XEmacs FAQ
**********

Introduction
************

This is the guide to the XEmacs Frequently Asked Questions list---a compendium of questions and answers pertaining to one of the finest programs ever written.  It is much more than just a Text Editor.

This FAQ is freely redistributable.  I take no liability for the correctness and safety of any procedures or advice given here.  This FAQ 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.

If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at http://www.xemacs.org/faq/xemacs-faq.html.

This version is somewhat nicer than the unofficial hypertext versions that are archived at Utrecht, Oxford, Smart Pages, and other FAQ archives.

1 Introduction, Policy, Credits
*******************************

Learning XEmacs is a lifelong activity.  Even people who have used Emacs for years keep discovering new features.  Therefore this document cannot be complete.  Instead it is aimed at the person who is either considering XEmacs for their own use, or has just obtained it and is wondering what to do next.  It is also useful as a reference to available resources.

The previous maintainer of the FAQ was Anthony Rossini, who started it, after getting tired of hearing JWZ complain about repeatedly having to answer questions. Ben Wing and Chuck Thompson, the principal authors of XEmacs, then took over and Ben did a massive update reorganizing the whole thing.  At which point Anthony took back over, but then had to give it up again.  Some of the other contributors to this FAQ are listed later in this document.

The previous version was converted to hypertext format, and edited by Steven L. Baur.  It was converted back to texinfo by Hrvoje Niksic.

The FAQ was then maintained by Andreas Kaempf, who passed it on to Christian Nybø, the current FAQ maintainer.

If you notice any errors or items which should be added or amended to this FAQ please send email to Christian Nybø. Include XEmacs FAQ on the Subject: line.

1.0: Introduction
=================

Q1.0.1: What is XEmacs?
-----------------------

An alternative to GNU Emacs, originally based on an early alpha version of FSF's version 19, and has diverged quite a bit since then.  XEmacs was known as Lucid Emacs through version 19.10.  Almost all features of GNU Emacs are supported in XEmacs.  The maintainers of XEmacs actively track changes to GNU Emacs while also working to add new features.

Q1.0.2: What is the current version of XEmacs?
----------------------------------------------

XEmacs 21.1.8 is the current stable version of XEmacs.

XEmacs 20.4 is a minor upgrade from 20.3, containing many bugfixes. It was released in February 1998.

XEmacs 19.16 was the last release of v19, released in November, 1997, which was also the last version without international language support.

Q1.0.3: Where can I find it?
----------------------------

The canonical source and binaries can be found via anonymous FTP at:

     ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/

Q1.0.4: Why Another Version of Emacs?
-------------------------------------

For a detailed description of the differences between GNU Emacs and XEmacs and a detailed history of XEmacs, check out the

     NEWS file (http://www.xemacs.org/About/XEmacsVsGNUemacs.html)

However, here is a list of some of the reasons why we think you might consider using it:

  * It looks nicer.

  * The XEmacs maintainers are generally more receptive to suggestions than the GNU Emacs maintainers.

  * Many more bundled packages than GNU Emacs

  * Binaries are available for many common operating systems.

  * Face support on TTY's.

  * A built-in toolbar.

  * Better Motif compliance.

  * Some internationalization support (including full MULE support, if compiled with it.)

  * Variable-width fonts.

  * Variable-height lines.

  * Marginal annotations.

  * ToolTalk support.

  * XEmacs can be used as an Xt widget, and can be embedded within another application.

  * Horizontal and vertical scrollbars (using real toolkit scrollbars).

  * Better APIs (and performance) for attaching fonts, colors, and other properties to text.

  * The ability to embed arbitrary graphics in a buffer.

  * Completely compatible (at the C level) with the Xt-based toolkits.

  * First production Web Browser supporting Style Sheets.

Q1.0.5: Why Haven't XEmacs and GNU Emacs Merged?
------------------------------------------------

There are currently irreconcilable differences in the views about technical, programming, design and organizational matters between RMS and the XEmacs development team which provide little hope for a merge to take place in the short-term future.

If you have a comment to add regarding the merge, it is a good idea to avoid posting to the newsgroups,  because of the very heated flamewars that often result.  Mail your questions to xemacs-beta@xemacs.org and bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu.

Q1.0.6: Where can I get help?
-----------------------------

Probably the easiest way, if everything is installed, is to use Info, by pressing C-h i, or selecting Manuals->Info from the Help Menu.  M-x apropos can be used to look for particular commands.

For items not found in the manual, try reading this FAQ and reading the Usenet group comp.emacs.xemacs.

If you choose to post to a newsgroup, please use comp.emacs.xemacs.  Please do not post XEmacs related questions to gnu.emacs.help.

If you cannot post or read Usenet news, there is a corresponding mailing list which is available.  It can be subscribed to by sending a message to xemacs-request@xemacs.org with subscribe in the body of the message.  Send to the list at xemacs@xemacs.org. list.  To cancel a subscription, you must use the xemacs-request address.  Send a message with a subject of unsubscribe to be removed.

Q1.0.7: Where is the mailing list archived?
-------------------------------------------

The archives can be found at http://www.xemacs.org/Lists/Archive

Q1.0.8: How do you pronounce XEmacs?
------------------------------------

The most common pronounciation is Eks eemax.

Q1.0.9: What does XEmacs look like?
-----------------------------------

Screen snapshots are available in the WWW version of the FAQ.

     http://www.xemacs.org/faq/xemacs-faq.html

Q1.0.10: Is there a port of XEmacs to Microsoft ('95 or NT)?
------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, see MS Windows.

Q1.0.11: Is there a port of XEmacs to the Macintosh?
----------------------------------------------------

There has been a port to the MachTen environment of XEmacs 19.13, but no patches have been submitted to the maintainers to get this in the mainstream distribution.

For the MacOS, there is a port of Emacs 18.59 (ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/parmet/).

Q1.0.12: Is there a port of XEmacs to NextStep?
-----------------------------------------------

Carl Edman, apparently no longer at cedman@princeton.edu, did the port of GNU Emacs to NeXTstep and expressed interest in doing the XEmacs port, but never went any farther.

Q1.0.13: Is there a port of XEmacs to OS/2?
-------------------------------------------

No, and there is no news of anyone working on it.

Q1.0.14: Where can I obtain a printed copy of the XEmacs users manual?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Pre-printed manuals are not available.  If you are familiar with TeX, you can generate your own manual from the XEmacs sources.

HTML and Postscript versions of XEmacs manuals may be available from the XEmacs web site in the future.

1.1: Policies
=============

Q1.1.1: What is the FAQ editorial policy?
-----------------------------------------

The FAQ is actively maintained and modified regularly.  All links should be up to date.  All submissions are welcome.  E-mail submissions to XEmacs FAQ maintainers.

Please make sure that XEmacs FAQ appears on the Subject: line. If you think you have a better way of answering a question, or think a question should be included, we'd like to hear about it.  Questions and answers included into the FAQ will be edited for spelling and grammar, and will be attributed.  Answers appearing without attribution are either from versions of the FAQ dated before May 1996, or are from one of the four people listed at the top of this document.  Answers quoted from Usenet news articles will always be attributed, regardless of the author.

Q1.1.2: How do I become a Beta Tester?
--------------------------------------

Send an email message to xemacs-beta-request@xemacs.org with the line subscribe in the body of the message.

Be prepared to get your hands dirty, as beta testers are expected to identify problems as best they can.

Q1.1.3: How do I contribute to XEmacs itself?
---------------------------------------------

Ben Wing ben@xemacs.org writes:

     BTW if you have a wish list of things that you want added, you have to speak up about it!  More specifically, you can do the following if you want a feature added (in increasing order of usefulness):

       * Make a posting about a feature you want added.

       * Become a beta tester and make more postings about those same features.

       * Convince us that you're going to use the features in some cool and useful way.

       * Come up with a clear and well-thought-out API concerning the features.

       * Write the code to implement a feature and send us a patch.

     (not that we're necessarily requiring you to write the code, but we can always hope :)

1.2: Credits
============

Q1.2.1: Who wrote XEmacs?
-------------------------

XEmacs is the result of the time and effort of many people.  The developers responsible for the 19.16/20.x releases are:

  * Martin Buchholz

  * Steve Baur

  * Hrvoje Niksic

The developers responsible for the 19.14 release are:

  * Chuck Thompson

     Chuck was Mr. XEmacs from 19.11 through 19.14, and is responsible for XEmacs becoming a widely distributed program over the Internet.

  * Ben Wing

  * Jamie Zawinski

     Jamie Zawinski was Mr. Lucid Emacs from 19.0 through 19.10, the last release actually named Lucid Emacs.  Richard Mlynarik was crucial to most of those releases.

  * Richard Mlynarik

Along with many other contributors, partially enumerated in the About XEmacs option in the Help menu.

Q1.2.2: Who contributed to this version of the FAQ?
---------------------------------------------------

The following people contributed valuable suggestions to building this version of the FAQ (listed in alphabetical order):

  * SL Baur

  * Hrvoje Niksic

  * Aki Vehtari

Q1.2.3: Who contributed to the FAQ in the past?
-----------------------------------------------

This is only a partial list, as many names were lost in a hard disk crash some time ago.

  * Curtis.N.Bingham

  * Richard Caley

  * Richard Cognot

  * William G. Dubuque

  * Eric Eide

  * Chris Flatters

  * Evelyn Ginsparg

  * Marty Hall

  * Darrell Kindred

  * David Moore

  * Arup Mukherjee

  * Juergen Nickelsen

  * Kevin R. Powell

  * Justin Sheehy

  * Stig

  * Aki Vehtari

1.3: Internationalization
=========================

Q1.3.1: What is the status of XEmacs v20?
-----------------------------------------

XEmacs v20 is the version of XEmacs that includes MULE (Asian-language) support.  XEmacs 20.0 was released in February 1997, followed by XEmacs 20.2 in May, XEmacs 20.3 in November and XEmacs 20.4 in February 1998.  When compiled without MULE support, 20.4 is approximately as stable as 19.16, and probably faster (due to additional optimization work.)

As of XEmacs 20.3, version 20 is the supported version of XEmacs.  This means that 19.16 will optionally receive stability fixes (if any), but that all the real development work will be done on the v20 tree.

The incompatible changes in XEmacs 20 include the additional byte-codes, new primitive data types (character, char-table, and range-table).  This means that the character-integer equivalence inherent to all the previous Emacs and XEmacs releases no longer applies.

However, to avoid breaking old code, many functions that should normally accept characters work with integers, and vice versa.  For more information, see the Lisp reference manual.  Here is a relevant excerpt, for your convenience.

     In XEmacs version 19, and in all versions of FSF GNU Emacs, a character in XEmacs Lisp is nothing more than an integer. This is yet another holdover from XEmacs Lisp's derivation from vintage-1980 Lisps; modern versions of Lisp consider this equivalence a bad idea, and have separate character types.  In XEmacs version 20, the modern convention is followed, and characters are their own primitive types. (This change was necessary in order for MULE, i.e. Asian-language, support to be correctly implemented.)

     Even in XEmacs version 20, remnants of the equivalence between characters and integers still exist; this is termed the char-int confoundance disease.  In particular, many functions such as eq, equal, and memq have equivalent functions (old-eq, old-equal, old-memq, etc.) that pretend like characters are integers are the same.  Byte code compiled under any version 19 Emacs will have all such functions mapped to their old- equivalents when the byte code is read into XEmacs 20.  This is to preserve compatibility -- Emacs 19 converts all constant characters to the equivalent integer during byte-compilation, and thus there is no other way to preserve byte-code compatibility even if the code has specifically been written with the distinction between characters and integers in mind.

     Every character has an equivalent integer, called the character code.  For example, the character A is represented as the integer 65, following the standard ASCII representation of characters.  If XEmacs was not compiled with MULE support, the range of this integer will always be 0 to 255 -- eight bits, or one byte. (Integers outside this range are accepted but silently truncated; however, you should most decidedly not rely on this, because it will not work under XEmacs with MULE support.)  When MULE support is present, the range of character codes is much larger. (Currently, 19 bits are used.)

     FSF GNU Emacs uses kludgy character codes above 255 to represent keyboard input of ASCII characters in combination with certain modifiers.  XEmacs does not use this (a more general mechanism is used that does not distinguish between ASCII keys and other keys), so you will never find character codes above 255 in a non-MULE XEmacs.

     Individual characters are not often used in programs.  It is far more common to work with strings, which are sequences composed of characters.

Q1.3.2: What is the status of Asian-language support, aka MULE?
---------------------------------------------------------------

MULE support is now available for UNIX versions of XEmacs.

If you would like to help, you may want to join the xemacs-mule@xemacs.org mailing list.  Especially needed are people who speak/write languages other than English, who are willing to use XEmacs/MULE regularly, and have some experience with Elisp.

See Q1.1.2.

Q1.3.3: How do I type non-ASCII characters?
-------------------------------------------

See question 3.5.7 (see Q3.5.7) in part 3 of this FAQ.

Q1.3.4: Can XEmacs messages come out in a different language?
-------------------------------------------------------------

The message-catalog support has mostly been written but doesn't currently work.  The first release of XEmacs 20 will not support it.  However, menubar localization does work, even in 19.14.  To enable it, add to your Emacs file entries like this:

     Emacs*XlwMenu.resourceLabels:			True
     Emacs*XlwMenu.file.labelString:	        	Fichier
     Emacs*XlwMenu.openInOtherWindow.labelString: 	In anderem Fenster offnen

The name of the resource is derived from the non-localized entry by removing punctuation and capitalizing as above.

Q1.3.5: Please explain the various input methods in MULE/XEmacs 20.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------

MORIOKA Tomohiko writes:

     Original Mule supports the following input methods: Wnn4, Wnn6, Canna, SJ3 and XIM. Interfaces for Wnn and SJ3 uses the egg user interface. Interface for Canna does not use egg. I don't know about XIM. It is to support ATOK, of course, it may work for another servers.

     Wnn supports Japanese, Chinese and Korean. It is made by OMRON and Kyôto university. It is a powerful and complex system.  Wnn4 is free and Wnn6 is not free.

     Canna supports only Japanese. It is made by NEC. It is a simple and powerful system. Canna uses only grammar (Wnn uses grammar and probability between words), so I think Wnn is cleverer than Canna, however Canna users made a good grammar and dictionary.  So for standard modern Japanese, Canna seems cleverer than Wnn4. In addition, the UNIX version of Canna is free (now there is a Microsoft Windows version).

     SJ3 supports only Japanese. It is made by Sony.  XIM supports was made to use ATOK (a major input method in personal computer world).  XIM is the standard for accessing input methods bundled in Japanese versions of Solaris.  (XEmacs 20 will support XIM input).

     Egg consists of following parts:

      1. Input character Translation System (ITS) layer. It translates ASCII inputs to Kana/PinYin/Hangul characters.

      2. Kana/PinYin/Hangul to Kanji transfer layer. It is interface layer for network Kana-Kanji server (Wnn and Sj3).

     These input methods are modal, namely there are mode, alphabet mode and Kana-Kanji transfer mode.  However there are mode-less input methods for Egg and Canna.  Boiled-egg is a mode-less input method running on Egg.  For Canna, canna.el has a tiny boiled-egg like command, (canna-boil), and there are some boiled-egg like utilities.  In addition, it was planned to make an abstraction for all transfer type input methods.  However authors of input methods are busy, so maybe this plan is stopped.  Perhaps after Mule merged GNU Emacs will be released, it will be continued.

Q1.3.6: How do I portably code for MULE/XEmacs 20?
--------------------------------------------------

MORIOKA Tomohiko writes:

     MULE and XEmacs are quite different. So the application implementor must write separate code for these mule variants.

     MULE and the next version of Emacs are similar but the symbols are very different---requiring separate code as well.

     Namely we must support 3 kinds of mule variants and 4 or 5 or 6 kinds of emacs variants... (;_;) I'm shocked, so I wrote a wrapper package called emu to provide a common interface.

     I have the following suggestions about dealing with mule variants:

       * (featurep 'mule) t on all mule variants

       * (boundp 'MULE) is t on only MULE.  Maybe the next version of Emacs will not have this symbol.

       * MULE has a variable mule-version.  Perhaps the next version of Emacs will have this variable as well.

