view man/new-users-guide/new-users-guide.texi @ 2417:8b907450718f

[xemacs-hg @ 2004-12-05 08:48:12 by ben] The section on Troubleshooting (now 2.3) has been completely written and includes a lot of stuff that is not properly documented anywhere else. A fair amount of obsolete info has been deleted and I've incorporated the comments that people (mostly Stephen T) made. Former chapter 3 has been split up in two, one pertaining to basic I/O and the other to external I/O. What were formerly chapters 5 and 6 no longer exist as such; the info in them has been distributed across various other chapters. Old chapter 4 got split up, part going to the new chapter 4 on external I/O and part going to the new chapter 5 on the Internet. In this new chapter, stuff not pertaining to a specific package (e.g. VM or GNUS) was taken out of package-specific sections and a general mail section was constituted. Part of old chapter 5 remains in a new chapter 6 devoted to Emacs Lisp and other advanced stuff, and a section from old chapter 3 on basic init-file Lisp and some stuff from old chapter 5 on Info. The rest of chapter 5 was just misc and has gotten scattered to the winds (mostly in chapters 3 and 4). Old chapter 6 has also gotten quite scattered; there is no longer any section specifically devoted to Windows except one of the Installation sections (along with a section specfically devoted to Unix), and the rest has moved to join the appropriate non-Windows-specific section elsewhere. A lot of chapters had their sections rearranged and likewise for sections having entries rearranged, with the intention that the new arrangement should be more natural. In general I hope that stuff should be much easier to locate. I also rewrote the entries on the relation between XEmacs and GNU Emacs on the authors of XEmacs, including lots of info on who wrote specific subsections. However, this history is certainly not complete; I hope people will look over this and fix it up as necessary.
author ben
date Sun, 05 Dec 2004 08:48:12 +0000
parents 0784d089fdc9
children
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\input texinfo  @c -*-texinfo-*-
@setfilename ../../info/new-users-guide.info
@comment  node-name,  next,  previous,  up


@ifinfo
@dircategory XEmacs Editor
@direntry
* Intro: (new-users-guide).	Introduction to the XEmacs Editor.
@end direntry

This manual serves as an introduction to the XEmacs editor.

Copyright (C) 1985, 1986, 1988 Richard M. Stallman.
Copyright @copyright{} 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Lucid, Inc.
Copyright @copyright{} 1993, 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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.

@ignore
Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
results, provided the printed document carries copying permission
notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
(this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).

@end ignore
@end ifinfo
@c
@setchapternewpage odd
@settitle Getting Started With XEmacs
@c
@titlepage
@sp 6
@center @titlefont{Getting Started With XEmacs}
@sp 4
@sp 1
@sp 1
@center July 1994
@center (General Public License upgraded, January 1991)
@sp 5
@center Richard Stallman
@sp 1
@center and
@sp 1
@center Rashmi Goyal
@page
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
Copyright @copyright{} 1985, 1986, 1988 Richard M. Stallman.

Copyright @copyright{} 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 Lucid, Inc.

Copyright @copyright{} 1993, 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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.
@end titlepage
@page
@ifinfo
@node Top, Intro, (dir), (dir)
@top The Emacs Editor


Emacs is the extensible, customizable, self-documenting real-time
display editor.  This Info file will help you get started on using 
XEmacs.  It corresponds to XEmacs version 19.13.

@end ifinfo

@iftex
@unnumbered Preface

  This guide is intended to help you get started on using the
Emacs editor. It will show you some examples of simple customizations.

  For detailed information on any topic, refer to the @b{XEmacs
User's Manual}. This document will also refer the reader to the
@b{XEmacs User's Manual} for more information on corresponding
topics. You can also use the on-line, learn-by-doing tutorial, which you
get by running Emacs and typing @kbd{C-h t} OR you can choose the
@b{Emacs Tutorial} from the @b{Help} menu on the menu bar (which is
located on the extreme right of the frame). With it, you learn Emacs by
using Emacs on a specially designed file which describes commands, tells
you when to try them, and then explains the results you see.

  The first few chapters will introduce you to some basic Emacs commands. 
Later on, some examples of simple customizations will be shown. 

  To find the documentation on a particular command, look in the index.
Keys (character commands) and command names have separate indexes.  There
is also a glossary, with a cross reference for each term.

  This manual comes in two forms: the published form and the Info form.
The Info form is for on-line perusal with the INFO program; it is
distributed along with XEmacs.  Both forms contain substantially the
same text and are generated from a common source file, which is also
distributed along with XEmacs.

