July 1994
(General Public License upgraded, January 1991)
Richard Stallman
Lucid, Inc.
and
Ben Wing
Copyright © 1985, 1986, 1988 Richard M. Stallman.
Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Lucid, Inc.
Copyright © 1993, 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Copyright © 1995 Amdahl Corporation.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections entitled “The GNU Manifesto”, “Distribution” and “GNU General Public License” are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that the sections entitled “The GNU Manifesto”, “Distribution” and “GNU General Public License” may be included in a translation approved by the author instead of in the original English.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE | The GNU General Public License gives you permission to redistribute XEmacs on certain terms; and also explains that there is no warranty. | |
Distribution | How to get XEmacs. | |
Introduction | An introduction to XEmacs concepts. | |
• Glossary | The glossary. | |
• Manifesto | What’s GNU? Gnu’s Not Unix! | |
Indices, nodes containing large menus | ||
---|---|---|
Key (Character) Index | An item for each standard XEmacs key sequence. | |
Command and Function Index | An item for each command name. | |
Variable Index | An item for each documented variable. | |
Concept Index | An item for each concept. | |
Important General Concepts | ||
• Frame | How to interpret what you see on the screen. | |
• Keystrokes | Keyboard gestures XEmacs recognizes. | |
• Pull-down Menus | The XEmacs Pull-down Menus available under X. | |
• Entering Emacs | Starting Emacs from the shell. | |
• Exiting | Stopping or killing XEmacs. | |
• Command Switches | Hairy startup options. | |
Fundamental Editing Commands | ||
• Basic | The most basic editing commands. | |
• Undo | Undoing recently made changes in the text. | |
• Minibuffer | Entering arguments that are prompted for. | |
• M-x | Invoking commands by their names. | |
• Help | Commands for asking XEmacs about its commands. | |
Important Text-Changing Commands | ||
• Mark | The mark: how to delimit a “region” of text. | |
• Mouse Selection | Selecting text with the mouse. | |
• Additional Mouse Operations | Other operations available from the mouse. | |
• Killing | Killing text. | |
• Yanking | Recovering killed text. Moving text. | |
• Using X Selections | Using primary selection, cut buffers, and highlighted regions. | |
• Accumulating Text | Other ways of copying text. | |
• Rectangles | Operating on the text inside a rectangle on the screen. | |
• Registers | Saving a text string or a location in the buffer. | |
• Display | Controlling what text is displayed. | |
• Search | Finding or replacing occurrences of a string. | |
• Fixit | Commands especially useful for fixing typos. | |
Larger Units of Text | ||
• Files | All about handling files. | |
• Buffers | Multiple buffers; editing several files at once. | |
• Windows | Viewing two pieces of text at once. | |
Advanced Features | ||
• Major Modes | Text mode vs. Lisp mode vs. C mode ... | |
• Indentation | Editing the white space at the beginnings of lines. | |
• Text | Commands and modes for editing English. | |
• Programs | Commands and modes for editing programs. | |
• Running | Compiling, running and debugging programs. | |
• Abbrevs | How to define text abbreviations to reduce the number of characters you must type. | |
• Picture | Editing pictures made up of characters using the quarter-plane screen model. | |
• Sending Mail | Sending mail in XEmacs. | |
• Reading Mail | Reading mail in XEmacs. | |
• Calendar/Diary | A Calendar and diary facility in XEmacs. | |
• Sorting | Sorting lines, paragraphs or pages within XEmacs. | |
• Shell | Executing shell commands from XEmacs. | |
• Narrowing | Restricting display and editing to a portion of the buffer. | |
• Hardcopy | Printing buffers or regions. | |
• Recursive Edit | A command can allow you to do editing "within the command". This is called a ‘recursive editing level’. | |
• Dissociated Press | Dissociating text for fun. | |
• CONX | A different kind of dissociation. | |
• Amusements | Various games and hacks. | |
• Emulation | Emulating some other editors with XEmacs. | |
• Customization | Modifying the behavior of XEmacs. | |
Recovery from Problems. | ||
• Quitting | Quitting and aborting. | |
• Lossage | What to do if XEmacs is hung or malfunctioning. | |
• Bugs | How and when to report a bug. | |
