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu:outgoing/marca/epoch/Epoch.FAQ
2912
2913 121: Lucid GNU Emacs -- alternative Emacs 19 with better X interface
2914
2915 Primary Maintainer: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@lucid.com>
2916 Other Developers: Eric Benson <eb@lucid.com>
2917 Matthieu Devin <devin@lucid.com>
2918 Harlan Sexton <hbs@lucid.com>
2919 Latest released version: 19.6 !
2920 Anonymous FTP:
2921 /labrea.stanford.edu:pub/gnu/lucid/lemacs-19.6.tar.Z (source) !
2922 /labrea.stanford.edu:pub/gnu/lucid/lemacs-19.6-sun4.tar.Z (Sun4binaries) !
2923 Newsgroup and mailing lists:
2924 Bugs:
2925 alt.lucid-emacs.bug +
2926 bug-lucid-emacs-request@lucid.com (for subscriptions)
2927 bug-lucid-emacs@lucid.com (for submissions)
2928 Help:
2929 alt.lucid-emacs.help +
2930 help-lucid-emacs-request@lucid.com (for subscriptions)
2931 help-lucid-emacs@lucid.com (for submissions)
2932
2933 122: Demacs -- GNU Emacs altered to run on MS-DOS on 386/486 machines
2934
2935 Authors: Manabu Higashida <manabu@sigmath.osaka-u.ac.jp>
2936 HIRANO Satoshi <hirano@tkl.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
2937 Latest released version: 1.2.0
2938 Anonymous FTP:
2939 /utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp:GNU/demacs/ (nearest to U.S.A.)
2940 /ftp.sigmath.osaka-u.ac.jp:pub/Msdos/Demacs/
2941 /wnoc-fuk.wide.ad.jp:pub/msdos/Demacs/
2942 /ftp.3com.com:pub/gnu/msdos/demacs/
2943 /mindseye.berkeley.edu:pub/kanji/demacs/
2944 /ftp.hawaii.edu:pub/editors/demacs.tar.Z
2945 /ftp.math.ksu.edu:pub/pc/demacs/
2946 /wsmr-simtel20.army.mil:pd1:<msdos.demacs> {ange-ftp syntax?}
2947 /ftp.uni-koeln.de:msdos/gnuprogs/dem120e.zip (executables, lisp-code, doc)
2948 (PLEASE USE ONLY OUTSIDE WORKING HOURS!)
2949 /ftp.uni-koeln.de:msdos/gnuprogs/dem120s.zip (sources, diffs)
2950 (PLEASE USE ONLY OUTSIDE WORKING HOURS!)
2951 /ftp.lysator.liu.se:pub/msdos/gnu/emacs/
2952 /mizar.docs.uu.se:pub/gnu/demacs/
2953 /iamsun.unibe.ch:PC/demacs/
2954 /flop.informatik.tu-muenchen.de:outgoing/demacs.tar
2955 /ftp.funet.fi:pub/gnu/emacs/demacs/
2956 /garbo.uwasa.fi:pc/editor/dem120e.zip
2957 /garbo.uwasa.fi:pc/editor/dem120s.zip
2958 /ftp.win.tue.nl:pub/gnu/demacs/
2959 /ugle.unit.no:pub/gnu/Demacs/
2960 {Does anyone know which sites have the Kanji version?}
2961 Via e-mail:
2962 From garbo.uwasa.fi:
2963 To: mailserv@garbo.uwasa.fi
2964 Subject: garbo-request
2965 Body: send pc/editor/dem120e.zip
2966 send pc/editor/dem120s.zip
2967 quit
2968 Downloading:
2969 EXEC-PC (Milwaukee, WI) 414-789-4210 (2400 bps)
2970 in the Mahoney MS-DOS file area in its Editors/wordprocessors
2971 library (F), named GNUEMACS.ZIP
2972 Channel 1 (Cambridge, MA) 617-345-8873 (9600 bps)
2973 in the New Uploads file area, named GNUEMACS.ZIP
2974 NOTE: Use the -d option of [pk]unzip for all .zip archives. Some sites
2975 have Demacs lharc'ed. If you need to find programs to unpack lharc and
2976 zip format archives, Chris Dean <ctdean@talaris.com> points out that you
2977 should see the comp.compression FAQ, available for FTP:
2978 /rtfm.mit.edu:pub/usenet/comp.compression/
2979 Mailing list:
2980 NOTE: There is no mailing list for Demacs. However, there is a list
2981 for DJGPP, which is the environment that Demacs runs in. Many
2982 Demacs problems are actually issues with DJGPP.
2983 DJGPP:
2984 Subscriptions:
2985 To: listserv@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
2986 body: add <your-address> djgpp
2987 or put `help' in the body.
2988 If this fails, mail to djgpp-request@sun.soe.clarkson.edu.
2989 Submissions:
2990 djgpp@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
2991 FAQ list:
2992 Maintainer: Dave Steibel <steibel@cs.umbc.edu>
2993 Anonymous FTP: algol.cs.umbc.edu:pub/demacs/demacs.faq
2994
2995 123: Freemacs -- a small Emacs for MS-DOS
2996
2997 Author: Russ Nelson <nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
2998 Latest released version: 1.6a
2999 Anonymous FTP:
3000 /simtel20.army.mil:PD:<MSDOS.FREEMACS> {ange-ftp syntax?}
3001 /grape.ecs.clarkson.edu:pub/msdos/freemacs/
3002 Via e-mail:
3003 To: archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
3004 body: help
3005 Via snail mail:
3006 address: Russell Nelson, 11 Grant St., Potsdam, NY 13676
3007 Send $15 copying fee, and specify preferred floppy disk format:
3008 5.25", 360K, or 3.50", 720K
3009 Mailing lists:
3010 Subscriptions:
3011 To: listserv@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
3012 body: add <your-address> <name-of-list>
3013 or put `help' in the body.
3014 List distribution addresses:
3015 freemacs-announce@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
3016 freemacs-help@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
3017 freemacs-workers@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (send bug reports here)
3018
3019 124: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files
3020
3021 Author: Larry Wall <lwall@netlabs.com>
3022 Latest version: 2.0 patchlevel 12u8
3023 (This is the version that supports the new unified diff format.)
3024 Anonymous FTP:
3025 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/patch-2.0.12u8.tar.Z
3026 /prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/patch-2.0.12g8.tar.Z (GNU version)
3027
3028
3029
3030 GNU Emacs FAQ: Keybindings/Output
3031
3032 If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x $" to
3033 get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look at the text
3034 of the answers, just type "C-x $".
3035
3036 To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a C-r if
3037 that doesn't work, then type ESC to end the search.
3038
3039 A `+' in the 78th column means something was inserted on the line. A `-' means
3040 something was deleted and a `!' means some combination of insertions and
3041 deletions occurred.
3042
3043 Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22. Also see the
3044 `Introduction to news.answers' posting in the `news.answers' newsgroup, or send
3045 e-mail to `mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu' with `help' on a body line, or use FTP,
3046 WAIS, or Prospero to rtfm.mit.edu.
3047
3048
3049
3050 Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems
3051
3052 125: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?
3053
3054 1. Find out what character sequence is generated by the keystroke sequence
3055 you wish to bind to a command. See question 129 for how to do this.
3056 Keep in mind that the character sequences generated by a keystroke
3057 sequence varies from one terminal to another. You may also get
3058 different results depending on what type of machine you are running on
3059 (see question 128). For example, these keystrokes may generate these
3060 character sequences:
3061
3062 F1 ---> ESC [ 2 2 4 z
3063 Shift-R10 ---> ESC O t
3064 L7 ---> ESC [ 3 1 ~
3065 Remove ---> C-@
3066
3067 2. Figure out what the Emacs Lisp syntax is for this character sequence.
3068 Inside an Emacs Lisp string, RET, LFD, DEL, ESC, SPC, and TAB are
3069 specified with `\r', `\n', `\C-?', `\e', ` ', and `\t'. C-x is
3070 specified by `\C-x'. M-x is specified the same was as "ESC x".