@end iftex


@c node

@menu
* Intro::                       Introduction to XEmacs editor

Indices, nodes containing large menus
* Key Index::                   An item for each standard Emacs key sequence.
* Command Index::               An item for each command and function name
* Variable Index::              An item for each variable in User-Guide
* Concept Index::               An item for the concepts introduced

Entering, Exiting and Editing Emacs
* Entering::                    Starting Emacs from the shell and Exiting
* Windows and Menus::           Description of Pull-down menus
* Edit::                        Basic Editing commands

Other Features of XEmacs
* Customization Basics::        Customize Emacs menus and keybindings
* Help::                        Help menu and other help commands
* Modes::                       Major and Minor modes in XEmacs
* Files::                       Visiting, Saving and Listing Files
* Other Customizations::        Customizing Variables, Modes, etc
* Select and Move::             Selecting text and moving text 
* Search and Replace::          Searching and Replacing text



 --- The Detailed Node Listing ---

Entering and Exiting Emacs

* Enter::                       Entering Emacs from the shell
* Frame::                       Basic information about the XEmacs Frame
* Exiting::                     Exiting Emacs
* Mode Line::                   Interpreting the mode line.
* Echo Area::                   Bottom of the frame where you interact
                                with Emacs.

XEmacs Windows and Menus

* XEmacs Window::               Manipulating XEmacs Windows
* Pull-down Menus::             Description of XEmacs Pull-down Menus

Pull-down menus

* File menu::                   Items on the File Menu
* Edit menu::                   Items on the Edit Menu
* Options Menu::                Items on the Options Menu
* Buffers Menu::                Items on the Buffers Menu
* Help menu::                   The Help Menu at the extreme right on
                                the frame

Basic Editing Commands

* Insert::                      Insert text in Emacs by simply typing at
                                the cursor position.
* Cursor Position::             Moving Around the cursor in the buffer,
* Erase::                       Different commands for erasing text 
* Numeric Argument::            Giving Numeric Arguments to commands
* Undo::                        Undoing Changes made by mistake

Customize key bindings and menus 

* Customizing key Bindings::    Changing Key Bindings
* Customizing Menus::           Adding, Deleting, Enabling and Disabling Menus

Help

* The Help Menu::               Items on the Help Menu                

Major and Minor Modes

* Major Modes::                 Choosing Major Modes
* Minor Modes::                 Auto-Fill, Abbrev and other minor modes

Emacs Files

* File Names::                  How to type and edit file name arguments.
* Visiting::                    Visiting a file prepares Emacs to edit the file.
* Saving Files::                How to save Emacs files.

Other Customizations

* Setting Variables::           Customizing Emacs variables
* Init File::                   Some examples of Lisp expressions in
                                init.el file

Selecting and Moving Text

* Selecting Text::              Select a region of text by setting the Mark
* Mouse::                       Selecting Text with Mouse
* Region Operation::            Various ways to operate on a selected text
* Moving Text::                 Moving Text 
* Accumulating text::           Accumulating Text from several buffers

No sub menu for the node search and replace
@end menu

@node Intro,Key Index  ,Top , Top
@unnumbered Introduction

  You are reading about XEmacs which is a self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor.

  XEmacs is a @dfn{display} editor because normally the text
being edited is visible on the screen and is updated automatically as you
type.  @xref{Frame,Display,,xemacs,XEmacs User's Manual}.

  It is a @dfn{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,xemacs,XEmacs User's
Manual}.

  It is 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.

  @dfn{Self-documenting} means that at any time you can type a special
character, @kbd{Control-h}, to find out what your options are.  You can
also use @kbd{C-h} to find out what a command does, or to find all the
commands relevant to a topic.  @xref{Help,,,xemacs,XEmacs User's Manual}.

  @dfn{Customizable} means you can change the definitions of Emacs
commands.  For example, if you use a programming language in which
comments start with @samp{<**} and end with @samp{**>}, you can tell the
Emacs comment manipulation commands to use those strings
(@pxref{Comments,,,xemacs,XEmacs User's Manual}).  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,,,xemacs,XEmacs User's Manual}.

  @dfn{Extensible} means you can go beyond simple customization and
write entirely new commands, programs in the Lisp language to be run by
Emacs's own Lisp interpreter.  Emacs 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 Emacs without making a separate copy of all of Emacs.  Most
of the editing commands of Emacs 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 Emacs, but anybody
can use it afterward.

@include enter.texi
@include xmenu.texi
@include edit.texi
@include custom1.texi
@include help.texi
@include modes.texi
@include files.texi
@include custom2.texi
@include region.texi
@include search.texi

@node Key Index, Command Index, Intro, Top
@unnumbered Key (Character) Index
@printindex ky

@node Command Index, Variable Index, Key Index, Top
@unnumbered Command and Function Index
@printindex fn

@node Variable Index, Concept Index, Command Index, Top
@unnumbered Variable Index
@printindex vr

@node Concept Index, Entering, Variable Index, Top
@unnumbered Concept Index
@printindex cp

@summarycontents
@contents
@bye

@c Remember to delete these lines before creating the info file.
@iftex
@lucidbook
@bindingoffset = 0.5in
@parindent = 0pt
@end iftex