Here are some other nodes which are really inferiors of the ones already listed, mentioned here so you can get to them in one step: — The Detailed Node Listing — The Organization of the Frame | ||
• Point | The place in the text where editing commands operate. | |
• Echo Area | Short messages appear at the bottom of the frame. | |
• Mode Line | Interpreting the mode line. | |
• XEmacs under X | Some information on using XEmacs under the X Window System. | |
Keystrokes | ||
• Intro to Keystrokes | Keystrokes as building blocks of key sequences. | |
• Representing Keystrokes | Using lists of modifiers and keysyms to represent keystrokes. | |
• Key Sequences | Combine key strokes into key sequences you can bind to commands. | |
• String Key Sequences | Available for upward compatibility. | |
• Meta Key | Using <ESC> to represent <Meta> | |
• Super and Hyper Keys | Adding modifier keys on certain keyboards. | |
• Character Representation | How characters appear in XEmacs buffers. | |
• Commands | How commands are bound to key sequences. | |
Pull-down Menus | ||
• File Menu | Items on the File menu. | |
• Edit Menu | Items on the Edit menu. | |
• Buffers Menu | Information about the Buffers menu | |
• Help Menu | Items on the Help menu. | |
• Menu Customization | Adding and removing menu items and related operations. | |
Basic Editing Commands | ||
• Blank Lines | Commands to make or delete blank lines. | |
• Continuation Lines | Lines too wide for the frame. | |
• Position Info | What page, line, row, or column is point on? | |
• Arguments | Numeric arguments for repeating a command. | |
The Minibuffer | ||
• File | Entering file names with the minibuffer. | |
• Edit | How to edit in the minibuffer. | |
• Completion | An abbreviation facility for minibuffer input. | |
• Repetition | Re-executing commands that used the minibuffer. | |
The Mark and the Region | ||
• Setting Mark | Commands to set the mark. | |
• Using Region | Summary of ways to operate on contents of the region. | |
• Marking Objects | Commands to put region around textual units. | |
• Mark Ring | Previous mark positions saved so you can go back there. | |
Yanking | ||
• Kill Ring | Where killed text is stored. Basic yanking. | |
• Appending Kills | Several kills in a row all yank together. | |
• Earlier Kills | Yanking something killed some time ago. | |
Using X Selections | ||
• X Clipboard Selection | Pasting to the X clipboard. | |
• X Selection Commands | Other operations on the selection. | |
• X Cut Buffers | X cut buffers are available for compatibility. | |
• Active Regions | Using zmacs-style highlighting of the selected region. | |
Registers | ||
• RegPos | Saving positions in registers. | |
• RegText | Saving text in registers. | |
• RegRect | Saving rectangles in registers. | |
Controlling the Display | ||
• Scrolling | Moving text up and down in a window. | |
• Horizontal Scrolling | Moving text left and right in a window. | |
• Selective Display | Hiding lines with lots of indentation. | |
• Display Vars | Information on variables for customizing display. | |
Searching and Replacement | ||
• Incremental Search | Search happens as you type the string. | |
• Non-Incremental Search | Specify entire string and then search. | |
• Word Search | Search for sequence of words. | |
• Regexp Search | Search for match for a regexp. | |
• Regexps | Syntax of regular expressions. | |
• Search Case | To ignore case while searching, or not. | |
• Replace | Search, and replace some or all matches. | |
• Other Repeating Search | Operating on all matches for some regexp. | |
Replacement Commands | ||
• Unconditional Replace | Replacing all matches for a string. | |
• Regexp Replace | Replacing all matches for a regexp. | |
• Replacement and Case | How replacements preserve case of letters. | |
• Query Replace | How to use querying. | |
Commands for Fixing Typos | ||
• Kill Errors | Commands to kill a batch of recently entered text. | |
• Transpose | Exchanging two characters, words, lines, lists... | |
• Fixing Case | Correcting case of last word entered. | |
• Spelling | Apply spelling checker to a word, or a whole file. | |
File Handling | ||
• File Names | How to type and edit file name arguments. | |
• Visiting | Visiting a file prepares XEmacs to edit the file. | |
• Saving | Saving makes your changes permanent. | |
• Reverting | Reverting cancels all the changes not saved. | |
• Auto Save | Auto Save periodically protects against loss of data. | |
• Version Control | Version control systems (RCS and SCCS). | |
• ListDir | Listing the contents of a file directory. | |
