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1 Copyright (c) 1985, 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2 See end for conditions.
3
4 You are looking at the Emacs tutorial.
5
6 Emacs commands generally involve the CONTROL key (sometimes labelled
7 CTRL or CTL) or the META key. On some keyboards, the META key is
8 labelled ALT or EDIT or something else (for example, on Sun keyboards,
9 the diamond key to the left of the spacebar is META). If you have no
10 META key, you can use ESC instead. Rather than write out META or
11 CONTROL each time we want you to prefix a character, we'll use the
12 following abbreviations:
13
14 C-<chr> means hold the CONTROL key while typing the character <chr>
15 Thus, C-f would be: hold the CONTROL key and type f.
16 M-<chr> means hold the META key down while typing <chr>. If there
17 is no META key, type <ESC>, release it, then type the
18 character <chr>.
19
20 Important note: to end the Emacs session, type C-x C-c. (Two characters.)
21 The characters ">>" at the left margin indicate directions for you to
22 try using a command. For instance:
23 <<Blank lines inserted here by startup of help-with-tutorial>>
24 >> Now type C-v (View next screen) to move to the next screen.
25 (go ahead, do it by depressing the control key and v together).
26 From now on, you'll be expected to do this whenever you finish
27 reading the screen.
28
29 Note that there is an overlap when going from screen to screen; this
30 provides some continuity when moving through the file.
31
32 The first thing that you need to know is how to move around from
33 place to place in the file. You already know how to move forward a
34 screen, with C-v. To move backwards a screen, type M-v (depress the
35 META key and type v, or type <ESC>v if you don't have a META or EDIT
36 key).
37
38 >> Try typing M-v and then C-v to move back and forth a few times.
39
40
41 SUMMARY
42 -------
43
44 The following commands are useful for viewing screenfuls:
45
46 C-v Move forward one screenful
47 M-v Move backward one screenful
48 C-l Clear screen and redisplay everything
49 putting the text near the cursor at the center.
50 (That's control-L, not control-1. control-1
51 has a completely different meaning, as
52 described below.)
53
54 >> Find the cursor and remember what text is near it.
55 Then type a C-l.
56 Find the cursor again and see what text is near it now.
57
58
59 BASIC CURSOR CONTROL
60 --------------------
61
62 Getting from screenful to screenful is useful, but how do you
63 reposition yourself within a given screen to a specific place?
64 There are several ways you can do this. One way (not the best, but
65 the most basic) is to use the commands previous, backward, forward
66 and next. As you can imagine these commands (which are given to
67 Emacs as C-p, C-b, C-f, and C-n respectively) move the cursor from
68 where it currently is to a new place in the given direction. Here,
69 in a more graphical form are the commands:
70
71 Previous line, C-p
72 :
73 :
74 Backward, C-b .... Current cursor position .... Forward, C-f
75 :
76 :
77 Next line, C-n
78
79 >> Move the cursor to the line in the middle of that diagram
80 and type C-l to see the whole diagram centered in the screen.
81
82 You'll probably find it easy to think of these by letter. P for
83 previous, N for next, B for backward and F for forward. These are
84 the basic cursor positioning commands and you'll be using them ALL
85 the time so it would be of great benefit if you learn them now.
86
87 >> Do a few C-n's to bring the cursor down to this line.
88
89 >> Move into the line with C-f's and then up with C-p's.
90 See what C-p does when the cursor is in the middle of the line.
91
92 Lines are separated by Newline characters. For most applications
93 there should normally be a Newline character at the end of the text,
94 as well, but it is up to you to make sure of this. A file can
95 validly exist without a Newline at the end.
96
97 >> Try to C-b at the beginning of a line. Do a few more C-b's.
98 Then do C-f's back to the end of the line and beyond.
99
100 When you go off the top or bottom of the screen, the text beyond
101 the edge is shifted onto the screen so that your instructions can
102 be carried out while keeping the cursor on the screen.
103
104 >> Try to move the cursor off the bottom of the screen with C-n and
105 see what happens.
106
107 If moving by characters is too slow, you can move by words. M-f
108 (Meta-f) moves forward a word and M-b moves back a word.
109
110 >> Type a few M-f's and M-b's. Intersperse them with C-f's and C-b's.
111
112 Notice the parallel between C-f and C-b on the one hand, and M-f and
113 M-b on the other hand. Very often Meta characters are used for
114 operations related to English text whereas Control characters operate
115 on the basic textual units that are independent of what you are
116 editing (characters, lines, etc). There is a similar parallel between
117 lines and sentences: C-a and C-e move to the beginning or end of a
118 line, and M-a and M-e move to the beginning or end of a sentence.