3071 (Control characters may also be specified as themselves, but I don't
3072 recommend it.) An Emacs Lisp string begins and ends with the double
3073 quote character, `"'. Here are some examples:
3074
3075 ESC [ D ---> "\e[D"
3076 ESC [ 2 2 7 z ---> "\e[227z"
3077 ESC [ 1 8 ~ ---> "\e[18~"
3078 C-M-r ---> "\e\C-r"
3079
3080 3. If some prefix of the character sequence is already bound, you must
3081 unbind it by binding it to `nil'. For example:
3082
3083 (global-set-key "\e[" nil)
3084
3085 4. Pick a command to bind your key sequence to. A command can be a
3086 "symbol" with a function definition, or a "lambda list", or a string
3087 (which is treated as a macro). For example:
3088
3089 (global-set-key "\e[D" 'backward-char)
3090 (global-set-key "\e[227~" "\exgoto-line\r") ; macro
3091
3092 See `Key Bindings' and `Rebinding' in the online manual.
3093
3094 In Emacs 19 (including Lucid Emacs), you can bind function key F24 like
3095 this:
3096
3097 (global-set-key 'f24 'some-command)
3098
3099 126: Why does Emacs say `Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters'?
3100
3101 A prefix of the character sequence you were trying to bind was already
3102 bound. Usually, the sequence is "ESC [", in which case you should
3103 evaluate this form first:
3104
3105 (define-key esc-map "[" nil)
3106
3107 NOTE: By default, "ESC [" is bound to backward-paragraph, and if you do
3108 this you will lose this key binding. For most people, this is not a
3109 problem.
3110
3111 See question 125.
3112
3113 127: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
3114 .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
3115
3116 This is because you're trying to do something in your .emacs file that
3117 needs to be postponed until after the terminal/window-system setup code
3118 is loaded. This is a result of the order in which things are done
3119 during the startup of Emacs. For more details see question 135.
3120
3121 In order to postpone the execution of Emacs Lisp code until after the
3122 terminal/window-system setup, set the value of the variable
3123 term-setup-hook or window-setup-hook to be a function which does what
3124 you want.
3125
3126 See etc/OPTIONS for a complete explanation of what Emacs does every time
3127 it is started.
3128
3129 Here is a simple example of how to set term-setup-hook:
3130
3131 (setq term-setup-hook
3132 (function
3133 (lambda ()
3134 (cond ((string-match "\\`vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
3135 ;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x:
3136 (define-key CSI-map "29~" 'execute-extended-command))
3137 ))))
3138
3139 128: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
3140
3141 This depends on whether you are running Emacs inside a terminal emulator
3142 window, or whether you are allowing Emacs to create its own X window.
3143 You can tell which you are doing by noticing whether Emacs creates a new
3144 window when you start it.
3145
3146 If you are running Emacs inside a terminal emulator window, then it
3147 behaves exactly as it does on any other tty. In this case, for function
3148 keys to be useful, they must generate character sequences that are sent
3149 to the programs running inside the window as input. The `xterm' program
3150 has two different sets of character sequences that it generates when
3151 function keys are pressed, depending on the sunFunctionKeys X resource
3152 and the -sf and +sf command line options. (To find out what these key
3153 sequences are, see question 129.) In addition, with xterm,
3154 you can override what key sequence a specific function key (or any other
3155 key) will generate with the `translations' resource. This, for example:
3156
3157 XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \
3158 <KeyPress>F1: string(0x1b) string("[xyzzy")
3159
3160 makes the function key F1 generate the character sequence "ESC [xyzzy".
3161
3162 On the other hand, if Emacs is managing its own X window, the following
3163 description applies. Emacs receives `KeyPress' events from the X server
3164 when a key is pressed while the keyboard focus is in its window. The
3165 KeyPress event contains an X "keysym" code, which is simply an arbitrary
3166 number corresponding to the name of the keysym, and information on which
3167 "modifiers" such as `control' and `shift' are active. For example, the
3168 `Tab' keysym is 0xff09. (Generally, a key on the keyboard will generate a
3169 keysym whose name is the same as the label on the key, ie. the `Tab' key
3170 will normally generate the `Tab' keysym. This can be changed with the
3171 xmodmap program.) Emacs recognizes all the keysyms that correspond to
3172 standard ASCII characters and internally uses the ASCII character instead.
3173
3174 (WARNING: I am about to describe a gross, disgusting hack to you, have
3175 your barf bag ready.)
3176
3177 When Emacs receives the X keysym of one of the arrow keys, it behaves
3178 the same as if it had received a letter key with the control modifier
3179 down as follows (this is hard-coded):
3180
3181 Up becomes C-p
3182 Down becomes C-n
3183 Right becomes C-f
3184 Left becomes C-b
3185
3186 The way Emacs treats other keysyms depends on what kind of machine it was
3187 compiled on. The type of the display machine is irrelevant! Function
3188 keys are mapped internally to escape sequences, while other keys are
3189 completely ignored.
3190
3191 1. If compiled on a Sun, Emacs recognizes these X keysyms that
3192 are normally on a Sun keyboard:
3193
3194 F1 through F9
3195 L1 through L10 (same as F11 through F20)
3196 R1 through R15 (same as F21 through F35)
3197 (The keys labelled R8, R10, R12, and R14 usually are mapped to the
3198 X keysyms Up, Left, Right, and Down.)
3199 Break (the `Alternate' key is given this keysym)
3200
3201 These keys work like Sun function keys. When Emacs receives the
3202 keysym, it will internally use character sequences that look like "ESC
3203 [ ### z", where ### is replaced by a number. The character sequences
3204 are identical to those generated by Sun's keyboard under SunView. Any
3205 function key not listed above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
3206
3207 In order to use these key sequences, they should be bound to commands
3208 using the standard key binding methods, just as if Emacs were running
3209 on a regular terminal.
3210
3211 WARNING: F11 and L1 are the same keysym in X, as are F12 and L2, etc.
3212 {Yes, this is stupid. Complain to the X consortium.}
3213
3214 2. If not compiled on a Sun, the function keys will appear to Emacs in a
3215 way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard (used on
3216 some VT series terminals). These X keysyms will be recognized:
3217
3218 F1 through F20
3219 Help (treated same as F15)
3220 Menu (treated same as F16, is the LK201 `Do' key)
3221 Find
3222 Insert (LK201 `Insert Here' key)
3223 Select
3224 Prior (LK201 `Prev Screen' key *** ONLY IN 18.58 AND LATER ***)
3225 Next (LK201 `Next Screen' key *** ONLY IN 18.58 AND LATER ***)
3226
3227 And finally, the LK201 key labelled `Remove' (or `Delete') is often
3228 mapped to the Delete keysym which generates the DEL character (C-?)
3229 instead of the key sequence given by the LK201 `Remove' key. It may
3230 also be mapped to some other keysym, such as `_Remove', in which case
3231 you can't use it from within Emacs at all.
3232
3233 Each function key will be internally converted to a character sequence
3234 that looks like "ESC [ ## ~", where ## is replaced by a number. The
3235 character sequences are identical to those generated by a LK201
3236 keyboard. Any function key not listed above generates "ESC [ - 1 ~".
3237
3238 For the complete list of the numbers which are generated by the function
3239 keys, look in the file src/x11term.c at the definitions of the function
3240 stringFuncVal.
3241
3242 If you are running Emacs on a Sun machine, even if your X display is
3243 running on a non-Sun machine (eg., an X terminal), you get the setup
3244 described above for Suns. The determining factor is what type of
3245 machine Emacs is running (was compiled) on, not what type of machine
3246 your X display is on.
3247
3248 If you have function keys not listed above on your keyboard, you can use
3249 `xmodmap' to change their keysym assignments to get keys that Emacs will
3250 recognize, but that may screw up other programs.
3251
3252 X resources are not used by Emacs to affect the key sequences generated.
3253 In particular, there are no X key "translations" for Emacs.
3254
3255 If you have function keys not listed above and you don't want to use
3256 xmodmap to change their names, you might want to make a modification to
3257 your Emacs. Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> has made available a patch for Emacs
3258 that adds the x-rebind-key function of Epoch to Emacs 18.58. This allows
3259 another layer of key rebinding before Emacs even sees the keys, and in
3260 this layer you can rebind all of the keys and modifier combinations as
3261 well.
3262
3263 Anonymous FTP:
3264 /ftp.eu.net:gnu/emacs/FP-Xfun.Z
3265 /ftp.urc.tue.nl:pub/tex/emacs/FP-Xfun
3266
3267 Johan Vromans explains what this buys for you:
3268
3269 After implementing this, all keyboard keys can be configured to send
3270 user definable sequences, eg.,
3271
3272 (x-rebind-key "KP_F1" 0 "\033OP")
3273
3274 This will have the keypad key PF1 send the sequence "ESC O P", just like
3275 an ordinary VT series terminal.
3276
3277 129: How do I tell what characters my function or arrow keys emit?
3278
3279 Use this function by Randal L. Schwartz <merlyn@iwarp.intel.com>:
3280
3281 (defun see-chars ()
3282 "Displays characters typed, terminated by a 3-second timeout."
