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Import from CVS: tag r21-0b57
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date Mon, 13 Aug 2007 10:45:36 +0200
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1 -*- mode:outline -*-
2
3 This file describes various problems that have been encountered in
4 running XEmacs on Windows 95, 98 and NT. It has been updated for
5 XEmacs 21.0.
6
7 This is the first release of XEmacs on Windows. In testing it has
8 proved to be extremely stable in general use (but see the gnus and
9 subprocess problems below), but not all features or packages work
10 correctly yet.
11
12 Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
13 `C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
14 info about the Outline mode.
15
16 Also, Try finding the things you need using one of the search commands
17 XEmacs provides (e.g. `C-s').
18
19 General advice:
20 Remember your .emacs file! ~\.emacs is your Emacs init file. If
21 you observe strange problems, invoke XEmacs with the `-q' option
22 and see if you can repeat the problem.
23
24
25 * Problems with running XEmacs
26 ==============================
27 ** Conflicts with FSF NTEmacs
28
29 Depending on how it is installed, FSF NTEmacs may setup various EMACS*
30 variables in your environment. The presence of these variables may
31 cause XEmacs to fail at startup, cause you to see corrupted
32 doc-strings, or cause other random problems.
33
34 You should remove these variables from your environment. These
35 variables are not required to run FSF NTEmacs if you start it by
36 running emacs.bat.
37
38 ** XEmacs can't find my .emacs file
39
40 XEmacs looks for your .emacs in your "home" directory. XEmacs decides
41 that your "home" directory is, in order of preference:
42
43 - The value of the HOME environment variable, if the variable exists.
44 - The value of the HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH environment variables, if
45 these variables both exist.
46 - The directory that XEmacs was started from.
47
48 ** XEmacs can't find any packages
49
50 The directory tree under which XEmacs looks for your packages is set
51 at compile-time, and defaults to C:\Program Files\XEmacs\Packages. The
52 variable configure-package-path holds the actual value that was
53 compiled into your copy of XEmacs.
54
55 The compile-time default location can be overridden by the
56 EMACSPACKAGEPATH environment variable or by the
57 SOFTWARE\GNU\XEmacs\EMACSPACKAGEPATH registry entry. You should check
58 that these variables, if they exist, point to the actual location of
59 your package tree.
60
61 ** XEmacs sometimes crashes when using gnus
62
63 This is a known bug in this release of XEmacs on Windows.
64
65 If you want to use gnus anyway, you should minimize any possible data
66 loss by saving any modified buffers before you start and ensuring that
67 you haven't set gnus-use-dribble-file to nil or disabled the normal
68 XEmacs auto-save mechanism.
69
70 ** XEmacs doesn't die when shutting down Windows 95 or 98
71
72 When shutting down Windows 95 or 98 you may see a dialog that says
73 "xemacs / You must quit this program before you quit Windows".
74 It is safe to
75 "Click OK to quit the program and Windows",
76 but you won't be offered a chance to save any modified XEmacs buffers.
77
78 * Look and feel
79 ===============
80 ** Key bindings
81
82 The C-z, C-x, C-c, and C-v keystrokes have traditional uses in both
83 emacs and Windows programs. XEmacs binds these keys to their
84 traditional emacs uses, and provides Windows 3.x style bindings for
85 the Cut, Copy and Paste functions.
86
87 Function XEmacs binding
88 -------- --------------
89 Undo C-_
90 Cut C-Insert
91 Copy C-Insert
92 Paste Sh-Del
93
94 You can rebind keys to make XEmacs more Windows-compatible; for
95 example, to bind C-z to undo:
96
97 (global-set-key [(control z)] 'undo)
98
99 Rebindind C-x and C-c is trickier because by default these are prefix
100 keys in XEmacs. See the "Key Bindings" node in the XEmacs manual.
101
102 ** Behaviour of selected regions
103
104 Selected regions behave differently in XEmacs from typical Windows
105 programs. The pc-select package provides various functions to enable
106 the standard Windows behaviour for selected regions (eg mark via
107 shift-arrow, self-inserting deletes region, etc).
108
109 ** Limitations on the use of the AltGr key.
110
111 In some locale and OS combinations you can't generate M-AltGr-key or
112 C-M-AltGr-key sequences at all.
113
114 To generate C-AltGr-key or C-M-AltGr-key sequences you must use the
115 right-hand Control key and you must press it *after* AltGr.
116
117 These limitations arise from fundamental problems in the way that the
118 win32 API reports AltGr key events. There isn't anything that XEmacs
119 can do to work round these problems that it isn't already doing.
120
121 You may want to create alternative bindings if any of the standard
122 XEmacs bindings require you to use some combination of Control or Meta
123 and AltGr.
124
125
126 * Features not fully supported in this release
127 ==============================================
128 ** Limited support for subprocesses
129
130 Attempting to use call-process to run a 16bit program gives a
131 "Spawning child process: Exec format error". For example shell-command
132 fails under Windows 95 and 98 if you use command.com or any other
133 16bit program as your shell.
134
135 XEmacs may incorrectly quote your call-process command if it contains
136 double quotes, backslashes or spaces.
137
138 start-process and functions that rely on it are supported under Windows 95,
139 98 and NT. However, starting a 16bit program that requires keyboard input
140 may cause XEmacs to hang or crash under Windows 95 and 98, and will leave
141 the orphaned 16bit program consuming all available CPU time.
142
143 Sending signals to subprocesses started by call-process or by
144 start-process fails with a "Cannot send signal to process" error under
145 Windows 95 and 98. As a side effect of this, quitting XEmacs while it
146 is still running subprocesses causes it to crash under Windows 95 and
147 98.
148
149 ** Changing fonts from the Options menu
150
151 The "Font" and "Size" entries on the Options menu don't work yet. This
152 will be fixed in a future release. In the meantime, you can either
153 change face fonts with customize or manually; for example:
154
155 (set-face-font 'default "Lucida Console:Regular:10::Western")
156 (set-face-font 'modeline "MS Sans Serif:Regular:10::Western")
157
158 Font weight and style and character set must be supplied in English as
159 above. Common weights and styles are "Regular", "Regular Italic",
160 "Bold" and "Bold Italic". Common character sets are "Western",
161 "Central European" and "OEM/DOS".
162
163 Windows 95 only comes with one fixed-width font that is suitable for
164 use by XEmacs, namely "Courier New".
165
166 ** No MULE support
167
168 This release of XEmacs on Windows does not contain MULE support. MULE
169 support has not been a priority for the XEmacs on Windows developers.
170
171 ** Printing
172
173 This release of XEmacs on Windows does not support printing natively.
174
175 You can use the lpr-command and lpr-switches variables to specify an
176 external print program.
177