119
120 >> Try a couple of C-a's, and then a couple of C-e's.
121 Try a couple of M-a's, and then a couple of M-e's.
122
123 See how repeated C-a's do nothing, but repeated M-a's keep moving
124 farther. Do you think that this is right?
125
126 Two other simple cursor motion commands are M-< (Meta Less-than),
127 which moves to the beginning of the file, and M-> (Meta Greater-than),
128 which moves to the end of the file. You probably don't need to try
129 them, since finding this spot again will be boring. On most terminals
130 the "<" is above the comma and you must use the shift key to type it.
131 On these terminals you must use the shift key to type M-< also;
132 without the shift key, you would be typing M-comma.
133
134 The location of the cursor in the text is also called "point". To
135 paraphrase, the cursor shows on the screen where point is located in
136 the text.
137
138 Here is a summary of simple moving operations including the word and
139 sentence moving commands:
140
141 C-f Move forward a character
142 C-b Move backward a character
143
144 M-f Move forward a word
145 M-b Move backward a word
146
147 C-n Move to next line
148 C-p Move to previous line
149
150 C-a Move to beginning of line
151 C-e Move to end of line
152
153 M-a Move back to beginning of sentence
154 M-e Move forward to end of sentence
155
156 M-< Go to beginning of file
157 M-> Go to end of file
158
159 >> Try all of these commands now a few times for practice.
160 Since the last two will take you away from this screen,
161 you can come back here with M-v's and C-v's. These are
162 the most often used commands.
163
164 Like all other commands in Emacs, these commands can be given
165 arguments which cause them to be executed repeatedly. The way you
166 give a command a repeat count is by typing C-u and then the digits
167 before you type the command. If you have a META or EDIT key, you can
168 omit the C-u if you hold down the META or EDIT key while you type the
169 digits. This is easier, but we recommend the C-u method because it
170 works on any terminal.
171
172 For instance, C-u 8 C-f moves forward eight characters.
173
174 >> Try giving a suitable argument to C-n or C-p to come as close
175 as you can to this line in one jump.
176
177 The only apparent exception to this is the screen moving commands,
178 C-v and M-v. When given an argument, they scroll the screen up or
179 down by that many lines, rather than screenfuls. This proves to be
180 much more useful.
181
182 >> Try typing C-u 8 C-v now.
183
184 Did it scroll the screen up by 8 lines? If you would like to
185 scroll it down you can give an argument to M-v.
186
187
188 CURSOR CONTROL WITH AN X TERMINAL
189 ---------------------------------
190
191 If you have an X terminal, you will probably find it easier to use
192 the keys on the keypad to control the cursor. The left, right, up,
193 and down arrow keys move in the expected direction; they function
194 exactly like C-b, C-f, C-p, and C-n, but are easier to type and to
195 remember. You can also use C-left and C-right to move by words, and
196 C-up and C-down to move by blocks (e.g. paragraphs, if you're
197 editing text). If you have keys labelled HOME (or BEGIN) and END,
198 they will take you to the beginning and end of a line, respectively,
199 and C-home and C-end will move to the beginning and end of the file.
200 If your keyboard has PgUp and PgDn keys, you can use them to move up
201 and down a screenful at a time, like M-v and C-v.
202
203 All of these commands can take numeric arguments, as described above.
204 You can use a shortcut to enter these arguments: just hold down the
205 CONTROL or META key and type the number. For example, to move 12
206 words to the right, type C-1 C-2 C-right. Note that it is very easy
207 to type this because you do not have to release the CONTROL key
208 between keystrokes.
209
210
211 WHEN EMACS IS HUNG
212 ------------------
213
214 If Emacs gets into an infinite (or simply very long) computation which
215 you don't want to finish, you can stop it safely by typing C-g.
216 You can also use C-g to discard a numeric argument or the beginning of
217 a command that you don't want to finish.
218
219 >> Type C-u 100 to make a numeric arg of 100, then type C-g.
220 Now type C-f. How many characters does it move?
221 If you have typed an <ESC> by mistake, you can get rid of it
222 with a C-g.
223
224 If you type <ESC> <ESC>, you get a new window appearing on
225 the screen, telling you that M-ESC is a "disabled command"
226 and asking whether you really want to execute it. The command
227 M-ESC is marked as disabled because you probably don't want to
228 use it until you know more about Emacs, and we expect it would
229 confuse you if it were allowed to go ahead and run. If you really
230 want to try the M-ESC command, you could type a Space in answer
231 to the question and M-ESC would go ahead. Normally, if you do
232 not want to execute M-ESC, you would type "n" to answer the question.