3283 (interactive)
3284 (let ((chars "")
3285 (inhibit-quit t))
3286 (message "Enter characters, terminated by 3-second timeout.")
3287 (while (not (sit-for 3))
3288 (setq chars (concat chars (list (read-char)))
3289 quit-flag nil)) ; quit-flag maybe set by C-g
3290 (message "Characters entered: %s" (key-description chars))))
3291
3292 Alternatively, use the "C-h l" view-lossage command, which will display
3293 the last 100 characters Emacs has seen in its input stream. Kevin
3294 Gallagher <kgallagh@digi.lonestar.org> suggests typing some unique string
3295 like "wxyz", typing the key in question, then typing "C-h l". The
3296 characters that appear between "wxyz" and "C-h l" were generated by the
3297 key.
3298
3299 130: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?
3300
3301 Sorry, you can't; there are no "translations" to be set. Emacs is not
3302 written using the Xt library. The only way to affect the behavior of keys
3303 within Emacs is through `xmodmap' (outside Emacs) or `define-key' (inside
3304 Emacs).
3305
3306 131: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?
3307
3308 C-s and C-q are used in the XON/XOFF flow control protocol. This screws
3309 up Emacs because it binds these characters to commands. Also, by default
3310 Emacs will not honor them as flow control characters and may overwhelm
3311 output buffers. Sometimes, intermediate software using XON/XOFF flow
3312 control will prevent Emacs from ever seeing C-s and C-q.
3313
3314 Possible solutions:
3315
3316 * Disable the use of C-s and C-q for flow control.
3317
3318 You need to determine what is the cause of the flow control.
3319
3320 * your terminal
3321
3322 Your terminal may use XON/XOFF flow control to have time to display
3323 all the characters it receives. For example, VT series terminals do
3324 this. It may be possible to turn this off from a setup menu. For
3325 example, on a VT220 you may select `No XOFF' in the setup menu. This
3326 is also true for some terminal emulation programs on PCs.
3327
3328 When you turn off flow control at the terminal, you will also need to
3329 turn it off at the other end, which might be at the computer you are
3330 logged in to or at some terminal server in between.
3331
3332 If you turn off flow control, characters may be lost; using a printer
3333 connected to the terminal may fail. You may be able to get around
3334 this problem by modifying the `termcap' entry for your terminal to
3335 include extra NUL padding characters.
3336
3337 * a modem
3338
3339 If you are using a dialup connection, the modems may be using XON/XOFF
3340 flow control. I don't know how to get around this.
3341
3342 * a router or terminal server
3343
3344 Some network box between the terminal and your computer may be using
3345 XON/XOFF flow control. It may be possible to make it use some other
3346 kind of flow control. You will probably have to ask your local
3347 network experts for help with this.
3348
3349 * tty and/or pty devices
3350
3351 If your connection to Emacs goes through multiple tty and/or pty
3352 devices, they may be using XON/XOFF flow control even when it is not
3353 necessary.
3354
3355 Eirik Fuller <eirik@theory.tn.cornell.edu> writes:
3356
3357 Some versions of `rlogin' (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
3358 control characters to the remote system to which they connect. On
3359 such systems, Emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow control
3360 on the local system. Sometimes `rlogin -8' will avoid this problem.
3361
3362 One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
3363 (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the stty
3364 command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems, `stty
3365 start u stop u' will do this.
3366
3367 Some versions of `tcsh' will prevent even this from working. One
3368 way around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin,
3369 and issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
3370
3371 Use `stty -ixon' instead of `stty start u stop u' on some systems.
3372
3373 * Make Emacs speak the XON/XOFF flow control protocol.
3374
3375 You can make Emacs treat C-s and C-q as flow control characters by
3376 evaluating this form:
3377
3378 (set-input-mode nil t)
3379
3380 If you are fixing this for yourself, simply put the form in your .emacs
3381 file. If you are fixing this for your entire site, the best place to
3382 put it is unclear. I don't know if this has any effect when used in
3383 lisp/site-init.el when building Emacs; I've never tried that. {Can
3384 someone tell me whether it works?} Putting things in users' .emacs files
3385 has a number of problems.
3386
3387 Putting this form in lisp/default.el has the problem that if the user's
3388 .emacs file has an error, this will prevent lisp/default.el from being
3389 loaded and Emacs may be unusable for the user, even for correcting their
3390 .emacs file (unless they're smart enough to move it to another name). A
3391 possible solution is to initially disable C-s and C-q by setting
3392 keyboard-translate-table in lisp/site-init.el, either with swap-keys
3393 (see question 136) or with the following form:
3394
3395 ;; by Roger Crew <crew@cs.stanford.edu>:
3396 (setq keyboard-translate-table
3397 "\C-@\C-a\C-b\C-c\C-d\C-e\C-f\C-g\C-h\C-i\C-j\C-k\C-l\C-m\C-n\C-o\C-p\C-^\C-r\C-\\\C-t\C-u\C-v\C-w\C-x\C-y\C-z\C-[\C-s\C-]\C-q\C-_")
3398
3399 This will at least prevent Emacs from being confused by the flow control
3400 characters, even if lisp/default.el cannot be loaded. Then, in
3401 lisp/default.el, enable XON/XOFF flow control with set-input-mode.
3402
3403 For further discussion of this issue, read the file PROBLEMS in the
3404 Emacs distribution.
3405
3406 132: How do I use commands bound to C-s and C-q (or any key) if these keys
3407 are filtered out?
3408
3409 I suggest swapping C-s with C-\ and C-q with C-^:
3410
3411 (swap-keys ?\C-s ?\C-\\)
3412 (swap-keys ?\C-q ?\C-^)
3413
3414 See question 136 for the implementation of swap-keys. This method
3415 has the advantage that it simultaneously swaps the characters everywhere
3416 throughout Emacs, while just switching the keybindings will miss important
3417 places where the character codes are stored (eg., the search-repeat-char
3418 variable, major mode keymaps, etc.).
3419
3420 To do this for an entire site, you may want to swap the keys in
3421 lisp/default.el. If only some of your users are connecting through
3422 XON/XOFF flow-controlled connections, you will want to do this
3423 conditionally. I suggest pre-swapping them in lisp/site-init.el when
3424 Emacs is built, and then in lisp/default.el, if it is determined to be
3425 safe, they can be reenabled (being careful not to screw up any other key
3426 mappings users might have established using keyboard-translate-table).
3427 See question 131 for an easy way to pre-swap these keys.
3428
3429 WARNING: If you do this for an entire site, the users will be confused by
3430 the disparity between what the documentation says and how Emacs actually
3431 behaves.
3432
3433 133: Why does the `BackSpace' key invoke help?
3434
3435 The BackSpace key (on every keyboard I've used) generates ASCII code 8.
3436 C-h sends the same code. In Emacs by default C-h invokes help-command.
3437 This is intended to be easy to remember since the first letter of "help"
3438 is "h". The easiest solution to this problem is to use C-h (and
3439 BackSpace) for help and DEL (the Delete key) for deleting the previous
3440 character.
3441
3442 For many people this solution may be problematic:
3443
3444 * They normally use BackSpace outside of Emacs for deleting the previous
3445 character typed. This can be solved by making DEL be the command for
3446 deleting the previous character outside of Emacs. This command will do
3447 this on many Unix systems:
3448
3449 stty erase '^?'
3450
3451 * The person may prefer using the BackSpace key for deleting the previous
3452 character because it is more conveniently located on their keyboard or
3453 because they don't even have a separate Delete key. In this case, the
3454 BackSpace key should be made to behave like Delete. There are several
3455 methods.
3456
3457 * Under X Windows, the easiest solution is to change the BackSpace key
3458 into a Delete key like this:
3459
3460 xmodmap -e "keysym BackSpace = Delete"
3461
3462 * Some terminals (eg., VT3## terminals) allow the character generated by
3463 the BackSpace key to be changed from a setup menu.
3464
3465 * You may be able to get a keyboard that is completely programmable.
3466
3467 * Under X or on a dumb terminal, it is possible to swap the BackSpace
3468 and Delete keys inside Emacs:
3469
3470 (swap-keys ?\C-h ?\C-?)
3471
3472 See question 136 for the implementation of swap-keys.
3473
3474 * Another approach is to switch keybindings and put help on "C-x h"
3475 instead:
3476
3477 (global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char)
3478 (global-set-key "\C-xh" 'help-command) ; override mark-whole-buffer
3479
3480 Other popular key bindings for help are M-? and "C-x ?".
3481
3482 WARNING: Don't try to bind DEL to help-command, because there are many
3483 modes that have local bindings of DEL that will interfere.