     Following is a sample to distinguish mule variants:

          (if (featurep 'mule)
              (cond ((boundp 'MULE)
                     ;; for original Mule
                     )
          	  ((string-match "XEmacs" emacs-version)
          	   ;; for XEmacs with Mule
          	   )
          	  (t
          	   ;; for next version of Emacs
          	   ))
            ;; for old emacs variants
            )

Q1.3.7: How about Cyrillic Modes?
---------------------------------

Ilya Zakharevich writes:

     There is a cyrillic mode in the file mysetup.zip in ftp://ftp.math.ohio-state.edu/pub/users/ilya/emacs/.  This is a modification to Valery Alexeev's russian.el which can be obtained from

http://ftpsearch.ntnu.no/?query=russian.el.Z.

Dima Barsky writes:

     There is another cyrillic mode for both GNU Emacs and XEmacs by Dmitrii (Mitya) Manin at http://kulichki-lat.rambler.ru/centrolit/manin/cyr.el.

Rebecca Ore writes:

     The fullest resource I found on Russian language use (in and out of XEmacs) is http://sunsite.oit.unc.edu/sergei/Software/Software.html

1.4: Getting Started, Backing up & Recovery
===========================================

Q1.4.1: What is a .emacs and is there a sample one?
---------------------------------------------------

The .emacs file is used to customize XEmacs to your tastes.  No two are alike, nor are they expected to be alike, but that's the point. The XEmacs distribution contains an excellent starter example in the etc directory called sample.emacs.  Copy this file from there to your home directory and rename it .emacs.  Then edit it to suit.

Starting with 19.14, you may bring the sample.emacs into an XEmacs buffer by selecting Help->Sample .emacs from the menubar. To determine the location of the etc directory type the command C-h v data-directory RET.

Q1.4.2: Can I use the same .emacs with the other Emacs?
-------------------------------------------------------

Yes.  The sample .emacs included in the XEmacs distribution will show you how to handle different versions and flavors of Emacs.

Q1.4.3: Any good tutorials around?
----------------------------------

There's the XEmacs tutorial available from the Help Menu under Basics->Tutorials, or by typing C-h t. To check whether it's available in a non-english language, type C-u C-h t TAB, type the first letters of your preferred language, then type RET.

Q1.4.4: May I see an example of a useful XEmacs Lisp function?
--------------------------------------------------------------

The following function does a little bit of everything useful.  It does something with the prefix argument, it examines the text around the cursor, and it's interactive so it may be bound to a key.  It inserts copies of the current word the cursor is sitting on at the cursor.  If you give it a prefix argument: C-u 3 M-x double-word then it will insert 3 copies.

     (defun double-word (count)
       "Insert a copy of the current word underneath the cursor"
       (interactive "*p")
       (let (here there string)
         (save-excursion
           (forward-word -1)
           (setq here (point))
           (forward-word 1)
           (setq there (point))
           (setq string (buffer-substring here there)))
         (while (>= count 1)
           (insert string)
           (decf count))))

The best way to see what is going on here is to let XEmacs tell you. Put the code into an XEmacs buffer, and do a C-h f with the cursor sitting just to the right of the function you want explained.  Eg.  move the cursor to the SPACE between interactive and "*p" and hit C-h f to see what the function interactive does.  Doing this will tell you that the * requires a writable buffer, and p converts the prefix argument to a number, and interactive allows you to execute the command with M-x.

Q1.4.5: And how do I bind it to a key?
--------------------------------------

To bind to a key do:

     (global-set-key "\C-cd" 'double-word)

Or interactively, M-x global-set-key and follow the prompts.

Q1.4.6: What's the difference between a macro and a function?
-------------------------------------------------------------

Quoting from the Lisp Reference (a.k.a Lispref) Manual:

Macros enable you to define new control constructs and other language features.  A macro is defined much like a function, but instead of telling how to compute a value, it tells how to compute another Lisp expression which will in turn compute the value.  We call this expression the expansion of the macro.

Macros can do this because they operate on the unevaluated expressions for the arguments, not on the argument values as functions do.  They can therefore construct an expansion containing these argument expressions or parts of them.

Do not confuse the two terms with keyboard macros, which are another matter, entirely.  A keyboard macro is a key bound to several other keys.  Refer to manual for details.

Q1.4.7: How come options saved with 19.13 don't work with 19.14 or later?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a problem with options of the form:

     (add-spec-list-to-specifier (face-property 'searchm-field 'font)
                                 '((global (nil))))

saved by a 19.13 XEmacs that causes a 19.14 XEmacs grief.  You must delete these options.  XEmacs 19.14 and later no longer write the options directly to .emacs which should allow us to deal with version incompatibilities better in the future.

Options saved under XEmacs 19.13 are protected by code that specifically requires a version 19 XEmacs.  This won't be a problem unless you're using XEmacs v20.  You should consider changing the code to read:

     (cond
      ((and (string-match "XEmacs" emacs-version)
            (boundp 'emacs-major-version)
            (or (and (= emacs-major-version 19)
                     (>= emacs-minor-version 12))
                (>= emacs-major-version 20)))
       ...
       ))

2 Installation and Trouble Shooting
***********************************

This is part 2 of the XEmacs Frequently Asked Questions list.  This section is devoted to Installation, Maintenance and Trouble Shooting.

2.0: Installation
=================

Q2.0.1: Running XEmacs without installing
-----------------------------------------

The INSTALL file says that up to 108 MB of space is needed temporarily during installation!  How can I just try it out?

XEmacs will run in place without requiring installation and copying of the Lisp directories, and without having to specify a special build-time flag.  It's the copying of the Lisp directories that requires so much space.  XEmacs is largely written in Lisp.

A good method is to make a shell alias for xemacs:

     alias xemacs=/i/xemacs-20.2/src/xemacs

(You will obviously use whatever directory you downloaded the source tree to instead of /i/xemacs-20.2).

This will let you run XEmacs without massive copying.

Q2.0.2: XEmacs is too big
-------------------------

Although this entry has been written for XEmacs 19.13, most of it still stands true.

Steve Baur writes:

     The 45MB of space required by the installation directories can be reduced dramatically if desired.  Gzip all the .el files.  Remove all the packages you'll never want to use (or even ones you do like the two obsolete mailcrypts and Gnus 4 in 19.13).  Remove the TexInfo manuals. Remove the Info (and use just hardcopy versions of the manual).  Remove most of the stuff in etc.  Remove or gzip all the source code.  Gzip or remove the C source code.  Configure it so that copies are not made of the support lisp.  I'm not advocating any of these things, just pointing out ways to reduce the disk requirements if desired.

     Now examine the space used by directory:

          0	/usr/local/bin/xemacs
          2048	/usr/local/bin/xemacs-19.13

          1546	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/i486-miranova-sco3.2v4.2
          1158	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/i486-unknown-linux1.2.13

     You need to keep these.  XEmacs isn't stripped by default in installation, you should consider stripping.  That will save you about 5MB right there.

          207	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/w3
          122	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/sounds
          18	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/sparcworks
          159	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/vm
          6	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/e
          21	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/eos
          172	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/toolbar
          61	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/ns
          43	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc/gnus

     These are support directories for various packages.  In general they match a directory under ./xemacs-19.13/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/.  If you do not require the package, you may delete or gzip the support too.

          1959	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/etc
          175	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/bytecomp
          340	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/calendar
          342	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/comint
          517	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/dired
          42	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/electric
          212	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/emulators
          238	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/energize
          289	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/gnus
          457	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/ilisp
          1439	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/modes
          2276	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/packages
          1040	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/prim
          176	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/pcl-cvs
          154	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/rmail
          3	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/epoch
          45	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/term
          860	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/utils
          851	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/vm
          13	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/vms
          157	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/x11
          19	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/tooltalk
          14	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/sunpro
          291	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/games
          198	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/edebug
          619	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/w3
          229	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/eos
          55	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/iso
          59	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/mailcrypt
          187	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/eterm
          356	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/ediff
          408	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/hyperbole/kotl
          1262	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/hyperbole
          247	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/hm--html-menus
          161	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/mh-e
          299	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/viper
          53	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/oobr/tree-x
          4	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/oobr/tree-nx/English.lproj/DocWindow.nib
          3	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/oobr/tree-nx/English.lproj/InfoPanel.nib
          3	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/oobr/tree-nx/English.lproj/TreeView.nib
          11	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/oobr/tree-nx/English.lproj
          53	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/oobr/tree-nx
          466	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp/oobr
          14142	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp

     These are all Emacs Lisp source code and bytecompiled object code.  You may safely gzip everything named *.el here.  You may remove any package you don't use.  Nothing bad will happen if you delete a package that you do not use.  You must be sure you do not use it though, so be conservative at first.

     Possible candidates for deletion include w3 (newer versions exist, or you may just use Lynx or Netscape for web browsing), games, hyperbole, mh-e, hm--html-menus (better packages exist), vm, viper, oobr, gnus (new versions exist), etc.  Ask yourself, Do I ever want to use this package?  If the answer is no, then it is a candidate for removal.

     First, gzip all the .el files.  Then go about package by package and start gzipping the .elc files.  Then run XEmacs and do whatever it is you normally do.  If nothing bad happens, then delete the directory.  Be conservative about deleting directories, and it would be handy to have a backup tape around in case you get too zealous.

     prim, modes, packages, and utils are four directories you definitely do not want to delete, although certain packages can be removed from them if you do not use them.

          1972	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/info

     These are online texinfo sources.  You may either gzip them or remove them.  In either case, C-h i (info mode) will no longer work.

          20778	/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13

     The 20MB achieved is less than half of what the full distribution takes up, and can be achieved without deleting a single file.

Giacomo Boffi provides this procedure:

     Substitute /usr/local/lib/ with the path where the xemacs tree is rooted, then use this script:

          #!/bin/sh

          r=/usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.13/lisp

          cd $r ; rm -f cmpr ; touch cmpr

          du -s .

          for d in * ; do
            if test -d $d ; then
              cd $d
              for f in *.el ; do
          #     compress (remove) only (ONLY) the sources that have a
          #     corresponding compiled file --- do not (DO NOT)
          #     touch other sources
                if test -f ${f}c ; then gzip -v9 $f >> $r/cmpr ; fi
              done
              cd ..
            fi
          done

          du -s .

     A step beyond would be substituting rm -f for gzip -v9, but you have to be desperate for removing the sources (remember that emacs can access compressed files transparently).

     Also, a good megabyte could easily be trimmed from the $r/../etc directory, e.g., the termcap files, some O+NEWS, others that I don't remember as well.

     XEmacs 21.0 will unbundle the lisp hierarchy and allow the installer to choose exactly how much support code gets installed.

Q2.0.3: Compiling XEmacs with Netaudio.
---------------------------------------

What is the best way to compile XEmacs with the netaudio system, since I have got the netaudio system compiled but installed at a weird place, I am not root.  Also in the READMEs it does not say anything about compiling with the audioserver?

You should only need to add some stuff to the configure command line. To tell it to compile in netaudio support: --with-sound=both, or --with-sound=nas if you don't want native sound support for some reason.) To tell it where to find the netaudio includes and libraries:

     --site-libraries=WHATEVER
     --site-includes=WHATEVER

Then (fingers crossed) it should compile and it will use netaudio if you have a server running corresponding to the X server. The netaudio server has to be there when XEmacs starts. If the netaudio server goes away and another is run, XEmacs should cope (fingers crossed, error handling in netaudio isn't perfect).

BTW, netaudio has been renamed as it has a name clash with something else, so if you see references to NAS or Network Audio System, it's the same thing.  It also might be found at ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/audio/nas/.

Q2.0.4: Problems with Linux and ncurses.
----------------------------------------

On Linux 1.3.98 with termcap 2.0.8 and the ncurses that came with libc 5.2.18, XEmacs 20.0b20 is unable to open a tty device:

     src/xemacs -nw -q
     Initialization error:
     Terminal type `xterm' undefined (or can't access database?)

Ben Wing writes:

     Your ncurses configuration is messed up.  Your /usr/lib/terminfo is a bad pointer, perhaps to a CD-ROM that is not inserted.

Q2.0.5: Do I need X11 to run XEmacs?
------------------------------------

No.  The name XEmacs is unfortunate in the sense that it is not an X Window System-only version of Emacs.  Starting with 19.14 XEmacs has full color support on a color-capable character terminal.

Q2.0.6: I'm having strange crashes. What do I do?
-------------------------------------------------

There have been a variety of reports of crashes due to compilers with buggy optimizers.  Please see the PROBLEMS file that comes with XEmacs to read what it says about your platform.

Q2.0.7: Libraries in non-standard locations
-------------------------------------------

I have x-faces, jpeg, xpm etc. all in different places.  I've tried space-separated, comma-separated, several --site-libraries, all to no avail.

     --site-libraries='/path/one /path/two /path/etc'

Q2.0.8: can't resolve symbol _h_errno
-------------------------------------

You are using the Linux/ELF distribution of XEmacs 19.14, and your ELF libraries are out of date.  You have the following options:

 1. Upgrade your libc to at least 5.2.16 (better is 5.2.18, 5.3.12, or 5.4.10).

 2. Patch the XEmacs binary by replacing all occurrences of _h_errno^@ with h_errno^@^@.  Any version of Emacs will suffice.  If you don't understand how to do this, don't do it.

 3. Rebuild XEmacs yourself -- any working ELF version of libc should be O.K.

Hrvoje Niksic writes:

     Why not use a Perl one-liner for No. 2?

          perl -pi -e 's/_h_errno\0/h_errno\0\0/g' \
          /usr/local/bin/xemacs-19.14

     NB: You must patch /usr/local/bin/xemacs-19.14, and not xemacs because xemacs is a link to xemacs-19.14; the Perl -i option will cause unwanted side-effects if applied to a symbolic link.

SL Baur writes:

     If you build against a recent libc-5.4 (late enough to have caused problems earlier in the beta cycle) and then run with an earlier version of libc, you get a

          $ xemacs
          xemacs: can't resolve symbol '__malloc_hook'
          zsh: 7942 segmentation fault (core dumped)  xemacs

     (Example binary compiled against libc-5.4.23 and run with libc-5.4.16).

     The solution is to upgrade to at least libc-5.4.23.  Sigh.  Drat.

Q2.0.9: Where do I find external libraries?
-------------------------------------------

All external libraries used by XEmacs can be found at the XEmacs FTP site ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/aux/.

The canonical locations (at the time of this writing) are as follows:

JPEG
     ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/.  Version 6a is current.

XPM
     ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries/.  Version 3.4j is current. Older versions of this package are known to cause XEmacs crashes.

TIFF
     ftp://ftp.sgi.com/graphics/tiff/.  v3.4 is current.  The latest beta is v3.4b035.  There is a HOWTO here.

PNG
     ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/.  0.89c is current.  XEmacs requires a fairly recent version to avoid using temporary files.

     ftp://swrinde.nde.swri.edu/pub/png/src/

Compface
     ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/faces/compface/.  This library has been frozen for about 6 years, and is distributed without version numbers.  It should be compiled with the same options that X11 was compiled with on your system.  The version of this library at XEmacs.org includes the xbm2xface.pl script, written by stig@hackvan.com, which may be useful when generating your own xface.

NAS
     ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/audio/nas/. Version 1.2p5 is current.  There is a FAQ here.

Q2.0.10: After I run configure I find a core dump, is something wrong?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Not necessarily.  If you have GNU sed 3.0 you should downgrade it to 2.05.  From the README at prep.ai.mit.edu:

     sed 3.0 has been withdrawn from distribution.  It has major revisions, which mostly seem to be improvements; but it turns out to have bugs too which cause trouble in some common cases.

     Tom Lord won't be able to work fixing the bugs until May.  So in the mean time, we've decided to withdraw sed 3.0 from distribution and make version 2.05 once again the recommended version.

It has also been observed that the vfork test on Solaris will leave a core dump.

Q2.0.11: XEmacs doesn't resolve hostnames.
------------------------------------------

This is the result of a long-standing problem with SunOS and the fact that stock SunOS systems do not ship with DNS resolver code in libc.

Christopher Davis writes:

     That's correct [The SunOS 4.1.3 precompiled binaries don't do name lookup].  Since Sun figured that everyone used NIS to do name lookups (that DNS thing was apparently only a passing fad, right?), the stock SunOS 4.x systems don't have DNS-based name lookups in libc.

     This is also why Netscape ships two binaries for SunOS 4.1.x.