233
234 >> Type <ESC> <ESC>, then type n.
235
236
237 WINDOWS
238 -------
239
240 Emacs can have several windows, each displaying its own text.
241 Note that "window" as used by Emacs does not refer to separate
242 overlapping windows in the window system, but to separate panes
243 within a single X window. (Emacs can also have multiple X
244 windows, or "screens" in Emacs terminology. This is described
245 later.)
246
247 At this stage it is better not to go into the techniques of
248 using multiple windows. But you do need to know how to get
249 rid of extra windows that may appear to display help or
250 output from certain commands. It is simple:
251
252 C-x 1 One window (i.e., kill all other windows).
253
254 That is Control-x followed by the digit 1.
255 C-x 1 makes the window which the cursor is in become
256 the full screen, by getting rid of any other windows.
257
258 >> Move the cursor to this line and type C-u 0 C-l.
259
260 (Remember that C-l redraws the screen. If you give a
261 numeric argument to this command, it means "redraw the
262 screen and put the current line that many lines from the
263 top of the screen." So C-u 0 C-l means "redraw the
264 screen, putting the current line at the top.")
265
266 >> Type Control-h k Control-f.
267 See how this window shrinks, while a new one appears
268 to display documentation on the Control-f command.
269
270 >> Type C-x 1 and see the documentation listing window disappear.
271
272
273 INSERTING AND DELETING
274 ----------------------
275
276 If you want to insert text, just type it. Characters which you can
277 see, such as A, 7, *, etc. are taken by Emacs as text and inserted
278 immediately. Type <Return> (the carriage-return key) to insert a
279 Newline character.
280
281 You can delete the last character you typed by typing <Rubout>.
282 On X terminals, <Rubout> is normally the key labelled BACK SPACE.
283
284 >> Do this now, type a few characters and then delete them
285 by typing <Rubout> a few times. Don't worry about this file
286 being changed; you won't affect the master tutorial. This is just
287 a copy of it.
288
289 >> Now start typing text until you reach the right margin, and keep
290 typing. When a line of text gets too big for one line on the
291 screen, the line of text is "continued" onto a second screen line.
292 The backslash at the right margin indicates a line which has
293 been continued.
294 >> Use <Rubout>s to delete the text until the line fits on one screen
295 line again. The continuation line goes away.
296
297 >> Move the cursor to the beginning of a line and type <Rubout>. This
298 deletes the newline before the line and merges the line onto
299 the previous line. The resulting line may be too long to fit, in
300 which case it has a continuation line.
301 >> Type <Return> to reinsert the Newline you deleted.
302
303 Remember that most Emacs commands can be given a repeat count;
304 this includes characters which insert themselves.
305
306 >> Try that now -- type C-u 8 * and see what happens.
307
308 You've now learned the most basic way of typing something in
309 Emacs and correcting errors. You can delete by words or lines
310 as well. Here is a summary of the delete operations:
311
312 <Rubout> delete the character just before the cursor
313 C-d delete the next character after the cursor
314
315 M-<Rubout> kill the word immediately before the cursor
316 M-d kill the next word after the cursor
317
318 C-k kill from the cursor position to end of line
319 M-k kill to the end of the current sentence
320
321 Notice that <Rubout> and C-d vs M-<Rubout> and M-d extend the parallel
322 started by C-f and M-f (well, <Rubout> isn't really a control
323 character, but let's not worry about that). C-k and M-k are like C-e
324 and M-e, sort of, in that lines are opposite sentences.
325
326 Now suppose you kill something, and then you decide that you want to
327 get it back? Well, whenever you kill something bigger than a
328 character, Emacs saves it for you. To yank it back, use C-y. You
329 can kill text in one place, move elsewhere, and then do C-y; this is
330 a good way to move text around. Note that the difference
331 between "Killing" and "Deleting" something is that "Killed" things
332 can be yanked back, and "Deleted" things cannot. Generally, the
333 commands that can destroy a lot of text save it, while the ones that
334 attack only one character, or nothing but blank lines and spaces, do
335 not save.
336
337 For instance, type C-n a couple times to postion the cursor
338 at some line on this screen.
339
340 >> Do this now, move the cursor and kill that line with C-k.
341
342 Note that a single C-k kills the contents of the line, and a second
343 C-k kills the line itself, and make all the other lines move up. If
344 you give C-k a repeat count, it kills that many lines AND their
345 contents.
