XEmacs User's Manual July 1994 (General Public License upgraded, January 1991) Richard Stallman Lucid, Inc. and Ben Wing Copyright c 1985, 1986, 1988 Richard M. Stallman. Copyright c 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Lucid, Inc. Copyright c 1993, 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Copyright c 1995 Amdahl Corporation. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copy- right notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the con- ditions 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. i Short Contents Preface ............................................ 1 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE ....................... 3 Distribution ......................................... 9 Introduction ........................................ 11 1 The XEmacs Frame ............................... 13 2 Keystrokes, Key Sequences, and Key Bindings ............. 17 3 Entering and Exiting Emacs .......................... 29 4 Basic Editing Commands ............................ 37 5 Undoing Changes ................................. 43 6 The Minibuffer ................................... 45 7 Running Commands by Name ........................ 51 8 Help .......................................... 53 9 Selecting Text ................................... 57 10 Killing and Moving Text ............................ 63 11 Registers ....................................... 73 12 Controlling the Display ............................. 75 13 Searching and Replacement .......................... 79 14 Commands for Fixing Typos ......................... 89 15 File Handling .................................... 91 16 Using Multiple Buffers ............................. 111 17 Multiple Windows ................................ 115 18 World Scripts Support ............................. 119 19 Major Modes ................................... 127 20 Indentation .................................... 129 21 Commands for Human Languages ..................... 133 22 Editing Programs ................................ 145 23 Compiling and Testing Programs ...................... 167 24 Abbrevs ....................................... 179 25 Editing Pictures ................................. 183 26 Sending Mail ................................... 187 27 Reading Mail ................................... 191 28 Miscellaneous Commands ........................... 217 29 Customization .................................. 227 30 Correcting Mistakes (Yours or Emacs's) ................. 257 XEmacs Features .................................... 263 Glossary .......................................... 267 ii XEmacs User's Manual The GNU Manifesto.................................. 279 Key (Character) Index ................................ 287 Command and Function Index ........................... 293 Variable Index...................................... 311 Concept Index...................................... 321 iii Table of Contents Preface.......................................... 1 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE ............. 3 Preamble ........................................................ 3 TERMS AND CONDITIONS ..................................... 3 Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs....... 6 Distribution ..................................... 9 Getting Other Versions of Emacs .................................. 9 Introduction .................................... 11 1 The XEmacs Frame.......................... 13 1.1 Point ...................................................... 13 1.2 The Echo Area ............................................. 14 1.3 The Mode Line............................................. 14 1.4 Using XEmacs Under the X Window System ................. 16 2 Keystrokes, Key Sequences, and Key Bindings ........................................... 17 2.1 Keystrokes as Building Blocks of Key Sequences .............. 17 2.1.1 Representing Keystrokes ........................... 18 2.1.2 Representing Key Sequences ........................ 18 2.1.3 String Key Sequences .............................. 19 2.1.4 Assignment of the META Key ...................... 19 h i 2.1.5 Assignment of the SUPER and HYPER Keys ......... 20 2.2 Representation of Charactersh ................................i h i 21 2.3 Keys and Commands ....................................... 22 2.4 XEmacs Pull-down Menus .................................. 22 2.4.1 The File Menu..................................... 23 2.4.2 The Edit Menu .................................... 24 2.4.3 The Apps Menu ................................... 25 2.4.4 The Options Menu ................................. 25 2.4.5 The Buffers Menu.................................. 27 2.4.6 The Tools Menu ................................... 27 2.4.7 The Help Menu .................................... 27 2.4.8 Customizing XEmacs Menus........................ 27 3 Entering and Exiting Emacs.................. 29 3.1 Exiting Emacs ............................................. 29 3.2 Command Line Switches and Arguments ..................... 30 3.2.1 Command Line Arguments for Any Position ......... 30 3.2.2 Command Line Arguments (Beginning of Line Only).. 31 3.2.3 Command Line Arguments (for XEmacs Under X) ... 32 3.3 How XEmacs finds Directories and Files...................... 33 3.3.1 XEmacs Directory Hierarchies ...................... 33 3.3.2 Package Hierarchies ................................ 34 3.3.3 Directories and Paths .............................. 34 iv XEmacs User's Manual 4 Basic Editing Commands .................... 37 4.1 Inserting Text .............................................. 37 4.2 Changing the Location of Point.............................. 37 4.3 Erasing Text ............................................... 39 4.4 Files ...................................................... 39 4.5 Help....................................................... 40 4.6 Blank Lines ................................................ 40 4.7 Continuation Lines ......................................... 40 4.8 Cursor Position Information ................................. 41 4.9 Numeric Arguments ........................................ 42 5 Undoing Changes ............................ 43 6 The Minibuffer .............................. 45 6.1 Minibuffers for File Names .................................. 45 6.2 Editing in the Minibuffer.................................... 46 6.3 Completion ................................................ 46 6.3.1 A Completion Example ............................ 47 6.3.2 Completion Commands............................. 47 6.4 Repeating Minibuffer Commands ............................ 48 7 Running Commands by Name ................ 51 8 Help ........................................ 53 8.1 Documentation for a Key ................................... 54 8.2 Help by Command or Variable Name ........................ 54 8.3 Apropos ................................................... 54 8.4 Other Help Commands ..................................... 55 9 Selecting Text ............................... 57 9.1 The Mark and the Region ................................... 57 9.1.1 Setting the Mark .................................. 57 9.1.2 Operating on the Region ........................... 58 9.1.3 Commands to Mark Textual Objects ................ 58 9.1.4 The Mark Ring .................................... 59 9.2 Selecting Text with the Mouse............................... 59 9.3 Additional Mouse Operations ............................... 60 10 Killing and Moving Text .................... 63 10.1 Deletion and Killing ....................................... 63 10.1.1 Deletion ......................................... 63 10.1.2 Killing by Lines .................................. 64 10.1.3 Other Kill Commands............................. 64 10.2 Yanking .................................................. 65 10.2.1 The Kill Ring .................................... 65 10.2.2 Appending Kills .................................. 65 10.2.3 Yanking Earlier Kills.............................. 66 10.3 Using X Selections ........................................ 66 10.3.1 The Clipboard Selection........................... 67 10.3.2 Miscellaneous X Selection Commands .............. 67 10.3.3 X Cut Buffers .................................... 68 10.3.4 Active Regions ................................... 68 10.4 Accumulating Text ........................................ 69 10.5 Rectangles ................................................ 70 v 11 Registers................................... 73 11.1 Saving Positions in Registers ............................... 73 11.2 Saving Text in Registers ................................... 73 11.3 Saving Rectangles in Registers ............................. 74 12 Controlling the Display ..................... 75 12.1 Scrolling .................................................. 75 12.2 Horizontal Scrolling ......................................