3484
3485 134: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?
3486
3487 Good question!
3488
3489 135: Why don't the arrow keys work?
3490
3491 When Emacs starts up, it doesn't know anything about arrow keys at all
3492 (except when running under X, see question 128). During the process of
3493 starting up, Emacs will load a terminal-specific initialization file for
3494 your terminal type (as determined by the environment variable TERM), if
3495 one exists. This file has the responsibility for enabling the arrow keys.
3496
3497 There are several things that can go wrong:
3498
3499 1. There is no initialization file for your terminal.
3500
3501 You can determine this by looking in the lisp/term directory. If your
3502 terminal type (as determined by the TERM environment variable) is
3503 xxx-yy-z, then the first of these files in the lisp/term directory will
3504 be loaded as the terminal-specific initialization file: xxx-yy-z.el,
3505 xxx-yy.el, or xxx.el.
3506
3507 There are two major cases of this problem:
3508
3509 * Your terminal type is very similar to one that has an init file.
3510
3511 In this case, there are several techniques suggested by Colin Jensen
3512 <cjensen@ampex.com>, Ben Liblit <Liblit@cs.psu.edu>, and Marc
3513 Auslander <marc@watson.ibm.com>:
3514
3515 A. Add a symbolic link in lisp/term for your terminal type that
3516 points to the similar type. For example, you could make VT102
3517 terminals work with this command:
3518
3519 ln -s vt100.el vt102.el
3520
3521 This fixes things for everyone on the system who uses the terminal
3522 type.
3523
3524 B. If you can't do the solution in part A, you can add code to your
3525 term-setup-hook that loads the correct file like this:
3526
3527 (setq term-setup-hook
3528 (function
3529 (lambda ()
3530 (cond ((equal "vt102" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
3531 (load (concat term-file-prefix "vt100")))
3532 (;; Code for other terminal types goes here ...
3533 )))))
3534
3535 C. If you use `tset' to set your TERM environment variable when you
3536 login, you can use the `-m' switch to tell tset to use a terminal
3537 type known by Emacs instead of another similar one. For example,
3538 specifying this:
3539
3540 tset ... -m 'dec-vt220:vt220' ...
3541
3542 will make tset say you are on a `vt220' instead of a `dec-vt220'.
3543
3544 D. Interactively, you can type "M-x load-library RET term/vt100" to
3545 load the terminal-specific initialization files for VT100
3546 terminals.
3547
3548 * Your terminal type is not similar to one that has an init file.
3549
3550 One can be made for your terminal, or you can just add code to your
3551 own .emacs to handle this problem for yourself. For example, if your
3552 terminal's arrow keys send these character sequences:
3553
3554 Up: ESC [ A
3555 Down: ESC [ B
3556 Right: ESC [ C
3557 Left: ESC [ D
3558
3559 then you can bind these keys to the appropriate commands with code in
3560 your .emacs like this:
3561
3562 (setq term-setup-hook
3563 (function
3564 (lambda ()
3565 (cond ((string-match "\\`xyzzy" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
3566 ;; First, must unmap the binding for left bracket
3567 (or (keymapp (lookup-key global-map "\e\["))
3568 (define-key global-map "\e\[" nil))
3569 ;; Enable terminal type xyzzy's arrow keys:
3570 (define-key global-map "\e\[A" 'previous-line)
3571 (define-key global-map "\e\[B" 'next-line)
3572 (define-key global-map "\e\[C" 'forward-char)
3573 (define-key global-map "\e\[D" 'backward-char))
3574 ((string-match "\\`abcde" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
3575 ;; Do something different for terminal type abcde
3576 ;; .....
3577 )))))
3578
3579 NOTE: You may have to restart Emacs to get changes to take effect.
3580
3581 NOTE: Your arrow keys may send sequences beginning with "ESC O" when
3582 Emacs is running, even if they send sequences beginning with "ESC [" at
3583 all other times. This is because Emacs uses any command there may be
3584 in your terminal's termcap entry for putting the terminal into
3585 "Application Keypad Mode". Just map these sequences the same way as
3586 above.
3587
3588 The next two cases are problems even if there is a initialization file for
3589 your terminal type.
3590
3591 2. The initialization file for your terminal doesn't bind arrow keys.
3592
3593 If your terminal type is `xterm', you will have to bind the arrow keys
3594 as in part 1 above, since the xterm.el file doesn't do anything useful.
3595 There may be other terminal types with the same problem.
3596
3597 3. Your terminal's arrow keys send individual control characters.
3598
3599 For example, the arrow keys on an ADM-3 send C-h, C-j, C-k, and C-l.
3600
3601 There is not much Emacs can do in this situation, since all the control
3602 characters except for C-^ and C-\ are already used as Emacs commands.
3603 It may be possible to convince the terminal to send something else when
3604 you press the arrow keys; it is worth investigating.
3605
3606 You have to make the hard choices of how to rebind keys to commands to
3607 make things work the way you want. Another alternative is to start
3608 learning the standard Emacs keybindings for moving point around: C-b,
3609 C-f, C-p, and C-n. Personally, I no longer use the arrow keys when
3610 editing because I have switched keyboards so many times.
3611
3612 4. Your terminal's arrow keys send sequences beginning with "ESC [".
3613
3614 Due to an extremely poor design decision (ie., these sequences are ANSI
3615 standard), none of the the terminal-specific initialization files that
3616 are distributed with Emacs will bind these character sequences to the
3617 appropriate commands by default. (This also applies to any other
3618 function keys which generate character sequences starting with "ESC
3619 [".) This is because it was deemed far more important to preserve the
3620 binding of M-[ to the backward-paragraph command. It appears that this
3621 will change in Emacs 19.
3622
3623 Some of the terminal-specific initialization files that come with Emacs
3624 provide a command enable-arrow-keys that will fix this problem. To get
3625 this automatically invoked, put this in your .emacs:
3626
3627 (setq term-setup-hook
3628 (function
3629 (lambda ()
3630 (if (fboundp 'enable-arrow-keys) (enable-arrow-keys)))))
3631
3632 We put this in our lisp/default.el file, so users don't have to worry
3633 about it:
3634
3635 ;; don't override a user's term-setup-hook
3636 (or term-setup-hook
3637 (setq term-setup-hook
3638 (function
3639 (lambda ()
3640 (and (fboundp 'enable-arrow-keys)
3641 ;; don't override a user key mapping
3642 (eq 'backward-paragraph (lookup-key esc-map "["))
3643 (enable-arrow-keys))))))
3644
3645 If your terminal type is `sun', you should put this in your .emacs
3646 instead (or in addition to the above):
3647
3648 (setq sun-esc-bracket t)
3649
3650 It is possible that the terminal-specific initialization file for your
3651 terminal type was written locally and does not follow the rule
3652 mentioned above. In this case you may need to inspect it to find out
3653 how to enable the arrow keys. (Actually, if it was written locally, it
3654 probably enables the arrow keys by default.)
3655
3656 136: How do I "swap" two keys?
3657
3658 When Emacs receives a character, you can make Emacs behave as though it
3659 received another character by setting the value of
3660 keyboard-translate-table. The following Emacs Lisp will do this for you,
3661 allowing you to "swap" keys. After arranging for this Lisp to be
3662 evaluated by Emacs, you can evaluate `(swap-keys ?A ?B)' to swap A and B.
3663
3664 (defun swap-keys (key1 key2)
3665 "Swap keys KEY1 and KEY2 using map-key."
3666 (map-key key1 key2)
3667 (map-key key2 key1))
3668
3669 (defun map-key (from to)
3670 "Make key FROM behave as though key TO was typed instead."
3671 (setq keyboard-translate-table
3672 (concat keyboard-translate-table
3673 (let* ((i (length keyboard-translate-table))
3674 (j from)
3675 (k i)
3676 (str (make-string (max 0 (- j (1- i))) ?X)))
3677 (while (<= k j)
3678 (aset str (- k i) k)
3679 (setq k (1+ k)))
3680 str)))
3681 (aset keyboard-translate-table from to)
3682 (let ((i (1- (length keyboard-translate-table))))
3683 (while (and (>= i 0) (eq (aref keyboard-translate-table i) i))
3684 (setq i (1- i)))
3685 (setq keyboard-translate-table
3686 (if (eq i -1)
3687 nil
3688 (substring keyboard-translate-table 0 (1+ i))))))
3689
3690 NOTE: You must evaluate the definition of these functions before calling
3691 them! For example, list the function definitions before their use in your
3692 .emacs file.