     The best solution is to compile it yourself; the configure script will check to see if you've put DNS in the shared libc and will then proceed to link against the DNS resolver library code.

Q2.0.12: Why can't I strip XEmacs?
----------------------------------

Richard Cognot writes:

     Because of the way XEmacs (and every other Emacsen, AFAIK) is built. The link gives you a bare-boned emacs (called temacs). temacs is then run, preloading some of the lisp files. The result is then dumped into a new executable, named xemacs, which will contain all of the preloaded lisp functions and data.

     Now, during the dump itself, the executable (code+data+symbols) is written on disk using a special unexec() function. This function is obviously heavily system dependent. And on some systems, it leads to an executable which, although valid, cannot be stripped without damage. If memory serves, this is especially the case for AIX binaries. On other architecture it might work OK.

     The Right Way to strip the emacs binary is to strip temacs prior to dumping xemacs. This will always work, although you can do that only if you install from sources (as temacs is not part of the binary kits).

Nat Makarevitch writes:

     Here is the trick:

      1. [ ./configure; make ]

      2. rm src/xemacs

      3. strip src/temacs

      4. make

      5. cp src/xemacs /usr/local/bin/xemacs

      6. cp lib-src/DOC-19.16-XEmacs /usr/local/lib/xemacs-19.16/i586-unknown-linuxaout

Q2.0.13: Problems linking with Gcc on Solaris
---------------------------------------------

There are known difficulties linking with Gnu ld on Solaris.  A typical error message might look like:

     unexec(): dlopen(../dynodump/dynodump.so): ld.so.1: ./temacs:
     fatal: relocation error:
     symbol not found: main: referenced in ../dynodump/dynodump.so

Martin Buchholz writes:

     You need to specify -fno-gnu-linker as part of your flags to pass to ld.  Future releases of XEmacs will try to do this automatically.

Q2.0.14: Make on HP/UX 9 fails after linking temacs
---------------------------------------------------

Problem when building xemacs-19.16 on hpux 9:

Richard Cognot writes:

     make on hpux fails after linking temacs with a message:

          "make: don't know how to make .y."

     Solution: This is a problem with HP make revision 70.X.  Either use GNU make, or install PHCO_6552, which will bring make to revision 72.24.1.17.

2.1: Trouble Shooting
=====================

Q2.1.1: Help! XEmacs just crashed on me!
----------------------------------------

First of all, don't panic.  Whenever XEmacs crashes, it tries extremely hard to auto-save all of your files before dying.  (The main time that this will not happen is if the machine physically lost power or if you killed the XEmacs process using kill -9).  The next time you try to edit those files, you will be informed that a more recent auto-save file exists.  You can use M-x recover-file to retrieve the auto-saved version of the file.

Starting with 19.14, you may use the command M-x recover-session after a crash to pick up where you left off.

Now, XEmacs is not perfect, and there may occasionally be times, or particular sequences of actions, that cause it to crash.  If you can come up with a reproducible way of doing this (or even if you have a pretty good memory of exactly what you were doing at the time), the maintainers would be very interested in knowing about it.  Post a message to comp.emacs.xemacs or send mail to crashes@xemacs.org. Please note that the crashes address is exclusively for crash reports.

If at all possible, include a stack backtrace of the core dump that was produced.  This shows where exactly things went wrong, and makes it much easier to diagnose problems.  To do this, you need to locate the core file (it's called core, and is usually sitting in the directory that you started XEmacs from, or your home directory if that other directory was not writable).  Then, go to that directory and execute a command like:

     gdb `which xemacs` core

and then issue the command where to get the stack backtrace.  You might have to use dbx or some similar debugger in place of gdb.  If you don't have any such debugger available, complain to your system administrator.

It's possible that a core file didn't get produced, in which case you're out of luck.  Go complain to your system administrator and tell him not to disable core files by default.  Also see Q2.1.15, for tips and techniques for dealing with a debugger.

When making a problem report make sure that:

 1. Report all of the information output by XEmacs during the crash.

 2. You mention what O/S & Hardware you are running XEmacs on.

 3. What version of XEmacs you are running.

 4. What build options you are using.

 5. If the problem is related to graphics, we will also need to know what version of the X Window System you are running, and what window manager you are using.

 6. If the problem happened on a tty, please include the terminal type.

Q2.1.2: Cryptic Minibuffer messages.
------------------------------------

When I try to use some particular option of some particular package, I get a cryptic error in the minibuffer.

If you can't figure out what's going on, select Options/General Options/Debug on Error from the Menubar and then try and make the error happen again.  This will give you a backtrace that may be enlightening. If not, try reading through this FAQ; if that fails, you could try posting to comp.emacs.xemacs (making sure to include the backtrace) and someone may be able to help.  If you can identify which Emacs lisp source file the error is coming from you can get a more detailed stack backtrace by doing the following:

 1. Visit the .el file in an XEmacs buffer.

 2. Issue the command M-x eval-current-buffer.

 3. Reproduce the error.

Depending on the version of XEmacs, you may either select Edit->Show Messages (19.13 and earlier) or Help->Recent Keystrokes/Messages (19.14 and later) from the menubar to see the most recent messages.  This command is bound to C-h l by default.

Q2.1.3: Translation Table Syntax messages at Startup
----------------------------------------------------

I get tons of translation table syntax error messages during startup. How do I get rid of them?

There are two causes of this problem.  The first usually only strikes people using the prebuilt binaries.  The culprit in both cases is the file XKeysymDB.

  * The binary cannot find the XKeysymDB file.  The location is hardcoded at compile time so if the system the binary was built on puts it a different place than your system does, you have problems.  To fix, set the environment variable XKEYSYMDB to the location of the XKeysymDB file on your system or to the location of the one included with XEmacs which should be at <xemacs_root_directory>/lib/xemacs-19.16/etc/XKeysymDB.

  * The binary is finding the XKeysymDB but it is out-of-date on your system and does not contain the necessary lines.  Either ask your system administrator to replace it with the one which comes with XEmacs (which is the stock R6 version and is backwards compatible) or set your XKEYSYMDB variable to the location of XEmacs's described above.

Q2.1.4: Startup warnings about deducing proper fonts?
-----------------------------------------------------

How can I avoid the startup warnings about deducing proper fonts?

This is highly dependent on your installation, but try with the following font as your base font for XEmacs and see what it does:

     -adobe-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1

More precisely, do the following in your resource file:

     Emacs.default.attributeFont: \
     -adobe-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1

If you just don't want to see the *Warnings* buffer at startup time, you can set this:

     (setq display-warning-minimum-level 'error)

The buffer still exists; it just isn't in your face.

Q2.1.5: XEmacs cannot connect to my X Terminal!
-----------------------------------------------

Help!  I can not get XEmacs to display on my Envizex X-terminal!

Try setting the DISPLAY variable using the numeric IP address of the host you are running XEmacs from.

Q2.1.6: XEmacs just locked up my Linux X server!
------------------------------------------------

There have been several reports of the X server locking up under Linux. In all reported cases removing speedo and scaled fonts from the font path corrected the problem.  This can be done with the command xset.

It is possible that using a font server may also solve the problem.

Q2.1.7: HP Alt key as Meta.
---------------------------

How can I make XEmacs recognize the Alt key of my HP workstation as a Meta key?

Put the following line into a file and load it with xmodmap(1) before starting XEmacs:

     remove Mod1 = Mode_switch

Q2.1.8: got (wrong-type-argument color-instance-p nil)
------------------------------------------------------

Natalie Kershaw writes:

     I am trying to run xemacs 19.13 under X11R4. Whenever I move the mouse I get the following error. Has anyone seen anything like this? This doesn't occur on X11R5.

          Signalling:
          (error "got (wrong-type-argument color-instance-p nil)
          and I don't know why!")

dinos writes:

     I think this is due to undefined resources; You need to define color backgrounds and foregrounds into your .../app-defaults/Emacs like:

          *Foreground:	Black	;everything will be of black on grey95,
          *Background:	Grey95	;unless otherwise specified.
          *cursorColor:	Red3	;red3 cursor with grey95 border.
          *pointerColor:	Red3	;red3 pointer with grey95 border.

Natalie Kershaw adds:

     What fixed the problem was adding some more colors to the X color database (copying the X11R5 colors over), and also defining the following resources:

          xemacs*cursorColor:    black
          xemacs*pointerColor:   black

     With the new colors installed the problem still occurs if the above resources are not defined.

     If the new colors are not present then an additional error occurs on XEmacs startup, which says Color Red3 not defined.

Q2.1.9: XEmacs causes my OpenWindows 3.0 server to crash.
---------------------------------------------------------

The OpenWindows 3.0 server is incredibly buggy.  Your best bet is to replace it with one from the generic MIT X11 release.  You might also try disabling parts of your .emacs, like enabling background pixmaps.

Q2.1.10: Warnings from incorrect key modifiers.
-----------------------------------------------

The following information comes from the PROBLEMS file that comes with XEmacs.

If you're having troubles with HP/UX it is because HP/UX defines the modifiers wrong in X.  Here is a shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE configures the X server.

     #! /bin/sh
     xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
     keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
     keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
     EOF

     xmodmap - << EOF
     clear mod1
     keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
     add mod1 = Meta_L
     keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
     add mod2 = Mode_switch
     EOF

Q2.1.11: Can't instantiate image error... in toolbar
----------------------------------------------------

Dr. Ram Samudrala writes:

I just installed the XEmacs (20.4-2) RPMS that I downloaded from http://www.xemacs.org/.  Everything works fine, except that when I place my mouse over the toolbar, it beeps and gives me this message:

      Can't instantiate image (probably cached):
      [xbm :mask-file "/usr/include/X11/bitmaps/leftptrmsk :mask-data
      (16 16 <strange control characters> ...

Kyle Jones writes:

     This is problem specific to some Chips and Technologies video chips, when running XFree86.  Putting

     Option "sw_cursor"

     in XF86Config gets rid of the problem.

Q2.1.12: Problems with Regular Expressions on DEC OSF1.
-------------------------------------------------------

I have xemacs 19.13 running on an alpha running OSF1 V3.2 148 and ispell would not run because it claimed the version number was incorrect although it was indeed OK. I traced the problem to the regular expression handler.

Douglas Kosovic writes:

     Actually it's a DEC cc optimization bug that screws up the regexp handling in XEmacs.

     Rebuilding using the -migrate switch for DEC cc (which uses a different sort of optimization) works fine.

See xemacs-19_13-dunix-3_2c.patch at the following URL on how to build with the -migrate flag:

     http://www-digital.cern.ch/carney/emacs/emacs.html

NOTE: There have been a variety of other problems reported that are fixed in this fashion.

Q2.1.13: HP/UX 10.10 and create_process failure.
------------------------------------------------

Dave Carrigan writes:

     With XEmacs 19.13 and HP/UX 10.10, anything that relies on the create_process function fails. This breaks a lot of things (shell-mode, compile, ange-ftp, to name a few).

Phil Johnson writes:

     This is a problem specific to HP-UX 10.10.  It only occurs when XEmacs is compiled for shared libraries (the default), so you can work around it by compiling a statically-linked binary (run configure with --dynamic=no).

     I'm not sure whether the problem is with a particular shared library or if it's a kernel problem which crept into 10.10.

Richard Cognot writes:

     I had a few problems with 10.10. Apparently, some of them were solved by forcing a static link of libc (manually).

Q2.1.14: C-g doesn't work for me. Is it broken?
-----------------------------------------------

Ben Wing writes:

     C-g does work for most people in most circumstances.  If it doesn't, there are only two explanations:

      1. The code is wrapped with a binding of inhibit-quit to t.  Ctrl-Shift-G should still work, I think.

      2. SIGIO is broken on your system, but BROKEN_SIGIO isn't defined.

     To test #2, try executing (while t) from the *scratch* buffer.  If C-g doesn't interrupt, then you're seeing #2.

Morten Welinder writes:

     On some (but not all) machines a hung XEmacs can be revived by kill -FPE <pid>.  This is a hack, of course, not a solution. This technique works on a Sun4 running 4.1.3_U1.  To see if it works for you, start another XEmacs and test with that first.  If you get a core dump the method doesn't work and if you get Arithmetic error then it does.

Q2.1.15: How to Debug an XEmacs problem with a debugger
-------------------------------------------------------

If XEmacs does crash on you, one of the most productive things you can do to help get the bug fixed is to poke around a bit with the debugger. Here are some hints:

  * First of all, if the crash is at all reproducible, consider very strongly recompiling your XEmacs with debugging symbols, with no optimization, and with the configure options --debug=yes and --error-checking=all.  This will make your XEmacs run somewhat slower but make it a lot more likely to catch the problem earlier (closer to its source), and a lot easier to determine what's going on with a debugger.

  * If you're able to run XEmacs under a debugger and reproduce the crash (if it's inconvenient to do this because XEmacs is already running or is running in batch mode as part of a bunch of scripts, consider attaching to the existing process with your debugger; most debuggers let you do this by substituting the process ID for the core file when you invoke the debugger from the command line, or by using the attach command or something similar), here are some things you can do:

  * If XEmacs is hitting an assertion failure, put a breakpoint on assert_failed().

  * If XEmacs is hitting some weird Lisp error that's causing it to crash (e.g. during startup), put a breakpoint on signal_1()---this is declared static in eval.c.

  * Internally, you will probably see lots of variables that hold objects of type Lisp_Object.  These are exactly what they appear to be, i.e. references to Lisp objects.  Printing them out with the debugger probably won't be too useful---you'll likely just see a number.  To decode them, do this:

          call debug_print (OBJECT)

     where OBJECT is whatever you want to decode (it can be a variable, a function call, etc.).  This will print out a readable representation on the TTY from which the xemacs process was invoked.

  * If you want to get a Lisp backtrace showing the Lisp call stack, do this:

          call debug_backtrace ()

  * Using debug_print and debug_backtrace has two disadvantages - it can only be used with a running xemacs process, and it cannot display the internal C structure of a Lisp Object.  Even if all you've got is a core dump, all is not lost.

     If you're using GDB, there are some macros in the file src/gdbinit in the XEmacs source distribution that should make it easier for you to decode Lisp objects.  Copy this file to ~/.gdbinit, or source it from ~/.gdbinit, and use the macros defined therein.  In particular, use the pobj macro to print the internal C representation of a lisp object.  This will work with a core file or not-yet-run executable.  The aliases ldp and lbt are provided for conveniently calling debug_print and debug_backtrace.

     If you are using Sun's dbx debugger, there is an equivalent file src/dbxrc to copy to or source from ~/.dbxrc.

  * If you're using a debugger to get a C stack backtrace and you're seeing stack traces with some of the innermost frames mangled, it may be due to dynamic linking. (This happens especially under Linux.) Consider reconfiguring with --dynamic=no.  Also, sometimes (again under Linux), stack backtraces of core dumps will have the frame where the fatal signal occurred mangled; if you can obtain a stack trace while running the XEmacs process under a debugger, the stack trace should be clean.

     Curtiss suggests upgrading to ld.so version 1.8 if dynamic linking and debugging is a problem on Linux.

  * If you're using a debugger to get a C stack backtrace and you're getting a completely mangled and bogus stack trace, it's probably due to one of the following:

      a. Your executable has been stripped.  Bad news.  Tell your sysadmin not to do this---it doesn't accomplish anything except to save a bit of disk space, and makes debugging much much harder.

      b. Your stack is getting trashed.  Debugging this is hard; you have to do a binary-search type of narrowing down where the crash occurs, until you figure out exactly which line is causing the problem.  Of course, this only works if the bug is highly reproducible.

      c. If your stack trace has exactly one frame in it, with address 0x0, this could simply mean that XEmacs attempted to execute code at that address, e.g. through jumping to a null function pointer.  Unfortunately, under those circumstances, GDB under Linux doesn't know how to get a stack trace. (Yes, this is the third Linux-related problem I've mentioned.  I have no idea why GDB under Linux is so bogus.  Complain to the GDB authors, or to comp.os.linux.development.system).  Again, you'll have to use the narrowing-down process described above.

      d. If you compiled 19.14 with --debug (or by default in later versions), you will get a Lisp backtrace output when XEmacs crashes, so you'll have something useful.

  * If you compile with the newer gcc variants gcc-2.8 or egcs, you will also need gdb 4.17.  Earlier releases of gdb can't handle the debug information generated by the newer compilers.