346
347 The text that has just disappeared is saved so that you can
348 retrieve it. To retrieve the last killed text and put it where
349 the cursor currently is, type C-y.
350
351 >> Try it; type C-y to yank the text back.
352
353 Think of C-y as if you were yanking something back that someone
354 took away from you. Notice that if you do several C-k's in a row
355 the text that is killed is all saved together so that one C-y will
356 yank all of the lines.
357
358 >> Do this now, type C-k several times.
359
360 Now to retrieve that killed text:
361
362 >> Type C-y. Then move the cursor down a few lines and type C-y
363 again. You now see how to copy some text.
364
365 What do you do if you have some text you want to yank back, and then
366 you kill something else? C-y would yank the more recent kill. But
367 the previous text is not lost. You can get back to it using the M-y
368 command. After you have done C-y to get the most recent kill, typing
369 M-Y replaces that yanked text with the previous kill. Typing M-y
370 again and again brings in earlier and earlier kills. When you
371 have reached the text you are looking for, you can just go away and
372 leave it there. If you M-y enough times, you come back to the
373 starting point (the most recent kill).
374
375 >> Kill a line, move around, kill another line.
376 Then do C-y to get back the second killed line.
377 Then do M-y and it will be replaced by the first killed line.
378 Do more M-y's and see what you get. Keep doing them until
379 the second kill line comes back, and then a few more.
380 If you like, you can try giving M-y positive and negative
381 arguments.
382
383
384 UNDO
385 ----
386
387 Any time you make a change to the text and wish you had not done so,
388 you can undo the change (return the text to its previous state)
389 with the undo command, C-x u. Normally, C-x u undoes one command's
390 worth of changes; if you repeat the C-x u several times in a row,
391 each time undoes one more command. There are two exceptions:
392 commands that made no change (just moved the cursor) do not count,
393 and self-inserting characters are often lumped together in groups
394 of up to 20. This is to reduce the number of C-x u's you have to type.
395
396 >> Kill this line with C-k, then type C-x u and it should reappear.
397
398 C-_ is another command for undoing; it is just the same as C-x u
399 but easier to type several times in a row. The problem with C-_ is
400 that on some keyboards it is not obvious how to type it. That is
401 why C-x u is provided as well. On some DEC terminals, you can type
402 C-_ by typing / while holding down CTRL. Illogical, but what can
403 you expect from DEC?
404
405 Giving a numeric argument to C-_ or C-x u is equivalent to repeating
406 it as many times as the argument says.
407
408
409 FILES
410 -----
411
412 In order to make the text you edit permanent, you must put it in a
413 file. Otherwise, it will go away when your invocation of Emacs goes
414 away. You put your editing in a file by "finding" the file. What
415 finding means is that you see the contents of the file in your Emacs;
416 and, loosely speaking, what you are editing is the file itself.
417 However, the changes still don't become permanent until you "save" the
418 file. This is so you can have control to avoid leaving a half-changed
419 file around when you don't want to. Even then, Emacs leaves the
420 original file under a changed name in case your changes turn out
421 to be a mistake.
422
423 If you look near the bottom of the screen you will see a line that
424 begins and ends with dashes, and contains the string "Emacs: TUTORIAL".
425 Your copy of the Emacs tutorial is called "TUTORIAL". Whatever
426 file you find, that file's name will appear in that precise
427 spot.
428
429 The commands for finding and saving files are unlike the other
430 commands you have learned in that they consist of two characters.
431 They both start with the character Control-x. There is a whole series
432 of commands that start with Control-x; many of them have to do with
433 files, buffers, and related things, and all of them consist of
434 Control-x followed by some other character.
435
436 Another thing about the command for finding a file is that you have
437 to say what file name you want. We say the command "reads an argument
438 from the terminal" (in this case, the argument is the name of the
439 file). After you type the command
440
441 C-x C-f Find a file
442
443 Emacs asks you to type the file name. It echoes on the bottom
444 line of the screen. You are using the minibuffer now! this is
445 what the minibuffer is for. When you type <Return> to end the
446 file name, the minibuffer is no longer needed, so it disappears.
447
448 >> Type C-x C-f, then type C-g. This cancels the minibuffer,
449 and also cancels the C-x C-f command that was using the
450 minibuffer. So you do not find any file.
451
452 In a little while the file contents appear on the screen. You can
453 edit the contents. When you wish to make the changes permanent,
454 issue the command
455
456 C-x C-s Save the file
457
458 The contents of Emacs are written into the file. The first time you
459 do this, the original file is renamed to a new name so that it
460 is not lost. The new name is made by appending "~" to the end
461 of the original file's name.