3693
3694 NOTE: These functions take two numbers as arguments. The example above,
3695 `(swap-keys ?A ?B)' is actually `(swap-keys 65 66)', because `?A' is
3696 merely notation for 65, the ASCII value of `A'.
3697
3698 NOTE: These functions only work for single characters. You cannot swap
3699 two multi-character sequences.
3700
3701 137: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?
3702
3703 For C-@ and C-^, often you can just type Control-2 and Control-6. For
3704 C-_, you may have to hold down the shift key, typing Control-Shift-Hyphen.
3705 C-@ can often be generated by typing Control-Space. C-@ is often called
3706 the NUL character, and has ASCII value 0. C-_ can often be generated by
3707 typing Control-7 or Control-/. C-? (aka DEL) may be generated by typing
3708 Shift-BackSpace or Control-BackSpace or a key labelled Delete or Del.
3709
3710 Try Control with all of the digits on your keyboard to see what gets
3711 generated.
3712
3713 138: What if I don't have a Meta key?
3714
3715 Instead of typing M-a, you can type "ESC a" instead. In fact, Emacs
3716 converts M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway (depending on the value of
3717 meta-prefix-char).
3718
3719 139: What if I don't have an Escape key?
3720
3721 Type C-[ instead. This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape
3722 key would. Try also C-;.
3723
3724 140: How do I type DEL on PC terminal emulators?
3725
3726 Some IBM PC compatibles do not have a key labeled `Del' or `Delete' {is
3727 this true?}. Those that do generally have it in an inconvenient location.
3728 (Also, in some terminal emulators, the `Del' key does not transmit DEL.)
3729 The result is the standard "BackSpace invoking help" problem (see question
3730 133).
3731
3732 The usual solution, suggested by Michael Covington
3733 <mcovingt@aisun1.ai.uga.edu>, is to somehow tell the terminal emulator
3734 program that BackSpace should transmit DEL. Read the program's manual.
3735 Shift-BackSpace or Control-BackSpace may send DEL. The `Del' key may only
3736 send DEL if the NumLock key hasn't been pressed.
3737
3738 141: Can I make my `Compose Character' key behave like a Meta key?
3739
3740 On a dumb terminal such as a VT220, no. It is rumored that certain VT220
3741 clones could have their Compose key configured this way. If you're using
3742 X, you might be able to do this with the `xmodmap' program (this is
3743 what I do).
3744
3745 142: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?
3746
3747 Unless you're using Emacs under emacstool (or xvetool?), have a working
3748 version of x-rebind-key (see question 128), or are using Emacs 19 (Lucid
3749 Emacs), you can't do this with Emacs alone.
3750
3751 If you are using emacstool, Emacs sees different character sequences for
3752 the combination of a modifier and a function key from what it sees for the
3753 function key alone. See etc/emacstool.1 for more information. Since
3754 Emacs sees different character sequences, you can bind these different
3755 sequences to different commands.
3756
3757 If you are running Emacs inside a terminal emulator window like xterm, you
3758 can modify its translation tables to make it generate different character
3759 sequences for the combination of a modifier and a function key. For
3760 example, this X resource setting:
3761
3762 XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \
3763 Shift<KeyPress>F1: string(0x1b) string("[xyzzy")
3764
3765 makes Shift-F1 generate the character sequence "ESC [ xyzzy". You can
3766 bind these character sequences in Emacs as normal. Nick Ruprecht
3767 <ruprecht@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> has written an extensive X
3768 translation mapping for xterm that does this. {Does this have an FTP
3769 site?}
3770
3771 If you have x-rebind-key, you can have any arbitrary combination of
3772 modifiers with a key replaced by any sequence of "normal" characters. For
3773 example, this makes Shift-Return behave as though you had typed "C-x C-e"
3774 (example from Jerry Graves):
3775
3776 (x-rebind-key "Return" 'shift "\C-x\C-e")
3777
3778 In Emacs 19 (Lucid Emacs), you can bind Meta-Left-Arrow like this (example
3779 from Jamie Zawinski):
3780
3781 (global-set-key '(meta left) 'backward-word)
3782
3783 With the last two methods, use `xmodmap' and `xev' to discover the keysym
3784 and modifier names.
3785
3786 143: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?
3787
3788 Try all of these methods before asking for further help:
3789
3790 * You may have big problems using `mwm' as your window manager. {Does
3791 anyone know a good generic solution to allow the use of the Meta key in
3792 Emacs with mwm?}
3793
3794 * For X11R4: Make sure it really is a Meta key. Use `xev' to find out
3795 what keysym your Meta key generates. It should be either Meta_L or
3796 Meta_R. If it isn't, use xmodmap to fix the situation.
3797
3798 * Make sure the pty the xterm is using is passing 8 bit characters.
3799 `stty -a' (or `stty everything') should show `cs8' somewhere. If it
3800 shows `cs7' instead, use `stty cs8 -istrip' (or `stty pass8') to fix
3801 it.
3802
3803 * If there is an rlogin connection between the xterm and the Emacs, the
3804 `-8' argument may need to be given to rlogin to make it pass all 8
3805 bits of every character.
3806
3807 * If the Emacs is running under Ultrix, it is reported that evaluating
3808 (set-input-mode t nil) helps.
3809
3810 * If all else fails, you can make xterm generate "ESC W" when you type
3811 M-W, which is the same conversion Emacs would make if it got the M-W
3812 anyway. In X11R4, the following resource specification will do this:
3813
3814 XTerm.VT100.EightBitInput: false
3815
3816 (This changes the behavior of the insert-eight-bit action.)
3817
3818 With older xterms, you can specify this behavior with a translation:
3819
3820 XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \
3821 Meta<KeyPress>: string(0x1b) insert()
3822
3823 You might have to replace `Meta' with `Alt'.
3824
3825 144: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0?
3826
3827 This is a result of an internationalization extension in X11R4 and the
3828 fact that HP is now using this extension. Emacs assumes that
3829 XLookupString returns the same result regardless of the Meta key state
3830 which is no longer necessarily true. Until Emacs is fixed, the temporary
3831 kludge is to run this command after each time the X server is started but
3832 preferably before any xterm clients are:
3833
3834 xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Mode_switch'
3835
3836 NOTE: This will disable the use of the extra keysyms systemwide, which
3837 may be undesirable if you actually intend to use them.
3838
3839 145: Where can I get key bindings to make Emacs emulate WordStar?
3840
3841 There is a package `wordstar' by Jim Frost <jimf@saber.com> and
3842 `ws-mode.el' by Juergen Nickelsen <nickel@cs.tu-berlin.de>. Check in the
3843 Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 89).
3844
3845 146: Where can I get an XEDIT emulator for Emacs?
3846
3847 This question comes up once every couple of months. I have never seen a
3848 positive reply, so I presume no one has ever written one.
3849
3850
3851
3852 Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets
3853
3854 147: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?
3855
3856 There is a patch called the `8-bit ctl-arrow patch' that allows Emacs to
3857 display characters with codes from 128 to 255. {The original appears to
3858 have been by Kenneth Cline <cline@proof.ergo.cs.cmu.edu>.} Partially based
3859 on Johan Widen's earlier work, Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> has updated this
3860 patch for Emacs 18.58 along with some other 8-bit improvements.
3861
3862 Anonymous FTP:
3863 /ftp.eu.net:gnu/emacs/FP-EightBit.Z
3864 /ftp.urc.tue.nl:/pub/tex/emacs/FP-EightBit
3865 /cs.purdue.edu:pub/ygz/cemacs.tar.Z:cemacs/8bit-patch-18.57
3866 /sics.se:archive/emacs-18.55-8bit-diff
3867 /laas.laas.fr:pub/emacs/patch-8bit-18.55
3868 /laas.laas.fr:pub/emacs/patch-8bit-18.57
3869
3870 Via e-mail:
3871 To: mail-server@sics.se
3872 body: send emacs-18.55-8bit-diff
3873
3874 Anders Edenbrandt <anderse@dna.lth.se> has produced a more comprehensive
3875 patch for Emacs 18.59 that allows for 8-bit input and output.
3876
3877 Anonymous FTP:
3878 /ftp.efd.lth.se:pub/gnu/emacs_8-bit.patch
3879
3880 In the words of the author:
3881
3882 With these patches, Emacs becomes fully 8-bit operational. There is
3883 support for displaying 8-bit characters, as well as for entering such
3884 characters from the keyboard. In addition, upcase/lowcase translation
3885 is supported, accented characters are recognized as "letters" (important
3886 when doing 'forward-word', for example), and text with 8-bit characters
3887 can be sorted correctly.