• Comparing Files | Finding where two files differ. | |
• Dired | “Editing” a directory to delete, rename, etc. the files in it. | |
• Misc File Ops | Other things you can do on files. | |
Saving Files | ||
• Backup | How XEmacs saves the old version of your file. | |
• Interlocking | How XEmacs protects against simultaneous editing of one file by two users. | |
Backup Files | ||
• Names | How backup files are named; Choosing single or numbered backup files. | |
• Deletion | XEmacs deletes excess numbered backups. | |
• Copying | Backups can be made by copying or renaming. | |
Auto-Saving: Protection Against Disasters | ||
• Files | ||
• Control | ||
• Recover | Recovering text from auto-save files. | |
Version Control | ||
• Concepts of VC | Basic version control information; checking files in and out. | |
• Editing with VC | Commands for editing a file maintained with version control. | |
• Variables for Check-in/out | Variables that affect the commands used to check files in or out. | |
• Log Entries | Logging your changes. | |
• Change Logs and VC | Generating a change log file from log entries. | |
• Old Versions | Examining and comparing old versions. | |
• VC Status | Commands to view the VC status of files and look at log entries. | |
• Renaming and VC | A command to rename both the source and master file correctly. | |
• Snapshots | How to make and use snapshots, a set of file versions that can be treated as a unit. | |
• Version Headers | Inserting version control headers into working files. | |
Snapshots | ||
• Making Snapshots | The snapshot facilities. | |
• Snapshot Caveats | Things to be careful of when using snapshots. | |
Dired, the Directory Editor | ||
• Enter | How to invoke Dired. | |
• Edit | Editing the Dired buffer. | |
• Deletion | Deleting files with Dired. | |
• Immed | Other file operations through Dired. | |
Using Multiple Buffers | ||
• Select Buffer | Creating a new buffer or reselecting an old one. | |
• List Buffers | Getting a list of buffers that exist. | |
• Misc Buffer | Renaming; changing read-onliness; copying text. | |
• Kill Buffer | Killing buffers you no longer need. | |
• Several Buffers | How to go through the list of all buffers and operate variously on several of them. | |
Multiple Windows | ||
• Basic Window | Introduction to XEmacs windows. | |
• Split Window | New windows are made by splitting existing windows. | |
• Other Window | Moving to another window or doing something to it. | |
• Pop Up Window | Finding a file or buffer in another window. | |
• Change Window | Deleting windows and changing their sizes. | |
Major Modes | ||
• Choosing Modes | How major modes are specified or chosen. | |
Indentation | ||
• Indentation Commands | Various commands and techniques for indentation. | |
• Tab Stops | You can set arbitrary "tab stops" and then indent to the next tab stop when you want to. | |
• Just Spaces | You can request indentation using just spaces. | |
Commands for Human Languages | ||
• Text Mode | The major modes for editing text files. | |
• Nroff Mode | The major mode for editing input to the formatter nroff. | |
• TeX Mode | The major modes for editing input to the formatter TeX. | |
• Outline Mode | The major mode for editing outlines. | |
• Words | Moving over and killing words. | |
• Sentences | Moving over and killing sentences. | |
• Paragraphs | Moving over paragraphs. | |
• Pages | Moving over pages. | |
• Filling | Filling or justifying text | |
• Case | Changing the case of text | |
TeX Mode | ||
• Editing | Special commands for editing in TeX mode. | |
• Printing | Commands for printing part of a file with TeX. | |
Outline Mode | ||
• Format | What the text of an outline looks like. | |
• Motion | Special commands for moving through outlines. | |
• Visibility | Commands to control what is visible. | |
Filling Text | ||
• Auto Fill | Auto Fill mode breaks long lines automatically. | |
• Fill Commands | Commands to refill paragraphs and center lines. | |
• Fill Prefix | Filling when every line is indented or in a comment, etc. | |
Editing Programs | ||
• Program Modes | Major modes for editing programs. | |
• Lists | Expressions with balanced parentheses. There are editing commands to operate on them. | |
• Defuns | Each program is made up of separate functions. There are editing commands to operate on them. | |
• Grinding | Adjusting indentation to show the nesting. | |
• Matching | Insertion of a close-delimiter flashes matching open. | |
• Comments | Inserting, filling and aligning comments. | |