462
463 When saving is finished, Emacs prints the name of the file written.
464 You should save fairly often, so that you will not lose very much
465 work if the system should crash.
466
467 >> Type C-x C-s, saving your copy of the tutorial.
468 This should print "Wrote .../TUTORIAL" at the bottom of the screen.
469 On VMS it will print "Wrote ...[...]TUTORIAL."
470
471 To make a new file, just find it "as if" it already existed. Then
472 start typing in the text. When you ask to "save" the file, Emacs
473 will really create the file with the text that you have inserted.
474 From then on, you can consider yourself to be editing an already
475 existing file.
476
477
478 BUFFERS
479 -------
480
481 If you find a second file with C-x C-f, the first file remains
482 inside Emacs. You can switch back to it by finding it again with
483 C-x C-f. This way you can get quite a number of files inside Emacs.
484
485 The object inside Emacs which holds the text read from one file
486 is called a "buffer." Finding a file makes a new buffer inside Emacs.
487 To see a list of the buffers that exist in Emacs, type
488
489 C-x C-b List buffers
490
491 >> Try C-x C-b now.
492
493 See how each buffer has a name, and it may also have a file name
494 for the file whose contents it holds. Some buffers do not correspond
495 to files. For example, the buffer named "*Buffer List*" does
496 not have any file. It is the buffer which contains the buffer
497 list that was made by C-x C-b. ANY text you see in an Emacs window
498 has to be in some buffer.
499
500 >> Type C-x 1 to get rid of the buffer list.
501
502 If you make changes to the text of one file, then find another file,
503 this does not save the first file. Its changes remain inside Emacs,
504 in that file's buffer. The creation or editing of the second file's
505 buffer has no effect on the first file's buffer. This is very useful,
506 but it also means that you need a convenient way to save the first
507 file's buffer. It would be a nuisance to have to switch back to
508 it with C-x C-f in order to save it with C-x C-s. So we have
509
510 C-x s Save some buffers
511
512 C-x s goes through the list of all the buffers you have
513 and finds the ones that contain files you have changed.
514 For each such buffer, C-x s asks you whether to save it.
515
516
517 USING THE MENU
518 --------------
519
520 If you are on an X terminal, you will notice a menubar at the
521 top of the Emacs screen. You can use this menubar to access all
522 the most common Emacs commands, such as "find file". You will
523 find this easier at first, because you don't need to remember
524 the keystrokes necessary to access any particular command. Once
525 you are comfortable with Emacs, it will be easy to begin using
526 the keyboard commands because each menu item with a
527 corresponding keyboard command has the command listed next to
528 it.
529
530 Note that there are many items in the menubar that have no exact
531 keyboard equivalents. For example, the Buffers menu lists all
532 of the available buffers in most-recently used order. You can
533 switch to any buffer by simply findings its name in the Buffers
534 menu and selecting it.
535
536
537 USING THE MOUSE
538 ---------------
539
540 When running under X, Emacs is fully integrated with the mouse.
541 You can position the text cursor by clicking the left button at
542 the desired location, and you can select text by dragging the
543 left mouse button across the text you want to select. (Or
544 alternatively, click the left mouse button at one end of the
545 text, then move to the other end and use Shift-click to select
546 the text.)
547
548 To kill some selected text, you can use C-w or choose the Cut
549 item from the Edit menu. Note that these are *not* equivalent:
550 C-w only saves the text internally within Emacs (similar to C-k
551 as described above), whereas Cut does this and also puts the
552 text into the X clipboard, where it can be accessed by other
553 applications.
554
555 To retrieve text from the X clipboard, use the Paste item from
556 the Edit menu.
557
558 The middle mouse button is commonly used to choose items that
559 are visible on the screen. For example, if you enter Info (the
560 on-line Emacs documentation) using C-h i or the Help menu, you
561 can follow a highlighted link by clicking the middle mouse
562 button on it. Similarly, if you are typing a file name in
563 (e.g. when prompted by "Find File") and you hit TAB to show the
564 possible completions, you can click the middle mouse button on
565 one of the completions to select it.
566
567 The right mouse button brings up a popup menu. The contents of
568 this menu vary depending on what mode you're in, and usually
569 contain a few commonly used commands, so they're easier to
570 access.
571
572 >> Press the right mouse button now.
573
574 You will have to hold the button down in order to keep the
575 menu up.