  * The above information on using src/gdbinit works for XEmacs-21.0 and above.  For older versions of XEmacs, there are different gdbinit files provided in the src directory.  Use the one corresponding to the configure options used when building XEmacs.

Q2.1.16: XEmacs crashes in strcat on HP/UX 10
---------------------------------------------

From the problems database (through the former address http://support.mayfield.hp.com/):

     Problem Report: 5003302299
     Status:         Open

     System/Model:   9000/700
     Product Name:   HPUX S800 10.0X
     Product Vers:   9245XB.10.00

     Description: strcat(3C) may read beyond
     end of source string, can cause SIGSEGV

     *** PROBLEM TEXT ***
     strcat(3C) may read beyond the source string onto an unmapped page,
     causing a segmentation violation.

Q2.1.17: Marker does not point anywhere
---------------------------------------

As with other errors, set debug-on-error to t to get the backtrace when the error occurs.  Specifically, two problems have been reported (and fixed).

 1. A problem with line-number-mode in XEmacs 19.14 affected a large number of other packages.  If you see this error message, turn off line-number-mode.

 2. A problem with some early versions of Gnus 5.4 caused this error. Upgrade your Gnus.

Q2.1.18: 19.14 hangs on HP/UX 10.10.
------------------------------------

Richard Cognot writes:

     For the record, compiling on hpux 10.10 leads to a hang in Gnus when compiled with optimization on.

     I've just discovered that my hpux 10.01 binary was working less well than expected. In fact, on a 10.10 system, (while t) was not interrupted by C-g. I defined BROKEN_SIGIO and recompiled on 10.10, and... the hang is now gone.

     As far as configure goes, this will be a bit tricky: BROKEN_SIGIO is needed on 10.10, but not on 10.01: if I run my 10.01 binary on a 10.01 machine, without BROKEN_SIGIO being defined, C-g works as expected.

Richard Cognot adds:

     Apparently somebody has found the reason why there is this poll: interrupted... message for each event.  For some reason, libcurses reimplements a select() system call, in a highly broken fashion. The fix is to add a -lc to the link line before the -lxcurses. XEmacs will then use the right version of select().

Alain Fauconnet writes:

     The real solution is to not link -lcurses in!  I just changed -lcurses to -ltermcap in the Makefile and it fixed:

      1. The poll: interrupted system call message.

      2. A more serious problem I had discovered in the meantime, that is the fact that subprocess handling was seriously broken: subprocesses e.g. started by AUC TeX for TeX compilation of a buffer would hang.  Actually they would wait forever for emacs to read the socket which connects stdout...

Q2.1.19: XEmacs does not follow the local timezone.
---------------------------------------------------

When using one of the prebuilt binaries many users have observed that XEmacs uses the timezone under which it was built, but not the timezone under which it is running.  The solution is to add:

     (set-time-zone-rule "MET")

to your .emacs or the site-start.el file if you can. Replace MET with your local timezone.

Q2.1.20: Symbol's function definition is void: hkey-help-show.
--------------------------------------------------------------

This is a problem with a partially loaded hyperbole.  Try adding:

     (require 'hmouse-drv)

where you load hyperbole and the problem should go away.

Q2.1.21: Every so often the XEmacs frame freezes
------------------------------------------------

This problem has been fixed in 19.15, and was due to a not easily reproducible race condition.

Q2.1.22: XEmacs seems to take a really long time to do some things
------------------------------------------------------------------

David Moore writes:

     Two things you can do:

     1) C level:

     When you see it going mad like this, you might want to use gdb from an 'xterm' to attach to the running process and get a stack trace.  To do this just run:

          gdb /path/to/xemacs/xemacs ####

     Where #### is the process id of your xemacs, instead of specifying the core.  When gdb attaches, the xemacs will stop [1] and you can type `where' in gdb to get a stack trace as usual.  To get things moving again, you can just type `quit' in gdb.  It'll tell you the program is running and ask if you want to quit anyways.  Say 'y' and it'll quit and have your emacs continue from where it was at.

     2) Lisp level:

     Turn on debug-on-quit early on.  When you think things are going slow hit C-g and it may pop you in the debugger so you can see what routine is running.  Press `c' to get going again.

     debug-on-quit doesn't work if something's turned on inhibit-quit or in some other strange cases.

Q2.1.23: Movemail on Linux does not work for XEmacs 19.15 and later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Movemail used to work fine in 19.14 but has stopped working in 19.15 and 20.x.  I am using Linux.

SL Baur writes:

     Movemail on Linux used to default to using flock file locking.  With 19.15 and later versions it now defaults to using .lock file locking.  If this is not appropriate for your system, edit src/s/linux.h and uncomment the line that reads:

          #define MAIL_USE_FLOCK

3 Customization and Options
***************************

This is part 3 of the XEmacs Frequently Asked Questions list.  This section is devoted to Customization and screen settings.

3.0: Customization -- Emacs Lisp and .emacs
===========================================

Q3.0.1: What version of Emacs am I running?
-------------------------------------------

How can .emacs determine which of the family of Emacsen I am using?

To determine if you are currently running GNU Emacs 18, GNU Emacs 19, XEmacs 19, XEmacs 20, or Epoch, and use appropriate code, check out the example given in etc/sample.emacs.  There are other nifty things in there as well!

For all new code, all you really need to do is:

     (defvar running-xemacs (string-match "XEmacs\\|Lucid" emacs-version))

Q3.0.2: How can I evaluate Emacs-Lisp expressions?
--------------------------------------------------

I know I can evaluate Elisp expressions from *scratch* buffer with C-j after the expression.  How do I do it from another buffer?

Press M-: (the default binding of eval-expression), and enter the expression to the minibuffer.  In XEmacs prior to 19.15 eval-expression used to be a disabled command by default.  If this is the case, upgrade your XEmacs.

Q3.0.3: (setq tab-width 6) behaves oddly.
-----------------------------------------

If you put (setq tab-width 6) in your .emacs file it does not work!  Is there a reason for this?  If you do it at the EVAL prompt it works fine!! How strange.

Use setq-default instead, since tab-width is all-buffer-local.

Q3.0.4: How can I add directories to the load-path?
---------------------------------------------------

Here are two ways to do that, one that puts your directories at the front of the load-path, the other at the end:

     ;;; Add things at the beginning of the load-path, do not add
     ;;; duplicate directories:
     (pushnew "bar" load-path :test 'equal)

     (pushnew "foo" load-path :test 'equal)

     ;;; Add things at the end, unconditionally
     (setq load-path (nconc load-path '("foo" "bar")))

keith (k.p.) hanlan writes:

     To add directories using Unix shell metacharacters use expand-file-name like this:

          (push (expand-file-name "~keithh/.emacsdir") load-path)

Q3.0.5: How to check if a lisp function is defined?
---------------------------------------------------

Use the following elisp:

     (fboundp 'foo)

It's almost always a mistake to test emacs-version or any similar variables.

Instead, use feature-tests, such as featurep, boundp, fboundp, or even simple behavioral tests, eg.:

     (defvar foo-old-losing-code-p
       (condition-case nil (progn (losing-code t) nil)
         (wrong-number-of-arguments t)))

There is an incredible amount of broken code out there which could work much better more often in more places if it did the above instead of trying to divine its environment from the value of one variable.

Q3.0.6: Can I force the output of (face-list) to a buffer?
----------------------------------------------------------

It would be good having it in a buffer, as the output of (face-list) is too wide to fit to a minibuffer.

Evaluate the expression in the *scratch* buffer with point after the rightmost paren and typing C-j.

If the minibuffer smallness is the only problem you encounter, you can simply press C-h l to get the former minibuffer contents in a buffer.

Q3.0.7: Font selections in don't get saved after Save Options.
--------------------------------------------------------------

For XEmacs 19.14 and previous:

John Mann writes:

     You have to go to Options->Frame Appearance and unselect Frame-Local Font Menu.  If this option is selected, font changes are only applied to the current frame and do not get saved when you save options.

For XEmacs 19.15 and later:

Implement the above as well as set the following in your .emacs

     (setq options-save-faces t)

Q3.0.8: How do I get a single minibuffer frame?
-----------------------------------------------

Vin Shelton writes:

     (setq initial-frame-plist '(minibuffer nil))
     (setq default-frame-plist '(minibuffer nil))
     (setq default-minibuffer-frame
           (make-frame
            '(minibuffer only
     		    width 86
     		    height 1
     		    menubar-visible-p nil
     		    default-toolbar-visible-p nil
     		    name "minibuffer"
     		    top -2
     		    left -2
     		    has-modeline-p nil)))
     (frame-notice-user-settings)

Please note: The single minibuffer frame may not be to everyone's taste, and there any number of other XEmacs options settings that may make it difficult or inconvenient to use.

Q3.0.9: What is Customize?
--------------------------

Starting with XEmacs 20.2 there is new system 'Customize' for customizing XEmacs options.

You can access Customize from the Options menu or invoking one of customize commands by typing eg. M-x customize, M-x customize-face, M-x customize-variable or M-x customize-apropos.

Starting with XEmacs 20.3 there is also new `browser' mode for Customize. Try it out with M-x customize-browse

3.1: X Window System & Resources
================================

Q3.1.1: Where is a list of X resources?
---------------------------------------

Search through the NEWS file for X Resources.  A fairly comprehensive list is given after it.

In addition, an app-defaults file is supplied, etc/Emacs.ad listing the defaults.  The file etc/sample.Xdefaults gives a set of defaults that you might consider.  It is essentially the same as etc/Emacs.ad but some entries are slightly altered.  Be careful about installing the contents of this file into your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file if you use GNU Emacs under X11 as well.

Q3.1.2: How can I detect a color display?
-----------------------------------------

You can test the return value of the function (device-class), as in:

     (when (eq (device-class) 'color)
       (set-face-foreground  'font-lock-comment-face "Grey")
       (set-face-foreground  'font-lock-string-face  "Red")
       ....
       )

Q3.1.3: (set-screen-width) worked in 19.6, but not in 19.13?
------------------------------------------------------------

In Lucid Emacs 19.6 I did (set-screen-width CHARACTERS) and (set-screen-height LINES) in my .emacs instead of specifying Emacs*EmacsScreen.geometry in my .Xdefaults but this does not work in XEmacs 19.13.

These two functions now take frame arguments:

     (set-frame-width (selected-frame) CHARACTERS)
     (set-frame-height (selected-frame) LINES)

Q3.1.4: Specifying Emacs*EmacsScreen.geometry in .emacs does not work in 19.15?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In XEmacs 19.11 I specified Emacs*EmacsScreen.geometry in my .emacs but this does not work in XEmacs 19.15.

We have switched from using the term screen to using the term frame.

The correct entry for your .Xdefaults is now:

     Emacs*EmacsFrame.geometry

Q3.1.5: How can I get the icon to just say XEmacs?
--------------------------------------------------

I'd like the icon to just say XEmacs, and not include the name of the current file in it.

Add the following line to your .emacs:

     (setq frame-icon-title-format "XEmacs")

Q3.1.6: How can I have the window title area display the full path?
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd like to have the window title area display the full directory/name of the current buffer file and not just the name.

Add the following line to your .emacs:

     (setq frame-title-format "%S: %f")

A more sophisticated title might be:

     (setq frame-title-format
           '("%S: " (buffer-file-name "%f"
     				 (dired-directory dired-directory "%b"))))

That is, use the file name, or the dired-directory, or the buffer name.

Q3.1.7: xemacs -name junk doesn't work?
---------------------------------------

When I run xterm -name junk, I get an xterm whose class name according to xprop, is junk.  This is the way it's supposed to work, I think.  When I run xemacs -name junk the class name is not set to junk.  It's still emacs.  What does xemacs -name really do?  The reason I ask is that my window manager (fvwm) will make a window sticky and I use XEmacs to read my mail.  I want that XEmacs window to be sticky, without having to use the window manager's function to set the window sticky.  What gives?

xemacs -name sets the application name for the program (that is, the thing which normally comes from argv[0]).  Using -name is the same as making a copy of the executable with that new name.  The WM_CLASS property on each frame is set to the frame-name, and the application-class.  So, if you did xemacs -name FOO and then created a frame named BAR, you'd get an X window with WM_CLASS = ( "BAR", "Emacs").  However, the resource hierarchy for this widget would be:

     Name:    FOO   .shell             .container   .BAR
     Class:   Emacs .TopLevelEmacsShell.EmacsManager.EmacsFrame

instead of the default

     Name:    xemacs.shell             .container   .emacs
     Class:   Emacs .TopLevelEmacsShell.EmacsManager.EmacsFrame

It is arguable that the first element of WM_CLASS should be set to the application-name instead of the frame-name, but I think that's less flexible, since it does not give you the ability to have multiple frames with different WM_CLASS properties.  Another possibility would be for the default frame name to come from the application name instead of simply being emacs.  However, at this point, making that change would be troublesome: it would mean that many users would have to make yet another change to their resource files (since the default frame name would suddenly change from emacs to xemacs, or whatever the executable happened to be named), so we'd rather avoid it.

To make a frame with a particular name use:

     (make-frame '((name . "the-name")))

Q3.1.8: -iconic doesn't work.
-----------------------------

When I start up XEmacs using -iconic it doesn't work right. Using -unmapped on the command line, and setting the initiallyUnmapped X Resource don't seem to help much either...

Ben Wing writes:

     Ugh, this stuff is such an incredible mess that I've about given up getting it to work.  The principal problem is numerous window-manager bugs...

3.2: Textual Fonts & Colors
===========================

Q3.2.1: How can I set color options from .emacs?
------------------------------------------------

How can I set the most commonly used color options from my .emacs instead of from my .Xdefaults?

Like this:

     (set-face-background 'default      "bisque") ; frame background
     (set-face-foreground 'default      "black") ; normal text
     (set-face-background 'zmacs-region "red") ; When selecting w/
     					; mouse
     (set-face-foreground 'zmacs-region "yellow")
     (set-face-font       'default      "*courier-bold-r*120-100-100*")
     (set-face-background 'highlight    "blue") ; Ie when selecting
     					; buffers
     (set-face-foreground 'highlight    "yellow")
     (set-face-background 'modeline     "blue") ; Line at bottom
     					; of buffer
     (set-face-foreground 'modeline     "white")
     (set-face-font       'modeline     "*bold-r-normal*140-100-100*")
     (set-face-background 'isearch      "yellow") ; When highlighting
     					; while searching
     (set-face-foreground 'isearch      "red")
     (setq x-pointer-foreground-color   "black") ; Adds to bg color,
     					; so keep black
     (setq x-pointer-background-color   "blue") ; This is color
     					; you really
     					; want ptr/crsr

Q3.2.2: How do I set the text, menu and modeline fonts?
-------------------------------------------------------

Note that you should use Emacs. and not Emacs* when setting face values.

In .Xdefaults:

     Emacs.default.attributeFont:  -*-*-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-m-*-*-*
     Emacs*menubar*font:           fixed
     Emacs.modeline.attributeFont: fixed

This is confusing because modeline is a face, and can be found listed with all faces in the current mode by using M-x set-face-font (enter) ?.  It uses the face specification of attributeFont, while menubar is a normal X thing that uses the specification font.  With Motif it may be necessary to use fontList instead of font.

Q3.2.3: How can I set the colors when highlighting a region?
------------------------------------------------------------

How can I set the background/foreground colors when highlighting a region?

You can change the face zmacs-region either in your .Xdefaults:

     Emacs.zmacs-region.attributeForeground: firebrick
     Emacs.zmacs-region.attributeBackground: lightseagreen

or in your .emacs:

     (set-face-background 'zmacs-region "red")
     (set-face-foreground 'zmacs-region "yellow")

Q3.2.4: How can I limit color map usage?
----------------------------------------

I'm using Netscape (or another color grabber like XEmacs); is there anyway to limit the number of available colors in the color map?

XEmacs 19.13 didn't have such a mechanism (unlike netscape, or other color-hogs).  One solution is to start XEmacs prior to netscape, since this will prevent Netscape from grabbing all colors (but Netscape will complain).  You can use the flags for Netscape, like -mono, -ncols <#> or -install (for mono, limiting to <#> colors, or for using a private color map).  Since Netscape will take the entire colormap and never release it, the only reasonable way to run it is with -install.

If you have the money, another solution would be to use a truecolor or direct color video.