• Balanced Editing | Inserting two matching parentheses at once, etc. | |
• Lisp Completion | Completion on symbol names in Lisp code. | |
• Documentation | Getting documentation of functions you plan to call. | |
• Change Log | Maintaining a change history for your program. | |
• Tags | Go directly to any function in your program in one command. Tags remembers which file it is in. | |
• Fortran | Fortran mode and its special features. | |
• Asm Mode | Asm mode and its special features. | |
Indentation for Programs | ||
• Basic Indent | ||
• Multi-line Indent | Commands to reindent many lines at once. | |
• Lisp Indent | Specifying how each Lisp function should be indented. | |
• C Indent | Choosing an indentation style for C code. | |
Tag Tables | ||
• Tag Syntax | ||
• Create Tag Table | ||
• Select Tag Table | ||
• Find Tag | ||
• Tags Search | ||
• Tags Stepping | ||
• List Tags | ||
Fortran Mode | ||
• Motion | Moving point by statements or subprograms. | |
• Indent | Indentation commands for Fortran. | |
• Comments | Inserting and aligning comments. | |
• Columns | Measuring columns for valid Fortran. | |
• Abbrev | Built-in abbrevs for Fortran keywords. | |
Fortran Indentation | ||
• Commands | Commands for indenting Fortran. | |
• Numbers | How line numbers auto-indent. | |
• Conv | Conventions you must obey to avoid trouble. | |
• Vars | Variables controlling Fortran indent style. | |
Compiling and Testing Programs | ||
• Compilation | Compiling programs in languages other than Lisp (C, Pascal, etc.) | |
• Modes | Various modes for editing Lisp programs, with different facilities for running the Lisp programs. | |
• Libraries | Creating Lisp programs to run in XEmacs. | |
• Eval | Executing a single Lisp expression in XEmacs. | |
• Debug | Debugging Lisp programs running in XEmacs. | |
• Interaction | Executing Lisp in an XEmacs buffer. | |
• External Lisp | Communicating through XEmacs with a separate Lisp. | |
Lisp Libraries | ||
• Loading | Loading libraries of Lisp code into XEmacs for use. | |
• Compiling Libraries | Compiling a library makes it load and run faster. | |
• Mocklisp | Converting Mocklisp to Lisp so XEmacs can run it. | |
Abbrevs | ||
• Defining Abbrevs | Defining an abbrev, so it will expand when typed. | |
• Expanding Abbrevs | Controlling expansion: prefixes, canceling expansion. | |
• Editing Abbrevs | Viewing or editing the entire list of defined abbrevs. | |
• Saving Abbrevs | Saving the entire list of abbrevs for another session. | |
• Dynamic Abbrevs | Abbreviations for words already in the buffer. | |
Editing Pictures | ||
• Basic Picture | Basic concepts and simple commands of Picture Mode. | |
• Insert in Picture | Controlling direction of cursor motion after "self-inserting" characters. | |
• Tabs in Picture | Various features for tab stops and indentation. | |
• Rectangles in Picture | Clearing and superimposing rectangles. | |
Sending Mail | ||
• Format | Format of the mail being composed. | |
• Headers | Details of allowed mail header fields. | |
• Mode | Special commands for editing mail being composed. | |
Running Shell Commands from XEmacs | ||
• Single Shell | How to run one shell command and return. | |
• Interactive Shell | Permanent shell taking input via XEmacs. | |
• Shell Mode | Special XEmacs commands used with permanent shell. | |
Customization | ||
• Minor Modes | Each minor mode is one feature you can turn on independently of any others. | |
• Variables | Many XEmacs commands examine XEmacs variables to decide what to do; by setting variables, you can control their functioning. | |
• Keyboard Macros | A keyboard macro records a sequence of keystrokes to be replayed with a single command. | |
• Key Bindings | The keymaps say what command each key runs. By changing them, you can "redefine keys". | |
• Syntax | The syntax table controls how words and expressions are parsed. | |
• Init File | How to write common customizations in the ‘.emacs’ file. | |
• Audible Bell | Changing how XEmacs sounds the bell. | |
• Faces | Changing the fonts and colors of a region of text. | |
Variables | ||
• Examining | Examining or setting one variable’s value. | |
• Edit Options | Examining or editing list of all variables’ values. | |
• Locals | Per-buffer values of variables. | |
• File Variables | How files can specify variable values. | |
Keyboard Macros | ||
• Basic Kbd Macro | Defining and running keyboard macros. | |
• Save Kbd Macro | Giving keyboard macros names; saving them in files. | |