576
577
578 EXTENDING THE COMMAND SET
579 -------------------------
580
581 There are many, many more Emacs commands than could possibly be put
582 on all the control and meta characters. Emacs gets around this with
583 the X (eXtend) command. This comes in two flavors:
584
585 C-x Character eXtend. Followed by one character.
586 M-x Named command eXtend. Followed by a long name.
587
588 These are commands that are generally useful but used less than the
589 commands you have already learned about. You have already seen two
590 of them: the file commands C-x C-f to Find and C-x C-s to Save.
591 Another example is the command to tell Emacs that you'd like to stop
592 editing and get rid of Emacs. The command to do this is C-x C-c.
593 (Don't worry; it offers to save each changed file before it kills the
594 Emacs.)
595
596 C-z is the usual way to exit Emacs, because it is always better not to
597 kill the Emacs if you are going to do any more editing. On systems
598 which allow it, C-z exits from Emacs to the shell but does not destroy
599 the Emacs; if you use the C shell, you can resume Emacs with the `fg'
600 command (or, more generally, with `%emacs', which works even if your
601 most recent job was some other). On systems where suspending is not
602 possible, C-z creates a subshell running under Emacs to give you the
603 chance to run other programs and return to Emacs afterward, but it
604 does not truly "exit" from Emacs. In this case, the shell command
605 `exit' is the usual way to get back to Emacs from the subshell.
606
607 You would use C-x C-c if you were about to log out. You would
608 also use it to exit an Emacs invoked under mail handling programs
609 and other random utilities, since they may not believe you have
610 really finished using the Emacs if it continues to exist.
611
612 There are many C-x commands. The ones you know are:
613
614 C-x C-f Find file.
615 C-x C-s Save file.
616 C-x C-b List buffers.
617 C-x C-c Quit Emacs.
618 C-x u Undo.
619
620 Named eXtended commands are commands which are used even less
621 frequently, or commands which are used only in certain modes. These
622 commands are usually called "functions". An example is the function
623 replace-string, which globally replaces one string with another. When
624 you type M-x, Emacs prompts you at the bottom of the screen with
625 M-x and you should type the name of the function you wish to call; in
626 this case, "replace-string". Just type "repl s<TAB>" and Emacs will
627 complete the name. End the command name with <Return>.
628 Then type the two "arguments"--the string to be replaced, and the string
629 to replace it with--each one ended with a Return.
630
631 >> Move the cursor to the blank line two lines below this one.
632 Then type M-x repl s<Return>changed<Return>altered<Return>.
633
634 Notice how this line has changed: you've replaced
635 the word c-h-a-n-g-e-d with "altered" wherever it occured
636 after the cursor.
637
638
639 MODE LINE
640 ---------
641
642 If Emacs sees that you are typing commands slowly it shows them to you
643 at the bottom of the screen in an area called the "echo area." The echo
644 area contains the bottom line of the screen. The line immediately above
645 it is called the MODE LINE. The mode line says something like
646
647 --**--Emacs: TUTORIAL (Fundamental)----58%-------------
648
649 This is a very useful "information" line.
650
651 You already know what the filename means--it is the file you have
652 found. What the --NN%-- means is that NN percent of the file is
653 above the top of the screen. If the top of the file is on the screen,
654 it will say --TOP-- instead of --00%--. If the bottom of the file is
655 on the screen, it will say --BOT--. If you are looking at a file so
656 small it all fits on the screen, it says --ALL--.
657
658 The stars near the front mean that you have made changes to the text.
659 Right after you visit or save a file, there are no stars, just dashes.
660
661 The part of the mode line inside the parentheses is to tell you what
662 modes you are in. The default mode is Fundamental which is what you
663 are in now. It is an example of a "major mode". There are several
664 major modes in Emacs for editing different languages and text, such as
665 Lisp mode, Text mode, etc. At any time one and only one major mode is
666 active, and its name can always be found in the mode line just where
667 "Fundamental" is now. Each major mode makes a few commands behave
668 differently. For example, there are commands for creating comments in
669 a program, and since each programming language has a different idea of
670 what a comment should look like, each major mode has to insert
671 comments differently. Each major mode is the name of an extended
672 command, which is how you get into the mode. For example,
673 M-X fundamental-mode is how to get into Fundamental mode.
674
675 If you are going to be editing English text, such as this file, you
676 should probably use Text Mode.
677 >> Type M-x text-mode<Return>.