3888
3889 A Meta-shift key can still be used, provided that you run in an
3890 environment where it is possible to distinguish between a character
3891 entered using the Meta-shift key and one entered directly. The diffs
3892 include patches to make this work under SunView (with emacstool) as
3893 well as under X. If you can't use a Meta-shift key, you have to enter
3894 Meta-commands with the ESC-prefix.
3895
3896 The most comprehensive patches for 8-bit output are by Howard Gayle
3897 (originally for Emacs 18.55. These patches allow displaying any arbitrary
3898 string for a given 8-bit character (except TAB and C-j). Also supported
3899 is defining the sorting order and the uppercase and lowercase
3900 translations. It is reported that the 8-bit character support in Emacs 19
3901 is largely based on these patches. Thomas Bellman
3902 <Bellman@lysator.liu.se> has updated these patches for Emacs 18.59.
3903
3904 Anonymous FTP:
3905 /sics.se:archive/emacs-gayle.tar.Z (patches for 18.55)
3906 /ftp.lysator.liu.se:pub/emacs/gayle-18.58.diff.tar.Z (patches)
3907 /ftp.lysator.liu.se:pub/emacs/emacs-18.59-gayle.tar.Z (patched Emacs)
3908
3909 Epoch's 8-bit character support is based on Anders Edenbrandt's patches.
3910 Lucid Emacs has the ctl-arrow patch installed. Nemacs displays 8-bit
3911 characters, and it may be useful for displaying the 8-bit ISO-8859
3912 alphabet, but I don't know for sure (see question 149).
3913
3914 148: How do I input 8-bit characters?
3915
3916 Minor modes for ISO Latin-1 that allow one to easily input this character
3917 set have been written by several people. Such modes have been written by
3918 Matthieu Herrb <matthieu@laas.fr> (laas.laas.fr:pub/emacs/iso-latin-1.el),
3919 Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> {FTP site??}, and Marc Shapiro
3920 <shapiro@sor.inria.fr> {FTP site??}.
3921
3922 These approaches differ from the one taken by Anders Edenbrandt in that
3923 his method uses direct 8-bit input, while these methods use a compose
3924 sequence for 8-bit characters. {I have heard conflicting reports on
3925 whether this results in losing the Meta key. Perhaps this depends on
3926 whether Emacs is running under X. Can someone resolve this?}
3927
3928 Karl Heuer <karl@haddock.ima.isc.com> is said to have a patch to allow
3929 8-bit input. Georg-Wilhelm Koltermann <gwk@crmunich0.cray.com> also has a
3930 patch for either 18.57 or 18.58 that allows 8-bit input.
3931
3932 Epoch comes with a patch that allows it to input 8-bit characters, but it
3933 is not enabled by default. {Is this right?}
3934
3935 Jamie Zawinski says:
3936
3937 Lucid GNU Emacs allows the input of any ISO-8859/1 keysyms that your
3938 keyboard generates (see xmodmap), and contains a package that implements
3939 a DEC/OpenWindows-like "Compose" key for systems which don't have one.
3940
3941 149: Where can I get an Emacs that can handle kanji characters?
3942
3943 Nemacs 3.3.2 (Nihongo GNU Emacs) is a modified version of GNU Emacs 18.55
3944 that handles kanji characters. It is available via anonymous FTP:
3945
3946 /crl.nmsu.edu:pub/misc/nemacs-3.3.2.tar.Z
3947 /miki.cs.titech.ac.jp:JAPAN/nemacs/nemacs-3.3.2.tar.Z
3948
3949 You might also need files for "wnn", a kanji input method
3950 (wnn-4.0.3{-README,.tar.Z} {on which machine?}). You need a terminal (or
3951 terminal emulator) that can display text encoded in JIS, Shift-JIS, or EUC
3952 (Extended Unix Code), or the ability to run Nemacs as a direct X Window
3953 client.
3954
3955 150: Where can I get an Emacs that can handle Chinese?
3956
3957 `cemacs' by Stephen G. Simpson <simpson@math.psu.edu> is a patch to Emacs
3958 18.57 (the ctl-arrow patch) and some Emacs Lisp code that combined with
3959 Cxterm allows using Chinese characters. It is available via anonymous
3960 FTP:
3961
3962 /crl.nmsu.edu:pub/chinese/cemacs.tar.Z
3963 /cs.purdue.edu:pub/ygz/cemacs.tar.Z
3964
3965 Cxterm is available from the same place:
3966
3967 /cs.purdue.edu:pub/ygz/cxterm-11.5.1.tar.Z
3968
3969 151: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?
3970
3971 Joel M. Hoffman <joel@wam.umd.edu> writes:
3972
3973 A couple of years ago a wrote a hebrew.el file that allows right-to-left
3974 editing of Hebrew. I relied on the hardware to display the Hebrew
3975 letters, given the right codes, but not for any right-to-left support;
3976 the hardware also doesn't have to send any specific char. codes. Emacs
3977 keeps track of when the user is typing Hebrew vs. English. (The VT-*
3978 terminals in Israel contain built-in support for Hebrew.)
3979
3980 To get it to work I had to modify only a few lines of GNU Emacs's source
3981 code --- just enough to make it 8-bit clean.
3982
3983 [and in a separate message:]
3984
3985 It doesn't produce time-order ["sefer" format] (I wouldn't recommend
3986 trying that with emacs, because converting time-order to screen-order
3987 with arbitrarily long lines is a bit tricky), but I also concocted a
3988 quick filter to convert screen-order into time-order. I'll be happy to
3989 send you the requisite files if you want them. If you're using it for
3990 anything large, however, you'll want something that works better.
3991
3992 Joel Hoffman has also written a "bi-directional bi-lingual Emacs-like"
3993 editor for MS-DOS named Ibelbe (Itty Bitty Emacs-Like Bidirectional
3994 Editor). Ibelbe is written in Turbo Pascal and comes with source code.
3995 Here is the description:
3996
3997 Ibelbe looks like emacs (it even has a minibuffer and filename
3998 completion), and fully supports both right-to-left and left-to-right
3999 editing. Other than an EGA monitor or better, no special hardware is
4000 required. You will need an EGA Hebrew font to use Ibelbe with Hebrew.
4001
4002 Anonymous FTP:
4003 /israel.nysernet.org:israel/msdos/ibelbe.zip
4004 /israel.nysernet.org:israel/msdos/hebfont.zip
4005
4006 Joseph Friedman <yossi@deshaw.com, yossi@Neon.Stanford.EDU> has written
4007 patches for Emacs 18.55 and 18.58 that provide Semitic language support
4008 under X Windows.
4009
4010 Warren Burstein <warren@itex.jct.ac.il> says he has mapped 7-bit keys by
4011 modifying self-insert-command "for Hebrew input on 7-bit keyboards".
4012
4013 A good suggestion is to query archie for files named with `hebrew'.
4014
4015 GNU Emacs FAQ: Mail and News
4016
4017 This portion of the GNU Emacs FAQ list is cross-posted to `gnu.emacs.gnus'
4018 because many of the questions herein deal with GNUS. See `gnu.emacs.help' for
4019 the rest of the FAQ list.
4020
4021 If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x $" to
4022 get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look at the text
4023 of the answers, just type "C-x $".
4024
4025 To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a C-r if
4026 that doesn't work, then type ESC to end the search.
4027
4028 A `+' in the 78th column means something was inserted on the line. A `-' means
4029 something was deleted and a `!' means some combination of insertions and
4030 deletions occurred.
4031
4032 Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22. Also see the
4033 `Introduction to news.answers' posting in the `news.answers' newsgroup, or send
4034 e-mail to `mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu' with `help' on a body line, or use FTP,
4035 WAIS, or Prospero to rtfm.mit.edu.
4036
4037
4038
4039 Mail and News
4040
4041 152: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
4042
4043 Many people want Emacs to prefix included text with something like ` > '
4044 instead of with three spaces. One way is to change the code of the
4045 function `mail-yank-original' in lisp/sendmail.el that prefixes with
4046 spaces. A more flexible solution is to use Supercite, which provides wide
4047 configurability in how you format included text in replies. See question
4048 107. Both of these solutions work for RMAIL and GNUS.
4049
4050 A related problem is how to prevent Emacs from including various headers
4051 of the replied-to message. For this, you should set the value of
4052 mail-yank-ignored-headers, which takes a regexp value.
4053
4054 153: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
4055
4056 Two methods:
4057
4058 1. (setq mail-self-blind t) will result in a `BCC:' header line with your
4059 address being added to mail composition buffers. This will cause the
4060 mail system to send a copy of the mail back to you.