Starting with XEmacs 19.14, XEmacs uses the closest available color if the colormap is full, so it's O.K. now to start Netscape first.

Q3.2.5: My tty supports color, but XEmacs doesn't use them.
-----------------------------------------------------------

XEmacs tries to automatically determine whether your tty supports color, but sometimes guesses wrong.  In that case, you can make XEmacs Do The Right Thing using this Lisp code:

     (if (eq 'tty (device-type))
         (set-device-class nil 'color))

Q3.2.6: Can I have pixmap backgrounds in XEmacs?
------------------------------------------------

Juan Villacis writes:

     There are several ways to do it.  For example, you could specify a default pixmap image to use in your ~/.Xresources, e.g.,

            Emacs*EmacsFrame.default.attributeBackgroundPixmap: /path/to/image.xpm

     and then reload ~/.Xresources and restart XEmacs.  Alternatively, since each face can have its own pixmap background, a better way would be to set a face's pixmap within your XEmacs init file, e.g.,

            (set-face-background-pixmap 'default "/path/to/image.xpm")
            (set-face-background-pixmap 'bold    "/path/to/another_image.xpm")

     and so on.  You can also do this interactively via M-x edit-faces.

3.3: The Modeline
=================

Q3.3.1: How can I make the modeline go away?
--------------------------------------------

     (set-specifier has-modeline-p nil)

Starting with XEmacs 19.14 the modeline responds to mouse clicks, so if you haven't liked or used the modeline in the past, you might want to try the new version out.

Q3.3.2: How do you have XEmacs display the line number in the modeline?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Add the following line to your .emacs file to display the line number:

     (line-number-mode 1)

Use the following to display the column number:

     (column-number-mode 1)

Or select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Editing->Basics->Line Number Mode and/or Customize->Emacs->Editing->Basics->Column Number Mode

Or type M-x customize RET editing-basics RET.

Q3.3.3: How do I get XEmacs to put the time of day on the modeline?
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Add the following line to your .emacs file to display the time:

     (display-time)

See Customize from the Options menu for customization.

Q3.3.4: How do I turn off current chapter from AUC TeX modeline?
----------------------------------------------------------------

With AUC TeX, fast typing is hard because the current chapter, section etc. are given in the modeline.  How can I turn this off?

It's not AUC TeX, it comes from func-menu in func-menu.el. Add this code to your .emacs to turn it off:

     (setq fume-display-in-modeline-p nil)

Or just add a hook to TeX-mode-hook to turn it off only for TeX mode:

     (add-hook 'TeX-mode-hook
     	  '(lambda () (setq fume-display-in-modeline-p nil)))

David Hughes writes:

     If you have 19.14 or later, try this instead; you'll still get the function name displayed in the modeline, but it won't attempt to keep track when you modify the file. To refresh when it gets out of synch, you simply need click on the Rescan Buffer option in the function-menu.

          (setq-default fume-auto-rescan-buffer-p nil)

Q3.3.5: How can one change the modeline color based on the mode used?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

You can use something like the following:

     (add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook
               (lambda ()
                 (set-face-background 'modeline "red" (current-buffer))))

Then, when editing a Lisp file (i.e. when in Lisp mode), the modeline colors change from the default set in your .emacs.  The change will only be made in the buffer you just entered (which contains the Lisp file you are editing) and will not affect the modeline colors anywhere else.

Notes:

  * The hook is the mode name plus -hook.  eg. c-mode-hook, c++-mode-hook, emacs-lisp-mode-hook (used for your .emacs or a xx.el file), lisp-interaction-mode-hook (the *scratch* buffer), text-mode-hook, etc.

  * Be sure to use add-hook, not (setq c-mode-hook xxxx), otherwise you will erase anything that anybody has already put on the hook.

  * You can also do (set-face-font 'modeline FONT), eg. (set-face-font 'modeline "*bold-r-normal*140-100-100*" (current-buffer)) if you wish the modeline font to vary based on the current mode.

This works in 19.15 as well, but there are additional modeline faces, modeline-buffer-id, modeline-mousable, and modeline-mousable-minor-mode, which you may want to customize.

3.4: Multiple Device Support
============================

Q3.4.1: How do I open a frame on another screen of my multi-headed display?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The support for this was revamped for 19.14.  Use the command M-x make-frame-on-display.  This command is also on the File menu in the menubar.

XEmacs 19.14 and later also have the command make-frame-on-tty which will establish a connection to any tty-like device.  Opening the TTY devices should be left to gnuclient, though.

Q3.4.2: Can I really connect to a running XEmacs after calling up over a modem? How?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you're not running at least XEmacs 19.14, you can't.  Otherwise check out the gnuattach program supplied with XEmacs.  Starting with XEmacs 20.3, gnuattach and gnudoit functionality is provided by gnuclient.

Also see Q5.0.12.

3.5: The Keyboard
=================

Q3.5.1: How can I bind complex functions (or macros) to keys?
-------------------------------------------------------------

As an example, say you want the paste key on a Sun keyboard to insert the current Primary X selection at point. You can accomplish this with:

     (define-key global-map [f18] 'x-insert-selection)

However, this only works if there is a current X selection (the selection will be highlighted).  The functionality I like is for the paste key to insert the current X selection if there is one, otherwise insert the contents of the clipboard.  To do this you need to pass arguments to x-insert-selection.  This is done by wrapping the call in a 'lambda form:

     (global-set-key [f18]
       (lambda () (interactive) (x-insert-selection t nil)))

This binds the f18 key to a generic functional object.  The interactive spec is required because only interactive functions can be bound to keys.

For the FAQ example you could use:

     (global-set-key [(control ?.)]
       (lambda () (interactive) (scroll-up 1)))
     (global-set-key [(control ?		;)]
     			  (lambda () (interactive) (scroll-up -1)))

This is fine if you only need a few functions within the lambda body. If you're doing more it's cleaner to define a separate function as in question 3.5.3 (see Q3.5.3).

Q3.5.2: How can I stop down-arrow from adding empty lines to the bottom of my buffers?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Add the following line to your .emacs file:

     (setq next-line-add-newlines nil)

This has been the default setting in XEmacs for some time.

Q3.5.3: How do I bind C-. and C-; to scroll one line up and down?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Add the following (Thanks to Richard Mlynarik and Wayne Newberry) to .emacs:

     (defun scroll-up-one-line ()
       (interactive)
       (scroll-up 1))

     (defun scroll-down-one-line ()
       (interactive)
       (scroll-down 1))

     (global-set-key [(control ?.)] 'scroll-up-one-line) ; C-.
     (global-set-key [(control ?		;)] 'scroll-down-one-line) ; C-;

The key point is that you can only bind simple functions to keys; you can not bind a key to a function that you're also passing arguments to. (see Q3.5.1 for a better answer).

Q3.5.4: Globally binding Delete?
--------------------------------

I cannot manage to globally bind my Delete key to something other than the default.  How does one do this?

     (defun foo ()
       (interactive)
       (message "You hit DELETE"))

     (global-set-key 'delete 'foo)

However, some modes explicitly bind Delete, so you would need to add a hook that does local-set-key for them.  If what you want to do is make the Backspace and Delete keys work more PC/Motif-like, then take a look at the delbs.el package.

New in XEmacs 19.14 is a variable called key-translation-map which makes it easier to bind Delete.  delbs.el is a good example of how to do this correctly.

Also see Q3.5.10.

Q3.5.5: Scrolling one line at a time.
-------------------------------------

Can the cursor keys scroll the screen a line at a time, rather than the default half page jump?  I tend it to find it disorienting.

Try this:

     (defun scroll-one-line-up (&optional arg)
       "Scroll the selected window up (forward in the text) one line (or N lines)."
       (interactive "p")
       (scroll-up (or arg 1)))

     (defun scroll-one-line-down (&optional arg)
       "Scroll the selected window down (backward in the text) one line (or N)."
       (interactive "p")
       (scroll-down (or arg 1)))

     (global-set-key [up]   'scroll-one-line-up)
     (global-set-key [down] 'scroll-one-line-down)

The following will also work but will affect more than just the cursor keys (i.e. C-n and C-p):

     (setq scroll-step 1)

Starting with XEmacs-20.3 you can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Environment->Windows->Scroll Step... or type M-x customize RET windows RET.

Q3.5.6: How to map Help key alone on Sun type4 keyboard?
--------------------------------------------------------

The following works in GNU Emacs 19:

     (global-set-key [help] 'help-command);; Help

The following works in XEmacs 19.15 with the addition of shift:

     (global-set-key [(shift help)] 'help-command);; Help

But it doesn't work alone.  This is in the file PROBLEMS which should have come with your XEmacs installation: Emacs ignores the help key when running OLWM.

OLWM grabs the help key, and retransmits it to the appropriate client using XSendEvent.  Allowing Emacs to react to synthetic events is a security hole, so this is turned off by default.  You can enable it by setting the variable x-allow-sendevents to t.  You can also cause fix this by telling OLWM to not grab the help key, with the null binding OpenWindows.KeyboardCommand.Help:.

Q3.5.7: How can you type in special characters in XEmacs?
---------------------------------------------------------

One way is to use the package x-compose.  Then you can use sequences like Compose " a to get ä, etc.

Another way is to use the iso-insert package, provided in XEmacs 19.15 and later. Then you can use sequences like C-x 8 " a to get ä, etc.

Glynn Clements writes:

     It depends upon your X server.

     Generally, the simplest way is to define a key as Multi_key with xmodmap, e.g.

          	xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xff20 = Multi_key'

     You will need to pick an appropriate keycode. Use xev to find out the keycodes for each key.

     [NB: On a `Windows' keyboard, recent versions of XFree86 automatically define the right `Windows' key as Multi_key'.]

     Once you have Multi_key defined, you can use e.g.

          	Multi a '	=> á
          	Multi e "	=> ë
          	Multi c ,	=> ç

     etc.

     Also, recent versions of XFree86 define various AltGr-<key> combinations as dead keys, i.e.

          	AltGr [		=> dead_diaeresis
          	AltGr ]		=> dead_tilde
          	AltGr ;		=> dead_acute

     etc.

     Running xmodmap -pk will list all of the defined keysyms.

Q3.5.8: Why does (global-set-key [delete-forward] 'delete-char) complain?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why does (define-key global-map [ delete-forward ] 'delete-char) complain of not being able to bind an unknown key?

Try this instead:

     (define-key global-map [delete_forward] 'delete-char)

and it will work.

What you are seeing above is a bug due to code that is trying to check for GNU Emacs syntax like:

(define-key global-map [C-M-a] 'delete-char)

which otherwise would cause no errors but would not result in the expected behavior.

This bug has been fixed in 19.14.

Q3.5.9: How do I make the Delete key delete forward?
----------------------------------------------------

With XEmacs-20.2 use the delbs package:

     (require 'delbs)

This will give you the functions delbs-enable-delete-forward to set things up, and delbs-disable-delete-forward to revert to ``normal'' behavior.  Note that delbackspace package is obsolete.

Starting with XEmacs-20.3 better solution is to set variable delete-key-deletes-forward to t.  You can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Editing->Basics->Delete Key Deletes Forward or type M-x customize RET editing-basics RET.

Also see Q3.5.4.

Q3.5.10: Can I turn on sticky modifier keys?
--------------------------------------------

Yes, with (setq modifier-keys-are-sticky t).  This will give the effect of being able to press and release Shift and have the next character typed come out in upper case.  This will affect all the other modifier keys like Control and Meta as well.

Ben Wing writes:

     One thing about the sticky modifiers is that if you move the mouse out of the frame and back in, it cancels all currently ``stuck'' modifiers.

Q3.5.11: How do I map the arrow keys?
-------------------------------------

Say you want to map C-right to forward-word:

Sam Steingold writes:

          ; both XEmacs and Emacs
          (define-key global-map [(control right)] 'forward-word)

     or

          ; Emacs only
          (define-key global-map [C-right] 'forward-word)

     or

          ; ver > 20, both
          (define-key global-map (kbd "C-<right>") 'forward-word)

3.6: The Cursor
===============

Q3.6.1: Is there a way to make the bar cursor thicker?
------------------------------------------------------

I'd like to have the bar cursor a little thicker, as I tend to "lose" it often.

For a 1 pixel bar cursor, use:

     (setq bar-cursor t)

For a 2 pixel bar cursor, use:

     (setq bar-cursor 'anything-else)

Starting with XEmacs-20.3 you can also change these with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Environment->Display->Bar Cursor... or type M-x customize RET display RET.

You can use a color to make it stand out better:

     Emacs*cursorColor:	Red

Q3.6.2: Is there a way to get back the block cursor?
----------------------------------------------------

     (setq bar-cursor nil)

Starting with XEmacs-20.3 you can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Environment->Display->Bar Cursor... or type M-x customize RET display RET.

Q3.6.3: Can I make the cursor blink?
------------------------------------

If you are running a version of XEmacs older than 19.14, no.  Otherwise you can do the following:

     (blink-cursor-mode)

This function toggles between a steady cursor and a blinking cursor. You may also set this mode from the menu bar by selecting Options => Frame Appearance => Blinking Cursor.  Remember to save options.

3.7: The Mouse and Highlighting
===============================

Q3.7.1: How can I turn off Mouse pasting?
-----------------------------------------

I keep hitting the middle mouse button by accident and getting stuff pasted into my buffer so how can I turn this off?

Here is an alternative binding, whereby the middle mouse button selects (but does not cut) the expression under the mouse. Clicking middle on a left or right paren will select to the matching one.  Note that you can use define-key or global-set-key.

     (defun mouse-set-point-and-select (event)
       "Sets the point at the mouse location, then marks following form"
       (interactive "@e")
       (mouse-set-point event)
       (mark-sexp 1))
     (define-key global-map [button2] 'mouse-set-point-and-select)

Q3.7.2: How do I set control/meta/etc modifiers on mouse buttons?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Use, for instance, [(meta button1)]. For example, here is a common setting for Common Lisp programmers who use the bundled ilisp package, whereby meta-button1 on a function name will find the file where the function name was defined, and put you at that location in the source file.

[Inside a function that gets called by the lisp-mode-hook and ilisp-mode-hook]

     (local-set-key [(meta button1)] 'edit-definitions-lisp)

Q3.7.3: Clicking the left button does not do anything in buffer list.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I do C-x C-b to get a list of buffers and the entries get highlighted when I move the mouse over them but clicking the left mouse does not do anything.

Use the middle mouse button.

Q3.7.4: How can I get a list of buffers when I hit mouse button 3?
------------------------------------------------------------------

The following code will replace the default popup on button3:

     (global-set-key [button3] 'popup-buffer-menu)

Q3.7.5: Why does cut-and-paste not work between XEmacs and a cmdtool?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

We don't know.  It's a bug.  There does seem to be a work-around, however.  Try running xclipboard first.  It appears to fix the problem even if you exit it.  (This should be mostly fixed in 19.13, but we haven't yet verified that).

Q3.7.6: How I can set XEmacs up so that it pastes where the text cursor is?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

By default XEmacs pastes X selections where the mouse pointer is.  How do I disable this?

Examine the function mouse-yank, by typing C-h f mouse-yank RET.

To get XEmacs to paste at the text cursor, add this your .emacs:

     (setq mouse-yank-at-point t)

Starting with XEmacs-20.2 you can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Editing->Mouse->Yank At Point... or type M-x customize RET mouse RET.

Q3.7.7: How do I select a rectangular region?
---------------------------------------------

Just select the region normally, then use the rectangle commands (e.g. kill-rectangle on it.  The region does not highlight as a rectangle, but the commands work just fine.

To actually sweep out rectangular regions with the mouse you can use mouse-track-do-rectangle which is assigned to M-button1. Then use rectangle commands.

You can also do the following to change default behavior to sweep out rectangular regions:

     (setq mouse-track-rectangle-p t)

Starting with XEmacs-20.2 you can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Editing->Mouse->Track Rectangle... or type M-x customize RET mouse RET.

      mouse-track-do-rectangle: (event)
        -- an interactive compiled Lisp function.
      Like `mouse-track' but selects rectangles instead of regions.

Q3.7.8: Why does M-w take so long?
----------------------------------

It actually doesn't.  It leaves the region visible for a second so that you can see what area is being yanked.  If you start working, though, it will immediately complete its operation.  In other words, it will only delay for a second if you let it.