678
679 Don't worry, none of the commands you have learned changes Emacs in
680 any great way. But you can now observe that periods are no longer
681 part of words when you do M-f or M-b! Major modes are usually like
682 that: commands don't change into completely unrelated things, but they
683 work a little bit differently.
684
685 To get documentation on your current major mode, type C-h m.
686
687 >> Use C-u C-v once or more to bring this line near the top of screen.
688 >> Type C-h m, to see how Text mode differs from Fundamental mode.
689 >> Type C-x 1 to remove the documentation from the screen.
690
691 Major modes are called major because there are also minor modes.
692 They are called minor because they aren't alternatives to the major
693 modes, just minor modifications of them. Each minor mode can be
694 turned on or off by itself, regardless of what major mode you are in,
695 and regardless of the other minor modes. So you can use no minor
696 modes, or one minor mode, or any combination of several minor modes.
697
698 One minor mode which is very useful, especially for editing English
699 text, is Auto Fill mode. When this mode is on, Emacs breaks the line
700 in between words automatically whenever the line gets too long. You
701 can turn this mode on by doing M-x auto-fill-mode<Return>. When the
702 mode is on, you can turn it off by doing M-x auto-fill-mode<Return>.
703 If the mode is off, this function turns it on, and if the mode is on,
704 this function turns it off. This is called "toggling".
705
706 >> Type M-x auto-fill-mode<Return> now. Then insert a line of "asdf "
707 over again until you see it divide into two lines. You must put in
708 spaces between them because Auto Fill breaks lines only at spaces.
709
710 The margin is usually set at 70 characters, but you can change it
711 with the C-x f command. You should give the margin setting you want
712 as a numeric argument.
713
714 >> Type C-x f with an argument of 20. (C-u 2 0 C-x f).
715 Then type in some text and see Emacs fill lines of 20
716 characters with it. Then set the margin back to 70 using
717 C-x f again.
718
719 If you makes changes in the middle of a paragraph, Auto Fill mode
720 does not re-fill it for you.
721 To re-fill the paragraph, type M-q (Meta-q) with the cursor inside
722 that paragraph.
723
724 >> Move the cursor into the previous paragraph and type M-q.
725
726
727 SEARCHING
728 ---------
729
730 Emacs can do searches for strings (these are groups of contiguous
731 characters or words) either forward through the file or backward
732 through it. To search for the string means that you are trying to
733 locate it somewhere in the file and have Emacs show you where the
734 occurrences of the string exist. This type of search is somewhat
735 different from what you may be familiar with. It is a search that is
736 performed as you type in the thing to search for. The command to
737 initiate a search is C-s for forward search, and C-r for reverse
738 search. BUT WAIT! Don't do them now. When you type C-s you'll
739 notice that the string "I-search" appears as a prompt in the echo
740 area. This tells you that Emacs is in what is called an incremental
741 search waiting for you to type the thing that you want to search for.
742 <ESC> terminates a search.
743
744 >> Now type C-s to start a search. SLOWLY, one letter at a time,
745 type the word 'cursor', pausing after you type each
746 character to notice what happens to the cursor.
747 >> Type C-s to find the next occurrence of "cursor".
748 >> Now type <Rubout> four times and see how the cursor moves.
749 >> Type <ESC> to terminate the search.
750
751 Did you see what happened? Emacs, in an incremental search, tries to
752 go to the occurrence of the string that you've typed out so far. To go
753 to the next occurrence of 'cursor' just type C-s again. If no such
754 occurrence exists Emacs beeps and tells you that it is a failing
755 search. C-g would also terminate the search.
756
757 If you are in the middle of an incremental search and type <Rubout>,
758 you'll notice that the last character in the search string is erased
759 and the search backs up to the last place of the search. For
760 instance, suppose you currently have typed 'cu' and you see that your
761 cursor is at the first occurrence of 'cu'. If you now type <Rubout>,
762 the 'u' on the search line is erased and you'll be repositioned in the
763 text to the occurrence of 'c' where the search took you before you
764 typed the 'u'. This provides a useful means for backing up while you
765 are searching.
766
767 If you are in the middle of a search and happen to type a control
768 character (other than a C-s or C-r, which tell Emacs to search for the
769 next occurrence of the string), the search is terminated.
770
771 The C-s starts a search that looks for any occurrence of the search
772 string AFTER the current cursor position. But what if you want to
773 search for something earlier in the text? To do this, type C-r for
774 Reverse search. Everything that applies to C-s applies to C-r except
775 that the direction of the search is reversed.