• Kbd Macro Query | Keyboard macros that do different things each use. | |
Customizing Key Bindings | ||
• Keymaps | Definition of the keymap data structure. Names of XEmacs’s standard keymaps. | |
• Rebinding | How to redefine one key’s meaning conveniently. | |
• Disabling | Disabling a command means confirmation is required before it can be executed. This is done to protect beginners from surprises. | |
The Syntax Table | ||
• Entry | What the syntax table records for each character. | |
• Change | How to change the information. | |
The Init File, ‘~/.emacs’ | ||
• Init Syntax | Syntax of constants in Emacs Lisp. | |
• Init Examples | How to do some things with an init file. | |
• Terminal Init | Each terminal type can have an init file. | |
Dealing with XEmacs Trouble | ||
• Stuck Recursive | ‘[...]’ in mode line around the parentheses. | |
• Screen Garbled | Garbage on the screen. | |
• Text Garbled | Garbage in the text. | |
• Unasked-for Search | Spontaneous entry to incremental search. | |
• Emergency Escape | Emergency escape— What to do if XEmacs stops responding. | |
• Total Frustration | When you are at your wits’ end. | |
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
Version 1, February 1989
Copyright © 1989 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The license agreements of most software companies try to keep users at the mercy of those companies. By contrast, our General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software—to make sure the software is free for all its users. The General Public License applies to the Free Software Foundation’s software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. You can use it for your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Specifically, the General Public License is designed to make sure that you have the freedom to give away or sell copies of free software, that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of a such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must tell them their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author’s protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors’ reputations.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
Mere aggregation of another independent work with the Program (or its derivative) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of these terms.
Source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable file, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains; but, as a special exception, it need not include source code for modules which are standard libraries that accompany the operating system on which the executable file runs, or for standard header files or definitions files that accompany that operating system.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of the license which applies to it and “any later version”, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the license, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to humanity, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the “copyright” line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does. Copyright (C) 19yy name of author This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
The hypothetical commands ‘show w’ and ‘show c’ should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than ‘show w’ and ‘show c’; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items—whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary. Here a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program `Gnomovision' (a program to direct compilers to make passes at assemblers) written by James Hacker. signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989 Ty Coon, President of Vice
That’s all there is to it!
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
XEmacs is free; this means that everyone is free to use it and free to redistribute it on a free basis. XEmacs is not in the public domain; it is copyrighted and there are restrictions on its distribution, but these restrictions are designed to permit everything that a good cooperating citizen would want to do. What is not allowed is to try to prevent others from further sharing any version of XEmacs that they might get from you. The precise conditions are found in the GNU General Public License that comes with XEmacs and also appears following this section.
The easiest way to get a copy of XEmacs is from someone else who has it. You need not ask for permission to do so, or tell any one else; just copy it.