3.8: The Menubar and Toolbar
============================

Q3.8.1: How do I get rid of the menu (or menubar)?
--------------------------------------------------

If you are running XEmacs 19.13 and earlier, add this command to your .emacs.

     (set-menubar nil)

Starting with XEmacs 19.14 the preferred method is:

     (set-specifier menubar-visible-p nil)

Q3.8.2: Can I customize the basic menubar?
------------------------------------------

For an extensive menubar, add this line to your .emacs:

     (load "big-menubar")

If you'd like to write your own, this file provides as good a set of examples as any to start from.  The file is located in lisp/packages/big-menubar.el in the XEmacs installation directory.

Q3.8.3: How do I control how many buffers are listed in the menu Buffers List?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Add the following to your .emacs (suit to fit):

     (setq buffers-menu-max-size 20)

For no limit, use an argument of nil.

Starting with XEmacs-20.3 you can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Environment->Menu->Buffers Menu->Max Size... or type M-x customize RET buffers-menu RET.

Q3.8.4: Resources like Emacs*menubar*font are not working?
----------------------------------------------------------

I am trying to use a resource like Emacs*menubar*font to set the font of the menubar but it's not working.

If you are using the real Motif menubar, this resource is not recognized; you have to say:

     Emacs*menubar*fontList: FONT

If you are using the Lucid menubar, the former resource will be recognized only if the latter resource is unset.  This means that the resource

     *fontList: FONT

will override

     Emacs*menubar*font: FONT

even though the latter is more specific.

Q3.8.5: How can I bind a key to a function to toggle the toolbar?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Try something like:

     (defun my-toggle-toolbar ()
       (interactive)
       (set-specifier default-toolbar-visible-p
                      (not (specifier-instance default-toolbar-visible-p))))
     (global-set-key "\C-xT" 'my-toggle-toolbar)

There are redisplay bugs in 19.14 that may make the preceding result in a messed-up display, especially for frames with multiple windows.  You may need to resize the frame before XEmacs completely realizes the toolbar is really gone.

Thanks to Martin Buchholz for the correct code.

3.9: Scrollbars
===============

Q3.9.1: How can I disable the scrollbar?
----------------------------------------

To disable them for all frames, add the following line to your .Xdefaults:

     Emacs.scrollBarWidth:  0

Or select from the Options menu Frame Appearance->Scrollbars. Remember to save options.

To turn the scrollbar off on a per-frame basis, use the following function:

     (set-specifier scrollbar-width 0 (selected-frame))

You can actually turn the scrollbars on at any level you want by substituting for (selected-frame) in the above command.  For example, to turn the scrollbars off only in a single buffer:

     (set-specifier scrollbar-width 0 (current-buffer))

In XEmacs versions prior to 19.14, you had to use the hairier construct:

     (set-specifier scrollbar-width (cons (selected-frame) 0))

Q3.9.2: How can one use resources to change scrollbar colors?
-------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a recap of how to use resources to change your scrollbar colors:

     ! Motif scrollbars

     Emacs*XmScrollBar.Background: skyblue
     Emacs*XmScrollBar.troughColor: lightgray

     ! Athena scrollbars

     Emacs*Scrollbar.Foreground: skyblue
     Emacs*Scrollbar.Background: lightgray

Note the capitalization of Scrollbar for the Athena widget.

Q3.9.3: Moving the scrollbar can move the point; can I disable this?
--------------------------------------------------------------------

When I move the scrollbar in an XEmacs window, it moves the point as well, which should not be the default behavior.  Is this a bug or a feature?  Can I disable it?

The current behavior is a feature, not a bug.  Point remains at the same buffer position as long as that position does not scroll off the screen. In that event, point will end up in either the upper-left or lower-left hand corner.

This cannot be changed.

Q3.9.4: How can I get automatic horizontal scrolling?
-----------------------------------------------------

By the same token, how can I turn it off in specific modes?

To do this, add to your .emacs file:

     (require 'auto-show)

Then do (setq truncate-lines t) in the mode-hooks for any modes in which you want lines truncated.

More precisely: If truncate-lines is nil, horizontal scrollbars will never appear.  Otherwise, they will appear only if the value of scrollbar-height for that buffer/window/etc. is non-zero.  If you do

     (set-specifier scrollbar-height 0)

then horizontal scrollbars will not appear in truncated buffers unless the package specifically asked for them.

Automatic horizontal scrolling is now standard, starting with 19.14.

3.10: Text Selections
=====================

Q3.10.1: How can I turn off or change highlighted selections?
-------------------------------------------------------------

The zmacs mode allows for what some might call gratuitous highlighting for selected regions (either by setting mark or by using the mouse).  This is the default behavior.  To turn off, add the following line to your .emacs file:

     (setq zmacs-regions nil)

Starting with XEmacs-20.2 you can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Editing->Basics->Zmacs Regions or type M-x customize RET editing-basics RET.

To change the face for selection, look at Options->Customize on the menubar.

Q3.10.2: How do I get that typing on an active region removes it?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I want to change things so that if I select some text and start typing, the typed text replaces the selected text, similar to Motif.

You want to use something called pending delete.  Pending delete is what happens when you select a region (with the mouse or keyboard) and you press a key to replace the selected region by the key you typed. Usually backspace kills the selected region.

To get this behavior, add the following line to your .emacs:

     (turn-on-pending-delete)

Note that this will work with both Backspace and Delete.

Q3.10.3: Can I turn off the highlight during isearch?
-----------------------------------------------------

I do not like my text highlighted while I am doing isearch as I am not able to see what's underneath.  How do I turn it off?

Put the following in your .emacs:

     (setq isearch-highlight nil)

Starting with XEmacs-20.2 you can also change this with Customize. Type M-x customize-variable RET isearch-highlight RET.

Note also that isearch-highlight affects query-replace and ispell. Instead of disabling isearch-highlight you may find that a better solution consists of customizing the isearch face.

Q3.10.4: How do I turn off highlighting after C-x C-p (mark-page)?
------------------------------------------------------------------

Put this in your .emacs:

     (setq zmacs-regions nil)

Warning: This command turns off all region highlighting.

Also see Q3.10.1.

Q3.10.5: The region disappears when I hit the end of buffer while scrolling.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This has been fixed by default starting with XEmacs-20.3.

With older versions you can turn this feature (if it indeed is a feature) off like this:

     (defadvice scroll-up (around scroll-up freeze)
       (interactive "_P")
       (let ((zmacs-region-stays t))
         (if (interactive-p)
     	(condition-case nil
     	    ad-do-it
     	  (end-of-buffer (goto-char (point-max))))
           ad-do-it)))

     (defadvice scroll-down (around scroll-down freeze)
       (interactive "_P")
       (let ((zmacs-region-stays t))
         (if (interactive-p)
     	(condition-case nil
     	    ad-do-it
     	  (beginning-of-buffer (goto-char (point-min))))
           ad-do-it)))

Thanks to T. V. Raman for assistance in deriving this answer.

4 Major Subsystems
******************

This is part 4 of the XEmacs Frequently Asked Questions list.  This section is devoted to major XEmacs subsystems.

4.0: Reading Mail with VM
=========================

Q4.0.1: How do I set up VM to retrieve mail from a remote site using POP?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Use vm-spool-files, like this for example:

     (setq vm-spool-files '("/var/spool/mail/wing"
                            "netcom23.netcom.com:110:pass:wing:MYPASS"))

Of course substitute your actual password for MYPASS.

Q4.0.2: How do I get VM to filter mail for me?
----------------------------------------------

One possibility is to use procmail to split your mail before it gets to VM.  I prefer this personally, since there are many strange and wonderful things one can do with procmail.  Procmail may be found at ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packages/procmail/.

Also see the Mail Filtering FAQ at: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/filtering-faq.

Q4.0.3: How can I get VM to automatically check for new mail?
-------------------------------------------------------------

John Turner writes:

     Use the following:

          (setq vm-auto-get-new-mail 60)

Q4.0.4: [This question intentionally left blank]
------------------------------------------------

Obsolete question, left blank to avoid renumbering.

Q4.0.5: How do I get my outgoing mail archived?
-----------------------------------------------

     (setq mail-archive-file-name "~/outbox")

Q4.0.6: I have various addresses at which I receive mail. How can I tell VM to ignore them when doing a "reply-all"?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Set vm-reply-ignored-addresses to a list, like

     (setq vm-reply-ignored-addresses
           '("wing@nuspl@nvwls.cc.purdue.edu,netcom[0-9]*.netcom.com"
     	"wing@netcom.com" "wing@xemacs.org"))

Note that each string is a regular expression.

Q4.0.7: Is there a mailing list or FAQ for VM?
----------------------------------------------

A FAQ for VM exists at http://www.cyberpass.net/~gorkab/vmfaq.htm.

VM has its own newsgroups gnu.emacs.vm.info and gnu.emacs.vm.bug.

Q4.0.8: Remote mail reading with VM.
------------------------------------

My mailbox lives at the office on a big honkin server.  My regular INBOX lives on my honkin desktop machine.  I now can PPP to the office from home which is far from honking...  I'd like to be able to read mail at home without storing it here and I'd like to use xemacs and VM at home...  Is there a recommended setup?

Joseph J. Nuspl Jr. writes:

     There are several ways to do this.

      1. Set your display to your home machine and run dxpc or one of the other X compressors.

      2. NFS mount your desktop machine on your home machine and modify your pop command on your home machine to rsh to your desktop machine and actually do the pop get's.

      3. Run a POP server on your desktop machine as well and do a sort of two tiered POP get.

William Perry adds:

     Or you could run a pop script periodically on your desktop machine, and just use ange-ftp or NFS to get to your mailbox.  I used to do this all the time back at IU.

Q4.0.9: rmail or VM gets an error incorporating new mail.
---------------------------------------------------------

Quoting the XEmacs PROBLEMS file:

     rmail and VM get new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program called movemail.  This program interlocks with /bin/mail using the protocol defined by /bin/mail.

     There are two different protocols in general use.  One of them uses the flock system call.  The other involves creating a lock file; movemail must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do this.  You control which one is used by defining, or not defining, the macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes.

     IF YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR SYSTEM, YOU CAN LOSE MAIL!

     If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail, you may need to make movemail setgid to a suitable group such as mail.  You can use these commands (as root):

          chgrp mail movemail
          chmod 2755 movemail

     If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail, you may need to make movemail setgid to a suitable group such as mail.  To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing the make install.

          chgrp mail movemail
          chmod 2755 movemail

     Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory /usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET.  You must change the group and mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build directory copy is ineffective.

Q4.0.10: How do I make VM stay in a single frame?
-------------------------------------------------

John.John S Cooper writes:

          					; Don't use multiple frames
          (setq vm-frame-per-composition nil)
          (setq vm-frame-per-folder nil)
          (setq vm-frame-per-edit nil)
          (setq vm-frame-per-summary nil)

Q4.0.11: How do I make VM or mh-e display graphical smilies?
------------------------------------------------------------

For mh-e use the following:

     (add-hook 'mh-show-mode-hook '(lambda ()
     				(smiley-region (point-min)
                                                    (point-max))))

WJCarpenter writes: For VM use the following:

            (autoload 'smiley-region "smiley" nil t)
            (add-hook 'vm-select-message-hook
                      '(lambda ()
                         (smiley-region (point-min)
                                        (point-max))))

For tm use the following:

     (autoload 'smiley-buffer "smiley" nil t)
     (add-hook 'mime-viewer/plain-text-preview-hook 'smiley-buffer)

Q4.0.12: Customization of VM not covered in the manual, or here.
----------------------------------------------------------------

giacomo boffi writes:

     The meta-answer is to look into the file vm-vars.el, in the vm directory of the lisp library.

     vm-vars.el contains, initializes and carefully describes, with examples of usage, the plethora of user options that fully control VM's behavior.

     Enter vm-vars, forward-search for toolbar, find the variables that control the toolbar placement, appearance, existence, copy to your .emacs or .vm and modify according to the detailed instructions.

     The above also applies to all the various features of VM: search for some keywords, maybe the first you conjure isn't appropriate, find the appropriate variables, copy and experiment.

4.1: Web browsing with W3
=========================

Q4.1.1: What is W3?
-------------------

W3 is an advanced graphical browser written in Emacs lisp that runs on XEmacs.  It has full support for cascaded style sheets, and more...

It has a home web page at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/elisp/w3/docs.html.

Q4.1.2: How do I run W3 from behind a firewall?
-----------------------------------------------

There is a long, well-written, detailed section in the W3 manual that describes how to do this.  Look in the section entitled "Firewalls".

Q4.1.3: Is it true that W3 supports style sheets and tables?
------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, and much more.  W3, as distributed with the latest XEmacs is a full-featured web browser.

4.2: Reading Netnews and Mail with Gnus
=======================================

Q4.2.1: GNUS, (ding) Gnus, Gnus 5, September Gnus, Red Gnus, Quassia Gnus, argh!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gnus numbering issues are not meant for mere mortals to know them. If you feel you must enter the muddy waters of Gnus, visit the excellent FAQ, maintained by Justin Sheehy, at:

     http://www.ccs.neu.edu/software/contrib/gnus/

See also Gnus home page

     http://www.gnus.org/

Q4.2.2: This question intentionally left blank.
-----------------------------------------------

Obsolete question, left blank to avoid renumbering.

Q4.2.3: How do I make Gnus stay within a single frame?
------------------------------------------------------

The toolbar code to start Gnus opens the new frame---and it's a feature rather than a bug.  If you don't like it, but would still like to click on the seemly icon, use the following code:

     (defun toolbar-news ()
       (gnus))

It will redefine the callback function of the icon to just call gnus, without all the fancy frame stuff.

Q4.2.4: How do I customize the From: line?
------------------------------------------

How do I change the From: line?  I have set gnus-user-from-line to

     Gail Gurman <gail.gurman@sybase.com>

, but XEmacs Gnus doesn't use it. Instead it uses

     Gail Mara Gurman gailg@deall

and then complains that it's incorrect. Also, as you perhaps can see, my Message-ID is screwy. How can I change that?

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen writes:

     Set user-mail-address to gail.gurman@sybase.com or mail-host-address to sybase.com.

4.3: Other Mail & News
======================

Q4.3.1: How can I read and/or compose MIME messages?
----------------------------------------------------

VM supports MIME natively.

You probably want to use the Tools for MIME (tm).  See Q4.3.2, for details.

Trey Jackson has an Emacs & MIME web page at http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~trey/emacs/mime.html.

Another possibility is RMIME.  You may find RMIME at http://www.cinti.net/~rmoody/rmime/index.html.

Q4.3.2: What is TM and where do I get it?
-----------------------------------------

TM stands for Tools for MIME and not Tiny MIME.  TM integrates with all major XEmacs packages like Gnus (all flavors), VM, MH-E, and mailcrypt.  It provides totally transparent and trouble-free MIME support.  When appropriate a message will be decoded in place in an XEmacs buffer.

TM now comes as a package with XEmacs 19.16 and XEmacs 20.2.

TM was written by MORIOKA Tomohiko and KOBAYASHI Shuhei.

It is based on the work of UMEDA Masanobu, the original writer of GNUS.

The following information is from the README:

tm is a MIME package for GNU Emacs. tm has following functions:

  * MIME style multilingual header.

  * MIME message viewer (mime/viewer-mode).

  * MIME message composer (mime/editor-mode).

  * MIME extenders for mh-e, GNUS, RMAIL and VM.

tm is available from following anonymous ftp sites:

  * ftp://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/mail/mime/tm/ (Brasil).

  * ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/editors/GNU-Emacs/lisp/mime/ (Germany).

  * ftp://ftp.tnt.uni-hannover.de/pub/editors/xemacs/contrib/ (Germany).

Don't let the installation procedure & instructions stop you from trying this package out---it's much simpler than it looks, and once installed, trivial to use.

Q4.3.3: Why isn't this movemail program working?
------------------------------------------------

Ben Wing ben@xemacs.org writes:

     It wasn't chown'ed/chmod'd correctly.

Q4.3.4: Movemail is also distributed by Netscape? Can that cause problems?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve Baur writes:

     Yes.  Always use the movemail installed with your XEmacs.  Failure to do so can result in lost mail.

Please refer to Jamie Zawinski's notes at http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/relnotes/demo/movemail.html. In particular, this document will show you how to make Netscape use the version of movemail configured for your system by the person who built XEmacs.