776
777
778 RECURSIVE EDITING LEVELS
779 ------------------------
780
781 Sometimes you will get into what is called a "recursive editing
782 level". This is indicated by square brackets in the mode line,
783 surrounding the parentheses around the major mode name. For
784 example, you might see [(Fundamental)] instead of (Fundamental).
785
786 To get out of the recursive editing level, type
787 M-x top-level<Return>.
788
789 >> Try that now; it should display "Back to top level"
790 at the bottom of the screen.
791
792 In fact, you were ALREADY at top level (not inside a recursive editing
793 level) if you have obeyed instructions. M-x top-level does not care;
794 it gets out of any number of recursive editing levels, perhaps zero,
795 to get back to top level.
796
797 You can't use C-g to get out of a recursive editing level because C-g
798 is used for discarding numeric arguments and partially typed commands
799 WITHIN the recursive editing level.
800
801
802 GETTING MORE HELP
803 -----------------
804
805 In this tutorial we have tried to supply just enough information to
806 get you started using Emacs. There is so much available in Emacs that
807 it would be impossible to explain it all here. However, you may want
808 to learn more about Emacs since it has numerous desirable features
809 that you don't know about yet. Emacs has a great deal of internal
810 documentation. All of these commands can be accessed through
811 the character Control-h, which we call "the Help character"
812 because of the function it serves.
813
814 To use the HELP features, type the C-h character, and then a
815 character saying what kind of help you want. If you are REALLY lost,
816 type C-h ? and Emacs will tell you what kinds of help it can give.
817 If you have typed C-h and decide you don't want any help, just
818 type C-G to cancel it.
819
820 The most basic HELP feature is C-h c. Type C-h, a c, and a
821 command character or sequence, and Emacs displays a very brief
822 description of the command.
823
824 >> Type C-h c Control-p.
825 The message should be something like
826
827 C-p runs the command previous-line
828
829 This tells you the "name of the function". That is important in
830 writing Lisp code to extend Emacs; it also is enough to remind
831 you of what the command does if you have seen it before but did
832 not remember.
833
834 Multi-character commands such as C-x C-s and (if you have no META or
835 EDIT key) <ESC>v are also allowed after C-h c.
836
837 To get more information on the command, use C-h k instead of C-h c.
838
839 >> Type C-h k Control-p.
840
841 This displays the documentation of the function, as well as its name,
842 in an Emacs window. When you are finished reading the output, type
843 C-x 1 to get rid of the help text. You do not have to do this right
844 away. You can do some editing based on the help text before you type
845 C-x 1.
846
847 Here are some other useful C-h options:
848
849 C-h f Describe a function. You type in the name of the
850 function.
851
852 >> Try typing C-h f previous-line<Return>.
853 This prints all the information Emacs has about the
854 function which implements the C-P command.
855
856 C-h a Command Apropos. Type in a keyword and Emacs will list
857 all the commands whose names contain that keyword.
858 These commands can all be invoked with Meta-x.
859 For some commands, Command Apropos will also list a one
860 or two character sequence which has the same effect.
861
862 >> Type C-h a file<Return>. You will see a list of all M-x commands
863 with "file" in their names. You will also see commands
864 like C-x C-f and C-x C-w, listed beside the command names
865 find-file and write-file.
866
867
868 CONCLUSION
869 ----------
870
871 Remember, to exit Emacs permanently use C-x C-c. To exit to a shell
872 temporarily, so that you can come back in, use C-z. (This does not
873 work under X windows, because there is no real concept of exiting
874 temporarily to the shell. Instead, C-z iconifies the Emacs screen.)
875
876 This tutorial is meant to be understandable to all new users, so if
877 you found something unclear, don't sit and blame yourself - complain!
878
879
880 COPYING
881 -------
882
883 This tutorial descends from a long line of Emacs tutorials
884 starting with the one written by Stuart Cracraft for the original Emacs.
885 It was last modified September 1994 by Ben Wing, who updated the
886 tutorial for X.
887
888 This version of the tutorial, like GNU Emacs, is copyrighted, and
889 comes with permission to distribute copies on certain conditions:
890
891 Copyright (c) 1985, 1994 Free Software Foundation
892
893 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
894 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
895 copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
896 and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
897 for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
898
899 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
900 of this document, or of portions of it,
901 under the above conditions, provided also that they
902 carry prominent notices stating who last altered them.
903
904 The conditions for copying Emacs itself are slightly different
905 but in the same spirit. Please read the file COPYING and then
906 do give copies of GNU Emacs to your friends.
907 Help stamp out software obstructionism ("ownership") by using,
908 writing, and sharing free software!