If you have access to the Internet, you can get the latest version of XEmacs from the anonymous FTP server ‘ftp.cs.uiuc.edu’ in the directory ‘/pub/xemacs’. It can also be found at numerous other archive sites around the world; check the file ‘etc/DISTRIB’ in an XEmacs distribution for the latest known list.
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The Free Software Foundation’s version of Emacs (called FSF Emacs in this manual and often referred to as GNU Emacs) is available by anonymous FTP from ‘prep.ai.mit.edu’.
Win-Emacs, an older version of XEmacs that runs on Microsoft Windows and Windows NT, is available by anonymous FTP from ‘ftp.netcom.com’ in the directory ‘/pub/pe/pearl’, or from ‘ftp.cica.indiana.edu’ as the files ‘wemdemo*.zip’ in the directory ‘/pub/pc/win3/demo’.
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
You are reading about XEmacs, an incarnation of the advanced, self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor Emacs. XEmacs provides many powerful display and user-interface capabilities not found in other Emacsen and is mostly upwardly compatible with GNU Emacs from the Free Software Foundation (referred to as FSF Emacs in this manual). XEmacs also comes standard with a great number of useful packages.
We say that XEmacs is a display editor because normally the text being edited is visible on the screen and is updated automatically as you type. @xref{Frame,Display}.
We call XEmacs a real-time editor because the display is updated very frequently, usually after each character or pair of characters you type. This minimizes the amount of information you must keep in your head as you edit. @xref{Basic,Real-time,Basic Editing}.
We call XEmacs advanced because it provides facilities that go beyond simple insertion and deletion: filling of text; automatic indentation of programs; viewing two or more files at once; and dealing in terms of characters, words, lines, sentences, paragraphs, and pages, as well as expressions and comments in several different programming languages. It is much easier to type one command meaning “go to the end of the paragraph” than to find that spot with simple cursor keys.
Self-documenting means that at any time you can type a special character, Control-h, to find out what your options are. You can also use C-h to find out what a command does, or to find all the commands relevant to a topic. @xref{Help}.
Customizable means you can change the definitions of XEmacs commands. For example, if you use a programming language in which comments start with ‘<**’ and end with ‘**>’, you can tell the XEmacs comment manipulation commands to use those strings (@pxref{Comments}). Another sort of customization is rearrangement of the command set. For example, you can set up the four basic cursor motion commands (up, down, left and right) on keys in a diamond pattern on the keyboard if you prefer. @xref{Customization}.
Extensible means you can go beyond simple customization and write entirely new commands, programs in the Lisp language to be run by XEmacs’s own Lisp interpreter. XEmacs is an “on-line extensible” system: it is divided into many functions that call each other. You can redefine any function in the middle of an editing session and replace any part of XEmacs without making a separate copy of all of XEmacs. Most of the editing commands of XEmacs are written in Lisp; the few exceptions could have been written in Lisp but are written in C for efficiency. Only a programmer can write an extension to XEmacs, but anybody can use it afterward.
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
[ << ] | [ < ] | [ Up ] | [ > ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
Jump to: | D G L |
---|
Index Entry | Section | ||
---|---|---|---|
| |||
D | |||
Distribution | Preamble | ||
| |||
G | |||
General Public License | GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE | ||
| |||
L | |||
license to copy XEmacs | GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE | ||
|
Jump to: | D G L |
---|
[Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
[Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
[Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
This document was generated on December 6, 2024 using texi2html 5.0.
The buttons in the navigation panels have the following meaning:
Button | Name | Go to | From 1.2.3 go to |
---|---|---|---|
[ << ] | FastBack | Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter | 1 |
[ < ] | Back | Previous section in reading order | 1.2.2 |
[ Up ] | Up | Up section | 1.2 |
[ > ] | Forward | Next section in reading order | 1.2.4 |
[ >> ] | FastForward | Next chapter | 2 |
[Top] | Top | Cover (top) of document | |
[Contents] | Contents | Table of contents | |
[Index] | Index | Index | |
[ ? ] | About | About (help) |
where the Example assumes that the current position is at Subsubsection One-Two-Three of a document of the following structure:
This document was generated on December 6, 2024 using texi2html 5.0.