Q4.3.5: Where do I find pstogif (required by tm)?
-------------------------------------------------

pstogif is part of the latex2html package.

Jan Vroonhof writes:

latex2html is best found at the CTAN hosts and their mirrors in tex-archive/support/latex2html.

CTAN hosts are:

  * ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/latex2html/.

  * ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/support/latex2html/.

There is a good mirror at ftp.cdrom.com; ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/tex/ctan/support/latex2html/.

4.4: Sparcworks, EOS, and WorkShop
==================================

Q4.4.1: What is SPARCworks, EOS, and WorkShop?
----------------------------------------------

John Turner writes:

     SPARCworks is SunSoft's development environment, comprising compilers (C, C++, FORTRAN 77, Fortran 90, Ada, and Pascal), a debugger, and other tools such as TeamWare (for configuration management), MakeTool, etc.

See http://www.sun.com/software/Developer-products/ for more info.

EOS stands for "Era on SPARCworks", but I don't know what Era stands for.

EOS is the integration of XEmacs with the SPARCworks debugger.  It allows one to use an XEmacs frame to view code (complete with fontification, etc.), set breakpoints, print variables, etc., while using the SPARCworks debugger.  It works very well and I use it all the time.

Chuck Thompson writes:

     Era stood for "Emacs Rewritten Again".  It was what we were calling the modified version of Lucid Emacs for Sun when I was dragged, er, allowed to work on this wonderful editor.

Martin Buchholz writes:

     EOS is being replaced with a new graphical development environment called Sun WorkShop, which is currently (07/96) in Alpha Test.  For more details, check out http://www.sun.com/software/Products/Developer-products.

Q4.4.2: How do I start the Sun Workshop support in XEmacs 21?
-------------------------------------------------------------

Add the switch ---with-workshop to the configure command when building XEmacs and put the following in one of your startup files (e.g. site-start.el or .emacs):

     (when (featurep 'tooltalk)
       (load "tooltalk-macros")
       (load "tooltalk-util")
       (load "tooltalk-init"))
     (when (featurep 'sparcworks)
       (load "sunpro-init")
       (load "ring")
       (load "comint")
       (load "annotations")
       (sunpro-startup))

If you are not using the latest Workshop (5.0) you have to apply the following patch:

     --- /opt/SUNWspro/lib/eserve.el.ORIG    Fri May 14 15:23:26 1999
     +++ /opt/SUNWspro/lib/eserve.el Fri May 14 15:24:54 1999
     @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
      (defvar running-xemacs nil "t if we're running XEmacs")
      (defvar running-emacs  nil "t if we're running GNU Emacs 19")

     -(if (string-match "^\\(19\\|20\\)\..*\\(XEmacs\\|Lucid\\)" emacs-version)
     +(if (string-match "\\(XEmacs\\|Lucid\\)" emacs-version)
          (setq running-xemacs t)
          (setq running-emacs  t))

4.5: Energize
=============

Q4.5.1: What is/was Energize?
-----------------------------

David N Gray writes:

     The files in lisp/energize are to enable Emacs to interface with the "Energize Programming System", a C and C++ development environment, which was a product of Lucid, Inc.  Tragically, Lucid went out of business in 1994, so although Energize is still a great system, if you don't already have it, there isn't any way to get it now.  (Unless you happen to be in Japan; INS Engineering may still be selling it there. Tartan bought the rights to sell it in the rest of the world, but never did so.)

4.6: Infodock
=============

Q4.6.1: What is Infodock?
-------------------------

InfoDock is an integrated productivity toolset, mainly aimed at technical people.  It is developed and supported by InfoDock Associates, a firm that offers custom support and development for InfoDock, XEmacs and GNU Emacs.  ( http://www.infodock.com, info@infodock.com, +1 408 243 3300).

InfoDock is built atop the XEmacs variant of GNU Emacs and so has all of the power of Emacs, but with an easier to use and more comprehensive menu-based user interface.  The bottom portion of this text describes how it differs from XEmacs and GNU Emacs from the Free Software Foundation.

InfoDock is aimed at people who want a free, turn-key productivity environment.  Although InfoDock is customizable, it is not intended for people who like basic versions of Emacs which need to be customized extensively for local use; standard Emacs distributions are better for such uses.  InfoDock is for those people who want a complete, pre-customized environment in one package, which they need not touch more than once or twice a year to update to new revisions.

InfoDock is pre-built for SPARC SunOS/Solaris systems, PA-RISC HP-UX, and Intel Linux systems.  It is intended for use on a color display, although most features will work on monochrome monitors.  Simply unpack InfoDock according to the instructions in the ID-INSTALL file and you are ready to run.

The InfoDock Manual is concise, yet sufficient as a user guide for users who have never used an Emacs-type editor before.  For users who are already familiar with Emacs, it supplements the information in the GNU Emacs Manual.

InfoDock menus are much more extensive and more mature than standard Emacs menus.  Each menu offers a Manual item which displays documentation associated with the menu's functions.

Four types of menubars are provided:

 1. An extensive menubar providing access to global InfoDock commands.

 2. Mode-specific menubars tailored to the current major mode.

 3. A simple menubar for basic editing to help novices get started with InfoDock.

 4. The standard XEmacs menubar.

Most modes also include mode-specific popup menus.  Additionally, region and rectangle popup menus are included.

Hyperbole, the everyday information manager, is a core part of InfoDock.  This provides context-sensitive mouse keys, a rolodex-type contact manager, programmable hypertext buttons, and an autonumbered outliner with embedded hyperlink anchors.

The OO-Browser, a multi-language object-oriented code browser, is a standard part of InfoDock.

InfoDock saves a more extensive set of user options than other Emacs versions.

InfoDock inserts a useful file header in many file types, showing the author, summary, and last modification time of each file.  A summary program can then be used to summarize all of the files in a directory, for easy MANIFEST file creation.

Your working set of buffers is automatically saved and restored (if you answer yes to a prompt) between InfoDock sessions.

Refined color choices for code highlighting are provided for both dark and light background display frames.

The C-z key prefix performs frame-based commands which parallel the C-x key prefix for window-based commands.

The Smart Menu system is included for producing command menus on dumb terminals.

Lisp libraries are better categorized according to function.

Extensions and improvements to many areas of Emacs are included, such as: paragraph filling, mail reading with Rmail, shell handling, outlining, code highlighting and browsing, and man page browsing.

InfoDock questions, answers and discussion should go to the mail list infodock@infodock.com.  Use infodock-request@infodock.com to be added or removed from the list.  Always include your InfoDock version number when sending help requests.

InfoDock is available across the Internet via anonymous FTP.  To get it, first move to a directory into which you want the InfoDock archive files placed.  We will call this <DIST-DIR>.

        cd <DIST-DIR>

Ftp to ftp.xemacs.org  (Internet Host ID = 128.174.252.16):

        prompt> ftp ftp.xemacs.org

Login as anonymous with your own <user-id>@<site-name> as a password.

        Name (ftp.xemacs.org): anonymous
        331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
        Password: -<your-user-id>@<your-domain>
        230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.

Move to the location of the InfoDock archives:

        ftp> cd pub/infodock

Set your transfer mode to binary:

        ftp> bin
        200 Type set to I.

Turn off prompting:

        ftp> prompt
        Interactive mode off.

Retrieve the InfoDock archives that you want, either by using a get <file> for each file you want or by using the following to get a complete distribution, including all binaries:

        ftp> mget ID-INSTALL
        ftp> mget id-*

Close the FTP connection:

        ftp> quit
        221 Goodbye.

Read the ID-INSTALL file which you just retrieved for step-by-step installation instructions.

4.7: Other Unbundled Packages
=============================

Q4.7.1: What is AUC TeX? Where do you get it?
---------------------------------------------

AUC TeX is a package written by Per Abrahamsen. Starting with XEmacs 19.16, AUC TeX is bundled with XEmacs.  The following information is from the README and website.

AUC TeX is an extensible package that supports writing and formatting TeX files for most variants of GNU Emacs. Many different macro packages are supported, including AMS TeX, LaTeX, and TeXinfo.

The most recent version is always available by ftp at ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/packages/auctex/auctex.tar.gz.

In case you don't have access to anonymous ftp, you can get it by an email request to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com.

WWW users may want to check out the AUC TeX page at http://sunsite.auc.dk/auctex/.

Q4.7.2: Are there any Emacs Lisp Spreadsheets?
----------------------------------------------

Yes.  Check out dismal (which stands for Dis' Mode Ain't Lotus) at ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/local/fox/dismal/.

Q4.7.3: Byte compiling AUC TeX on XEmacs 19.14.
-----------------------------------------------

Georges Brun-Cottan writes:

     When byte compiling auctex-9.4g, you must use the command:

          xemacs -batch -l lpath.el

Q4.7.4: Problems installing AUC TeX.
------------------------------------

Jan Vroonhof writes:

     AUC TeX works fine on both stock Emacs and XEmacs has been doing so for a very very long time. This is mostly due to the work of Per Abrahamsen (clap clap) in particular his easymenu package.  Which leads to what is probably the problem...

Most problems with AUC TeX are one of two things:

  * The TeX-lisp-directory in tex-site.el and the makefile don't match.

     Fix: make sure you configure AUC TeX properly before installing.

  * You have an old version of easymenu.el in your path.

     Fix: use locate-library and remove old versions to make sure it only finds the one that came with XEmacs.

Q4.7.5: Is there a reason for an Emacs package not to be included in XEmacs?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reason for an Emacs package not to be included in XEmacs is usually one or more of the following:

 1. The package has not been ported to XEmacs.  This will typically happen when it uses GNU-Emacs-specific features, which make it fail under XEmacs.

     Porting a package to XEmacs can range from a trivial amount of change to a partial or full rewrite.  Fortunately, the authors of modern packages usually choose to support both Emacsen themselves.

 2. The package has been decided not to be appropriate for XEmacs.  It may have an equivalent or better replacement within XEmacs, in which case the developers may choose not to burden themselves with supporting an additional package.

     Each package bundled with XEmacs means more work for the maintainers, whether they want it or not.  If you are ready to take over the maintenance responsibilities for the package you port, be sure to say so -- we will more likely include it.

 3. The package simply hasn't been noted by the XEmacs development.  If that's the case, the messages like yours are very useful for attracting our attention.

 4. The package was noted by the developers, but they simply haven't yet gotten around to including/porting it.  Wait for the next release or, even better, offer your help.  It will be gladly accepted and appreciated.

Q4.7.5: Is there a MatLab mode?
-------------------------------

Is there any way I can get syntax highlighting for MatLab .m files? Can I "teach" emacs what words are MatLab commands, comments, etc. ?

Ulrich Elsner writes:

     One way to do this (and much more) is by using the matlab mode.  (If someone knows where this can be found, please contact the XEmacs FAQ maintainer.

     Instructions on how to install this mode are included in this file.

5 The Miscellaneous Stuff
*************************

This is part 5 of the XEmacs Frequently Asked Questions list.  This section is devoted to anything that doesn't fit neatly into the other sections.

5.0: Major & Minor Modes
========================

Q5.0.1: How can I do source code highlighting using font-lock?
--------------------------------------------------------------

For most modes, font-lock is already set up and just needs to be turned on.  This can be done by M-x font-lock-mode, or by having XEmacs automatically start it by adding lines like:

     (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook	'turn-on-font-lock)
     (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook	'turn-on-font-lock)

to your .emacs.  See the file etc/sample.emacs for more examples.

See also Syntax Highlighting from the Options menu. Remember to save options.

Q5.0.2: I do not like cc-mode. How do I use the old c-mode?
-----------------------------------------------------------

Well, first off, consider if you really want to do this.  cc-mode is much more powerful than the old c-mode.  If you're having trouble getting your old offsets to work, try using c-set-offset instead. You might also consider using the package cc-compat.

But, if you still insist, add the following lines to your .emacs:

     (fmakunbound 'c-mode)
     (makunbound 'c-mode-map)
     (fmakunbound 'c++-mode)
     (makunbound 'c++-mode-map)
     (makunbound 'c-style-alist)
     (load-library "old-c-mode")
     (load-library "old-c++-mode")

This must be done before any other reference is made to either c-mode or c++-mode.

Q5.0.3: How do I get More Syntax Highlighting on by default?
------------------------------------------------------------

Use the following code in your .emacs:

     (setq-default font-lock-maximum-decoration t)

In versions of XEmacs prior to 19.14, you had to use a kludgy solution like this:

     (setq c-font-lock-keywords c-font-lock-keywords-2
           c++-font-lock-keywords c++-font-lock-keywords-2
           lisp-font-lock-keywords lisp-font-lock-keywords-2)

It will work for C, C++ and Lisp.

See also Syntax Highlighting from the Options menu. Remember to save options.

Q5.0.4: How can I enable auto-indent?
-------------------------------------

Put the following line in your .emacs:

     (setq indent-line-function 'indent-relative-maybe)

If you want to get fancy, try the filladapt package available standard with XEmacs.  Put this into your .emacs:

     (require 'filladapt)
     (add-hook 'text-mode-hook    'turn-on-filladapt-mode)
     ;;; and others ...

You can customize filling and adaptive filling with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->->Editing->Fill->Fill... or type M-x customize RET fill RET.

Note that well-behaving text-lookalike modes will run text-mode-hook by default (e.g. that's what Message does).  For the nasty ones, you'll have to provide the add-hooks yourself.

Please note that the fa-extras package is no longer useful.

Q5.0.5: How can I get XEmacs to come up in text/auto-fill mode by default?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Try the following lisp in your .emacs:

     (setq default-major-mode 'text-mode)
     (setq text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)

WARNING: note that changing the value of default-major-mode from fundamental-mode can break a large amount of built-in code that expects newly created buffers to be in fundamental-mode.  (Changing from fundamental-mode to text-mode might not wreak too much havoc, but changing to something more exotic like a lisp-mode would break many Emacs packages).

Note that Emacs by default starts up in buffer *scratch* in initial-major-mode, which defaults to lisp-interaction-mode. Thus adding the following form to your Emacs init file will cause the initial *scratch* buffer to be put into auto-fill'ed text-mode:

     (setq initial-major-mode
           (lambda ()
             (text-mode)
             (turn-on-auto-fill)))

Note that after your init file is loaded, if inhibit-startup-message is nil (the default) and the startup buffer is *scratch* then the startup message will be inserted into *scratch*; it will be removed after a timeout by erasing the entire *scratch* buffer.  Keep in mind this default usage of *scratch* if you desire any prior manipulation of *scratch* from within your Emacs init file. In particular, anything you insert into *scratch* from your init file will be later erased. Also, if you change the mode of the *scratch* buffer, be sure that this will not interfere with possible later insertion of the startup message (e.g. if you put *scratch* into a nonstandard mode that has automatic font lock rules, then the startup message might get fontified in a strange foreign manner, e.g. as code in some programming language).

Q5.0.6: How do I start up a second shell buffer?
------------------------------------------------

In the *shell* buffer:

     M-x rename-buffer RET *shell-1* RET
     M-x shell RET

This will then start a second shell.  The key is that no buffer named *shell* can exist.  It might be preferable to use M-x rename-uniquely to rename the *shell* buffer instead of M-x rename-buffer.

Alternately, you can set the variable shell-multiple-shells. If the value of this variable is non-nil, each time shell mode is invoked, a new shell is made

Q5.0.7: Telnet from shell filters too much
------------------------------------------

I'm using the Emacs M-x shell function, and I would like to invoke and use a telnet session within it.  Everything works fine except that now all ^M's are filtered out by Emacs.  Fixes?

Use M-x rsh or M-x telnet to open remote sessions rather than doing rsh or telnet within the local shell buffer.  Starting with XEmacs-20.3 you can also use M-x ssh to open secure remote session if you have ssh installed.

Q5.0.8: Why does edt emulation not work?
----------------------------------------

We don't know, but you can use tpu-edt emulation instead, which works fine and is a little fancier than the standard edt emulation.  To do this, add the following line to your .emacs:

     (tpu-edt)

If you don't want it to replace C-h with an edt-style help menu add this as well:

     (global-set-key [(control h)] 'help-for-help)

Q5.0.9: How can I emulate VI and use it as my default mode?
-----------------------------------------------------------

Our recommended VI emulator is viper. To make viper-mode the default, add this to your .emacs:

     (viper-mode)

Michael Kifer writes:

     This should be added as close to the top of .emacs as you can get it, otherwise some minor modes may not get viper-ized.