4061
4062 2. (setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing")) will
4063 result in an `FCC:' header line with the pathname of ~/outgoing being
4064 added to mail composition buffers. When you send the mail, Emacs will
4065 save a copy of the mail in the file ~/outgoing and then strip off the
4066 `FCC:' line before actually sending.
4067
4068 WARNING: There is a bug in Emacs 18.58 that prevents mail readers such
4069 as RMAIL from reading the saved mail messages individually. See
4070 question 155.
4071
4072 WARNING: If you are visiting the file ~/outgoing at the time you send
4073 the mail, this can cause a variety of horrible problems. Jamie
4074 Zawinski has written a solution for this.
4075
4076 It does not work to put `set record filename' in the .mailrc file.
4077
4078 154: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
4079
4080 * You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer
4081 with commas. This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses
4082 like this one:
4083
4084 To: Willy Smith <wks@xpnsv.lwyrs.com>
4085
4086 However, you do not need to separate addresses with commas in your
4087 .mailrc file.
4088
4089 WARNING: Emacs breaks up aliases in the .mailrc file into multiple
4090 addresses both on commas and on whitespace, regardless of any use of
4091 quotes. This is probably a bug. You can get around this by directly
4092 setting the value of mail-aliases.
4093
4094 * Emacs normally only reads the `.mailrc' file once per session, when you
4095 start to compose your first mail message. If you edit .mailrc, you can
4096 type "M-ESC (build-mail-aliases) RET" to make Emacs reread .mailrc.
4097 (You have to include the parentheses where they are shown!)
4098
4099 * Emacs does not interpret vendor-specific additions to the format of the
4100 .mailrc file such as the `source' command. It also ignores any `set'
4101 commands. The only commands it looks at are `alias' and `group'
4102 commands.
4103
4104 155: Why does RMAIL think all my saved messages are one big message?
4105
4106 There is a bug for FCC-ed messages in Emacs 18.58 where it adds a timezone
4107 on the "From " line after the year instead of before the year. (Before it
4108 didn't add the timezone at all.) This is incompatible with the standard
4109 format for the "From " line, and RMAIL in particular can no longer
4110 distinguish between the messages. Karl Berry <karl@cs.umb.edu>, Felix Lee
4111 <flee@cs.psu.edu>, Nick Gianniotis <nico@japan.sbi.com> and many
4112 others have all posted patches for this. Karl's is the simplest and just
4113 stops Emacs from adding the timezone:
4114
4115 >*** ./ORIG/sendmail.el Tue Jan 28 16:22:56 1992
4116 >--- ./sendmail.el Thu May 14 18:23:48 1992
4117 >***************
4118 >*** 285,287 ****
4119 > (insert "\nFrom " (user-login-name) " "
4120 >! (current-time-string) " " timezone "\n")
4121 > (insert-buffer-substring rmailbuf)
4122 >--- 285,287 ----
4123 > (insert "\nFrom " (user-login-name) " "
4124 >! (current-time-string) "\n")
4125 > (insert-buffer-substring rmailbuf)
4126
4127 156: How can I sort the messages in my RMAIL folder?
4128
4129 Use rmailsort.el by Masanobu Umeda.
4130
4131 157: Why does RMAIL need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
4132
4133 This is the behavior of the `movemail' program which RMAIL uses. This
4134 indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files.
4135
4136 RMS writes:
4137
4138 Certain systems require lock files to interlock access to mail files.
4139 On these systems, movemail must write lock files, or you risk losing
4140 mail. You simply must arrange to let movemail write them.
4141
4142 Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access. On these
4143 systems, you should configure movemail to use flock.
4144
4145 158: How do I recover my mail files after RMAIL munges their format?
4146
4147 Users who just want to try RMAIL out to see how it works end up trapped
4148 using it because saved mail in their `mbox' file has been converted into
4149 an incompatible format (BABYL) that only RMAIL understands. RMAIL
4150 provides no obvious way to reverse this transformation. Kyle Jones has
4151 aptly named this "the great Emacs Mail Eating Monster". To convert a mail
4152 file back to standard Unix format, there are several methods:
4153
4154 * Use the rmail-output ("C-o") command within RMAIL on each message in the
4155 file. First use M-x rmail or M-x rmail-input to visit the RMAIL file in
4156 Rmail mode. Type "1 j" to go to the first message. Use the C-o command
4157 to output the message to a Unix format file. Type "n" to go to the next
4158 message. Repeat.
4159
4160 * If the file contains hundreds of messages, you may not want to repeat
4161 this for all of them. Instead of the above, after getting to the first
4162 message type this (where "mbox" is the file you want to put the messages
4163 in):
4164
4165 C-x ( C-o mbox RET M-s ^From: RET M-0 C-x )
4166
4167 (The rmail-search command ("M-s") is used instead of just "n" because it
4168 is the only command which will cause an error when it reaches the last
4169 message in the file, which is necessary to terminate the keyboard macro.
4170 This will fail if there are messages in the file that don't have a
4171 `From:' header. This assumes rmail-delete-after-output is nil.)
4172
4173 It is wise to save a copy of the RMAIL file first, in case you make a
4174 mistake.
4175
4176 * There are software packages available for converting files or even
4177 entire directories of BABYL files to standard Unix format. These are
4178 helpful in this situation, but are intended mainly for people who have
4179 used RMAIL for a long time and are converting to some other mail reader.
4180 Lookup `rmail', `vm', and `babyl' in the Emacs Lisp Archive (see
4181 question 89).
4182
4183 You may wish to disable RMAIL to avoid accidentally destroying your mbox
4184 file (I have this in my .emacs):
4185
4186 (put 'rmail 'disabled t) ; avoid mbox destruction
4187
4188 159: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
4189
4190 Example:
4191
4192 emacs -f gnus
4193
4194 Also:
4195
4196 alias gnus 'emacs -f gnus'
4197
4198 It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader from
4199 your .emacs file. This would cause problems if you needed to run two
4200 copies of Emacs at one time. Also, this would make it difficult for you
4201 to start Emacs quickly when you needed to.
4202
4203 160: How do I read news under Emacs?
4204
4205 There are at least three news reading packages that operate inside Emacs.
4206 `rnews' comes with Emacs. GNUS and Gnews come separately. rnews will
4207 be replaced by GNUS in Emacs 19.
4208
4209 rnews works only with a local news spool directory. Both GNUS and Gnews
4210 handle reading news remotely via NNTP in addition to reading from a local
4211 news spool. GNUS supports reading mail stored in MH folders or articles
4212 saved by GNUS.
4213
4214 Gnews is styled after `rn' and seems to work like RMAIL. GNUS feels more
4215 like VM. People have complained that GNUS uses a lot of CPU time (it
4216 does). Some people have complained that Gnews is slower than GNUS.
4217
4218 For more information about GNUS, see question 108.
4219
4220 Gnews was written by Matthew P. Wiener <weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu>.
4221 The latest version seems to be 2.0, posted October 3, 1988. Matthew
4222 posted some fixes on October 26, 1988. Gnews does not appear to have been
4223 supported after this date. In particular, it has been reported that Gnews
4224 does not work with Emacs 18.57. There is a newsgroup for Gnews called
4225 gnu.emacs.gnews.
4226
4227 161: Why does `rnews' say "No News is good news" when there is news?
4228
4229 rnews doesn't speak NNTP. You may need to use GNUS or Gnews.
4230
4231 162: Why doesn't GNUS work anymore via NNTP?
4232
4233 There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests
4234 are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before
4235 blocking waiting for more input which never comes. NNTP version 1.5.11
4236 claims to fix this.
4237
4238 You can work around the bug inside Emacs like this:
4239
4240 (setq nntp-maximum-request 1)
4241
4242 I also have a patch for NNTP 1.5.10 by Mike Pelletier
4243 <stealth@engin.umich.edu> that is based on the timeout code that was in
4244 1.5.9. However, please try to upgrade to 1.5.11 first.
4245
4246 You can find out what version of NNTP your news server is running by
4247 telnetting to the NNTP port (usually 119) on the news server machine (ie.,
4248 `telnet server-machine 119'). The server should give its version number
4249 in the welcome message. Type `quit' to get out.
4250
4251 163: How do I view text with embedded underlining (eg., ClariNews)?
4252
4253 Underlining appears like this:
4254
4255 _^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg
4256
4257 You can destructively remove underlining with M-x ununderline-region.
4258
4259 For ClariNews articles, clari-clean.el by David N. Blank-Edelman
4260 <dnb@meshugge.media.mit.edu> will remove both underlining and overstriking
4261 automatically.
4262
4263 164: When I try to post a long article in GNUS (about 10K or longer), I get
4264 the error, "Writing to process: no more processes, nntpd"
4265
4266 Upgrade to Emacs 18.58 or higher.
4267
4268 165: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in GNUS?
4269
4270 Use gnus-mark.el by Jamie Zawinski <jwz@lucid.com>.
4271
4272 166: Why does GNUS put the subjects in replies beyond the 80th column?
4273
4274 This is a feature. If you set gnus-thread-hide-subject to non-nil, GNUS
4275 will only display the subject of the first posting in a thread, even if
4276 some of the replies use different subjects. It hides the subjects by
4277 putting them past the edge of the window and setting truncate lines to t.
4278
4279 If your screen looks messed up, then for some reason truncate-lines in
4280 your `*Subject*' buffer has been set to nil. It should be set to t.
4281
4282 (I have an enhancement to GNUS 3.13 that will make it only hide the subject
4283 of a posting when it is unchanged from the followed-up-to posting. Thus,
4284 you can use the subject hiding feature and still know when someone changes
4285 the subject. (I have forgotten who originally gave me the idea for this.))
4286
4287 167: Why is GNUS so slow to start up?
4288
4289 GNUS does several things that take quadratic time of the number of
4290 newsgroups that are listed in .newsrc. The quick fix for this is to
4291 remove all the newsgroups in which you have no interest from your .newrc
4292 file by using GNUS's C-k command in the `*Newsgroup*' buffer after
4293 displaying all newsgroups with the L command. If you were to directly
4294 edit your .newsrc to remove the newsgroups, GNUS would add them back.
4295
4296 GNUS uses a quadratic algorithm to check for duplicates when the .newsrc
4297 file is newer than the .newsrc.el file (ie., you edited your .newsrc).
4298 GNUS uses a quadratic algorithm to check for new newsgroups every time it
4299 connects to the news server. {There may be other quadratic algorithms
4300 that I am not aware of.}
4301
4302 You can speed up GNUS by using the C-k command in the *Newsgroup* buffer
4303 to remove newsgroups from your .newsrc file.
4304
4305 Of course, GNUS will run faster if you make sure it is byte-compiled.
4306
4307 Felix Lee wrote some enhancements called `gnus-speedups.el' that fix some
4308 of the problems. See the Emacs Lisp Archive.
4309
4310 168: How do I catch up all newsgroups in GNUS?
4311
4312 In the `*Newsgroup*' buffer, type the following magical incantation:
4313
4314 M-< C-x ( C-@ c y C-u C-@ C-e C-f C-f M-0 C-x )
4315
4316 Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of
4317 the `*Newsgroup' buffer.
4318
4319 169: Why can't I kill in GNUS on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control line?
4320
4321 GNUS 3.14.1 will complain that the `Newsgroups:', `Keywords:', and
4322 `Control:' headers are `Unknown header field's.
4323
4324 For the `Newsgroups:' header, there is an easy workaround: kill on the
4325 `Xref' header instead, which will be present on any cross-posted article.
4326
4327 If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like
4328 this:
4329
4330 (gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\\(bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\\)")
4331
4332 Various people (eg., Greg Holley <holley@acuson.com>) have posted
4333 solutions to allow more efficient killing on these headers than the
4334 preceding solution. Masanobu Umeda plans to fix this problem.
4335
4336 170: How do I get rid of flashing messages in GNUS for slow connections?
4337
4338 GNUS outputs "NNTP: Reading..." message and then clears them, over and
4339 over. In version 3.14.1 there is a variable named nntp-debug-read that
4340 can help. Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> wrote a fix. Others have also written
4341 fixes.
4342
4343 171: Why is catch up slow in Gnews/GNUS?
4344
4345 Because GNUS is marking crosspostings read. {I think it should do this at
4346 the time the article is read to spread out the load. Maybe someone will
4347 write the code to do this.}
4348
4349 172: Why does GNUS hang for a long time when posting?
4350
4351 David Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net> explains:
4352
4353 The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News. NNTP
4354 POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang around
4355 and give its exit status so it knows whether the post was successful.
4356 (That wait will on some systems not return the exit status of the
4357 waited for job is a different sort of problem.) It ends up taking a
4358 long time because inews is calling relaynews, which often waits for
4359 another relaynews to free the lock on the news system so it can file the
4360 article.
4361
4362 My preferred solution is to change inews to not call relaynews, but
4363 rather use newsspool. This loses some error-catching functionality, but
4364 is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors on
4365 its own. The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should look
4366 better to most folks as that update propagates around.
4367
4368 173: Why don't my news postings in GNUS get past the local machine?
4369
4370 Three possible reasons: local distribution, C News date problem (see
4371 question 174, and the path problem. This piece of code may fix the path
4372 problem for you:
4373
4374 (setq gnus-use-generic-path t)
4375
4376 174: Why is the GNUS-generated `Date:' header invalid?
4377
4378 GNUS generates `Date:' headers without time zones. C-News's `inews'
4379 doesn't replace it with a valid header, but will generate it if not
4380 already there. If it is invalid, the article will not be forwarded
4381 properly. Quick fix:
4382
4383 (defun gnus-inews-date () nil)
4384
4385 This is not fixed as of GNUS 3.14.1.
4386
4387 175: Why doesn't GNUS generate the `Lines:' header?
4388
4389 GNUS was written for B news, which would generate the `Lines:' header. C
4390 news doesn't. There is a comment in C news's `inews' that you can
4391 uncomment to enable this functionality. Or you can have GNUS generate the
4392 header, for example:
4393
4394 ;; idea by jbryans@beach.csulb.edu (Jack Bryans)
4395 (defun add-lines-header ()
4396 ;; Count the number of lines in the current posting and insert the
4397 ;; header line Lines into the message.
4398 (save-excursion
4399 (goto-char (point-min))
4400 (if (search-forward "\n\n") ;; ***** I suspect this is wrong *****
4401 (let ((lines (count-lines (point) (point-max))))
4402 (forward-line -1)
4403 (insert-string "Lines: " lines "\n")))))
4404
4405 Mike Williams <mike-w@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> has written something similar.
4406
4407 Ronald Florence <ron@mlfarm.com> has a patch for GNUS that makes it
4408 calculate the `Lines:' header for incoming articles when necessary that
4409 works for sites with local news spools.
4410
4411 David Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net> says that GNUS 3.14.1 generates Lines
4412 if gnus-news-system is Cnews.
4413
4414 176: Why do I get "Cannot open load file" "nntp" when compiling GNUS?
4415
4416 Specifically, the error message is this:
4417
4418 Error occurred processing gnus.el: File error (("Cannot open load file" "nntp"))
4419
4420 This means that nntp.el is not in Emacs's load-path, which is easy to
4421 happen when compiling using the Makefile.
4422
4423 Easiest solution: set EMACSLOADPATH in Makefile (idea from Glenn Gribble
4424 <glenn@netcom.com>):
4425
4426 EMACSLOADPATH=/usr/local/emacs/lisp:.
4427 ELC= env EMACSLOADPATH=$(EMACSLOADPATH) emacs -batch -f batch-byte-compile
4428
4429 Another solution, in hack.el put this:
4430
4431 (defun gross-hack () (setq load-path (cons "/directory" load-path)))
4432
4433 Then in Makefile:
4434
4435 ELC= emacs -batch -l hack.el -f gross-hack -f batch-byte-compile
4436
4437 177: How do I kill all articles in GNUS but those matching a pattern?
4438
4439 Example:
4440
4441 ;; kill everything
4442 (gnus-kill "subject" "" nil nil)
4443 ;; then restore stuff by our favorite poster
4444 (gnus-kill "from" "good-guy"
4445 (function
4446 (lambda ()
4447 (if (eq ?X (char-after (save-excursion
4448 (beginning-of-line 1)
4449 (point))))
4450 (gnus-Subject-clear-mark-forward 1))))
4451 t)
4452
4453
4454
4455 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4456 Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992 Joseph Brian Wells
4457 Copyright (C) 1992, 1993 Steven Byrnes
4458
4459 This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers
4460 ("FAQ") may be translated into other languages, transformed into other
4461 formats (e.g. Texinfo, Info, WWW, WAIS, etc.), and updated with new
4462 information. The same conditions apply to any derivative of the FAQ as
4463 apply to the FAQ itself. Every copy of the FAQ must include this notice
4464 or an approved translation, information on who is currently maintaining
4465 the FAQ and how to contact them (including their e-mail address), and
4466 information on where the latest version of the FAQ is archived (including
4467 FTP information). The FAQ may be copied and redistributed under these
4468 conditions, except that the FAQ may not be embedded in a larger literary
4469 work unless that work itself allows free copying and redistribution.