Q5.0.10: [This question intentionally left blank]
-------------------------------------------------

Obsolete question, left blank to avoid renumbering

Q5.0.11: Filladapt doesn't work in 19.15
----------------------------------------

Filladapt 2.x is included in 19.15.  In it filladapt is now a minor mode and minor modes are traditionally off by default.  The following added to your .emacs will turn it on for all buffers:

     (setq-default filladapt-mode t)

Use turn-on-filladapt-mode to turn Filladapt on in particular major modes, like this:

     (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-filladapt-mode)

Q5.0.12: How do I disable gnuserv from opening a new frame?
-----------------------------------------------------------

If you set the gnuserv-frame variable to the frame that should be used to display buffers that are pulled up, a new frame will not be created. For example, you could put

     (setq gnuserv-frame (selected-frame))

early on in your .emacs, to ensure that the first frame created is the one used for your gnuserv buffers.

Starting in 19.15, there is an option to set the gnuserv target to the current frame.  See Options->"Other Window" Location->Make current frame gnuserv target

Starting with XEmacs-20.3 you can also change this with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Environment->Gnuserv->Gnuserv Frame... or type M-x customize RET gnuserv RET.

Q5.0.13: How do I start gnuserv so that each subsequent XEmacs is a client?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Put the following in your .emacs file to start the server:

     (gnuserv-start)

Start your first XEmacs as usual.  After that, you can do:

     gnuclient randomfilename

from the command line to get your existing XEmacs process to open a new frame and visit randomfilename in that window. When you're done editing randomfilename, hit C-x # to kill the buffer and get rid of the frame.

See also man page of gnuclient.

Q5.0.14: Strange things are happening in Shell Mode.
----------------------------------------------------

Sometimes (i.e. it's not repeatable, and I can't work out why it happens) when I'm typing into shell mode, I hit return and only a portion of the command is given to the shell, and a blank prompt is returned.  If I hit return again, the rest of the previous command is given to the shell.

Martin Buchholz writes:

     There is a known problem with interaction between csh and the filec option and XEmacs.  You should add the following to your .cshrc:

          if ( "$TERM" == emacs || "$TERM" == unknown ) unset filec

Q5.0.15: Where do I get the latest CC Mode?
-------------------------------------------

Barry A. Warsaw writes:

     This can be had from http://www.python.org/emacs/.

Q5.0.16: I find auto-show-mode disconcerting. How do I turn it off?
-------------------------------------------------------------------

auto-show-mode controls whether or not a horizontal scrollbar magically appears when a line is too long to be displayed.  This is enabled by default.  To turn it off, put the following in your .emacs:

     (setq auto-show-mode nil)
     (setq-default auto-show-mode nil)

Q5.0.17: How can I get two instances of info?
---------------------------------------------

You can't.  The info package does not provide for multiple info buffers.

Q5.0.18: I upgraded to XEmacs 19.14 and gnuserv stopped working.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Daku writes:

     It turns out I was using an older version of gnuserv.  The installation didn't put the binary into the public bin directory.  It put it in lib/xemacs-19.14/hppa1.1-hp-hpux9.05/gnuserv.  Shouldn't it have been put in bin/hppa1.1-hp-hpux9.0?

Q5.0.19: Is there something better than LaTeX mode?
---------------------------------------------------

David Kastrup writes:

     The standard TeX modes leave much to be desired, and are somewhat leniently maintained.  Serious TeX users use AUC TeX (see Q4.7.1).

Q5.0.20: Is there a way to start a new XEmacs if there's no gnuserv running, and otherwise use gnuclient?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jan Vroonhof writes:

     Here is one of the solutions, we have this in a script called etc/editclient.sh.

           #!/bin/sh
           if gnuclient -batch -eval t >/dev/null 2>&1
           then
             exec gnuclient ${1+"$@"}
           else
             xemacs -unmapped -f gnuserv-start &
             until gnuclient -batch -eval t >/dev/null 2>&1
             do
                sleep 1
             done
             exec gnuclient ${1+"$@"}
           fi

     Note that there is a known problem when running XEmacs and 'gnuclient -nw' on the same TTY.

5.1: Emacs Lisp Programming Techniques
======================================

Q5.1.1: What is the difference in key sequences between XEmacs and GNU Emacs?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erik Naggum writes;

     Emacs has a legacy of keyboards that produced characters with modifier bits, and therefore map a variety of input systems into this scheme even today.  XEmacs is instead optimized for X events.  This causes an incompatibility in the way key sequences are specified, but both Emacs and XEmacs will accept a key sequence as a vector of lists of modifiers that ends with a key, e.g., to bind M-C-a, you would say [(meta control a)] in both Emacsen.  XEmacs has an abbreviated form for a single key, just (meta control a).  Emacs has an abbreviated form for the Control and the Meta modifiers to string-characters (the ASCII characters), as in \M-\C-a.  XEmacs users need to be aware that the abbreviated form works only for one-character key sequences, while Emacs users need to be aware that the string-character is rather limited.  Specifically, the string-character can accommodate only 256 different values, 128 of which have the Meta modifier and 128 of which have not.  In each of these blocks, only 32 characters have the Control modifier.  Whereas [(meta control A)] differs from [(meta control a)] because the case differs, \M-\C-a and \M-\C-A do not.  Programmers are advised to use the full common form, both because it is more readable and less error-prone, and because it is supported by both Emacsen.

Another (even safer) way to be sure of the key-sequences is to use the read-kbd-macro function, which takes a string like C-c <up>, and converts it to the internal key representation of the Emacs you use.  The function is available both on XEmacs and GNU Emacs.

Q5.1.2: Can I generate "fake" keyboard events?
----------------------------------------------

I wonder if there is an interactive function that can generate fake keyboard events.  This way, I could simply map them inside XEmacs.

This seems to work:

     (defun cg--generate-char-event (ch)
       "Generate an event, as if ch has been typed"
       (dispatch-event (character-to-event ch)))

     ;;  Backspace and Delete stuff
     (global-set-key [backspace]
       (lambda () (interactive) (cg--generate-char-event 127)))
     (global-set-key [unknown_keysym_0x4]
       (lambda () (interactive) (cg--generate-char-event 4)))

Q5.1.3: Could you explain read-kbd-macro in more detail?
--------------------------------------------------------

The read-kbd-macro function returns the internal Emacs representation of a human-readable string (which is its argument). Thus:

     (read-kbd-macro "C-c C-a")
     => [(control ?c) (control ?a)]

     (read-kbd-macro "C-c C-. <up>")
     => [(control ?c) (control ?.) up]

In GNU Emacs the same forms will be evaluated to what GNU Emacs understands internally---the sequences "\C-x\C-c" and [3 67108910 up], respectively.

The exact human-readable syntax is defined in the docstring of edmacro-mode.  I'll repeat it here, for completeness.

     Format of keyboard macros during editing:

     Text is divided into words separated by whitespace.  Except for the words described below, the characters of each word go directly as characters of the macro.  The whitespace that separates words is ignored.  Whitespace in the macro must be written explicitly, as in foo SPC bar RET.

       * The special words RET, SPC, TAB, DEL, LFD, ESC, and NUL represent special control characters.  The words must be written in uppercase.

       * A word in angle brackets, e.g., <return>, <down>, or <f1>, represents a function key.  (Note that in the standard configuration, the function key <return> and the control key RET are synonymous.)  You can use angle brackets on the words RET, SPC, etc., but they are not required there.

       * Keys can be written by their ASCII code, using a backslash followed by up to six octal digits.  This is the only way to represent keys with codes above \377.

       * One or more prefixes M- (meta), C- (control), S- (shift), A- (alt), H- (hyper), and s- (super) may precede a character or key notation.  For function keys, the prefixes may go inside or outside of the brackets: C-<down> == <C-down>.  The prefixes may be written in any order: M-C-x == C-M-x.

          Prefixes are not allowed on multi-key words, e.g., C-abc, except that the Meta prefix is allowed on a sequence of digits and optional minus sign: M--123 == M-- M-1 M-2 M-3.

       * The ^ notation for control characters also works: ^M == C-m.

       * Double angle brackets enclose command names: <<next-line>> is shorthand for M-x next-line RET.

       * Finally, REM or ;; causes the rest of the line to be ignored as a comment.

     Any word may be prefixed by a multiplier in the form of a decimal number and *: 3*<right> == <right> <right> <right>, and 10*foo == foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo.

     Multiple text keys can normally be strung together to form a word, but you may need to add whitespace if the word would look like one of the above notations: ; ; ; is a keyboard macro with three semicolons, but ;;; is a comment.  Likewise, \ 1 2 3 is four keys but \123 is a single key written in octal, and < right > is seven keys but <right> is a single function key.  When in doubt, use whitespace.

Q5.1.4: What is the performance hit of let?
-------------------------------------------

In most cases, not noticeable.  Besides, there's no avoiding let---you have to bind your local variables, after all.  Some pose a question whether to nest lets, or use one let per function.  I think because of clarity and maintenance (and possible future implementation), let-s should be used (nested) in a way to provide the clearest code.

Q5.1.5: What is the recommended use of setq?
--------------------------------------------

  * Global variables

     You will typically defvar your global variable to a default value, and use setq to set it later.

     It is never a good practice to setq user variables (like case-fold-search, etc.), as it ignores the user's choice unconditionally.  Note that defvar doesn't change the value of a variable if it was bound previously.  If you wish to change a user-variable temporarily, use let:

          (let ((case-fold-search nil))
            ...					; code with searches that must be case-sensitive
            ...)

     You will notice the user-variables by their docstrings beginning with an asterisk (a convention).

  * Local variables

     Bind them with let, which will unbind them (or restore their previous value, if they were bound) after exiting from the let form.  Change the value of local variables with setq or whatever you like (e.g. incf, setf and such).  The let form can even return one of its local variables.

     Typical usage:

          ;; iterate through the elements of the list returned by
          ;; `hairy-function-that-returns-list'
          (let ((l (hairy-function-that-returns-list)))
            (while l
              ... do something with (car l) ...
              (setq l (cdr l))))

     Another typical usage includes building a value simply to work with it.

          ;; Build the mode keymap out of the key-translation-alist
          (let ((inbox (file-truename (expand-file-name box)))
                (i 0))
            ... code dealing with inbox ...
            inbox)

     This piece of code uses the local variable inbox, which becomes unbound (or regains old value) after exiting the form.  The form also returns the value of inbox, which can be reused, for instance:

          (setq foo-processed-inbox
                (let .....))

Q5.1.6: What is the typical misuse of setq ?
--------------------------------------------

A typical misuse is probably setqing a variable that was meant to be local.  Such a variable will remain bound forever, never to be garbage-collected.  For example, the code doing:

     (defun my-function (whatever)
       (setq a nil)
       ... build a large list ...
       ... and exit ...)

does a bad thing, as a will keep consuming memory, never to be unbound.  The correct thing is to do it like this:

     (defun my-function (whatever)
       (let (a)				; default initialization is to nil
         ... build a large list ...
         ... and exit, unbinding `a' in the process  ...)

Not only is this prettier syntactically, but it makes it possible for Emacs to garbage-collect the objects which a used to reference.

Note that even global variables should not be setqed without defvaring them first, because the byte-compiler issues warnings. The reason for the warning is the following:

     (defun flurgoze nil)			; ok, global internal variable
     ...

     (setq flurghoze t)			; ops!  a typo, but semantically correct.
     					; however, the byte-compiler warns.

     While compiling toplevel forms:
     ** assignment to free variable flurghoze

Q5.1.7: I like the the do form of cl, does it slow things down?
---------------------------------------------------------------

It shouldn't.  Here is what Dave Gillespie has to say about cl.el performance:

     Many of the advanced features of this package, such as defun*, loop, and setf, are implemented as Lisp macros.  In byte-compiled code, these complex notations will be expanded into equivalent Lisp code which is simple and efficient.  For example, the forms

          (incf i n)
          (push x (car p))

     are expanded at compile-time to the Lisp forms

          (setq i (+ i n))
          (setcar p (cons x (car p)))

     which are the most efficient ways of doing these respective operations in Lisp.  Thus, there is no performance penalty for using the more readable incf and push forms in your compiled code.

     Interpreted code, on the other hand, must expand these macros every time they are executed.  For this reason it is strongly recommended that code making heavy use of macros be compiled.  (The features labelled Special Form instead of Function in this manual are macros.)  A loop using incf a hundred times will execute considerably faster if compiled, and will also garbage-collect less because the macro expansion will not have to be generated, used, and thrown away a hundred times.

     You can find out how a macro expands by using the cl-prettyexpand function.

Q5.1.8: I like recursion, does it slow things down?
---------------------------------------------------

Yes.  Emacs byte-compiler cannot do much to optimize recursion.  But think well whether this is a real concern in Emacs.  Much of the Emacs slowness comes from internal mechanisms such as redisplay, or from the fact that it is an interpreter.

Please try not to make your code much uglier to gain a very small speed gain.  It's not usually worth it.

Q5.1.9: How do I put a glyph as annotation in a buffer?
-------------------------------------------------------

Here is a solution that will insert the glyph annotation at the beginning of buffer:

     (make-annotation (make-glyph '([FORMAT :file FILE]
                                    [string :data "fallback-text"]))
                      (point-min)
                      'text
                      (current-buffer))

Replace FORMAT with an unquoted symbol representing the format of the image (e.g. xpm, xbm, gif, jpeg, etc.) Instead of FILE, use the image file name (e.g. /usr/local/lib/xemacs-20.2/etc/recycle.xpm).

You can turn this to a function (that optionally prompts you for a file name), and inserts the glyph at (point) instead of (point-min).

Q5.1.10: map-extents won't traverse all of my extents!
------------------------------------------------------

I tried to use map-extents to do an operation on all the extents in a region.  However, it seems to quit after processing a random number of extents.  Is it buggy?

No.  The documentation of map-extents states that it will iterate across the extents as long as FUNCTION returns nil. Unexperienced programmers often forget to return nil explicitly, which results in buggy code.  For instance, the following code is supposed to delete all the extents in a buffer, and issue as many fubar! messages.

     (map-extents (lambda (ext ignore)
                    (delete-extent ext)
                    (message "fubar!")))

Instead, it will delete only the first extent, and stop right there -- because message will return a non-nil value.  The correct code is:

     (map-extents (lambda (ext ignore)
                    (delete-extent ext)
                    (message "fubar!")
                    nil))

Q5.1.11: My elisp program is horribly slow. Is there
----------------------------------------------------

an easy way to find out where it spends time?

zHrvoje Niksic writes:

     Under XEmacs 20.4 and later  you can use M-x profile-key-sequence, press a key (say RET in the Gnus Group buffer), and get the results using M-x profile-results.  It should give you an idea of where the time is being spent.

Q5.2.1: How do I turn off the sound?
------------------------------------

Add the following line to your .emacs:

     (setq bell-volume 0)
     (setq sound-alist nil)

That will make your XEmacs totally silent -- even the default ding sound (TTY beep on TTY-s) will be gone.

Starting with XEmacs-20.2 you can also change these with Customize. Select from the Options menu Customize->Emacs->Environment->Sound->Sound... or type M-x customize RET sound RET.

Q5.2.2: How do I get funky sounds instead of a boring beep?
-----------------------------------------------------------

Make sure your XEmacs was compiled with sound support, and then put this in your .emacs:

     (load-default-sounds)

The sound support in XEmacs 19.14 was greatly improved over previous versions.

Q5.2.3: What's NAS, how do I get it?
------------------------------------

See Q2.0.3, for an explanation of the Network Audio System.

Q5.2.4: Sunsite sounds don't play.
----------------------------------

I'm having some trouble with sounds I've downloaded from sunsite.  They play when I run them through showaudio or cat them directly to /dev/audio, but XEmacs refuses to play them.

Markus Gutschke writes:

     [Many of] These files have an (erroneous) 24byte header that tells about the format that they have been recorded in. If you cat them to /dev/audio, the header will be ignored and the default behavior for /dev/audio will be used. This happens to be 8kHz uLaw. It is probably possible to fix the header by piping through sox and passing explicit parameters for specifying the sampling format; you then need to perform a 'null' conversion from SunAudio to SunAudio.

5.3: Miscellaneous
==================

Q5.3.1: How do you make XEmacs indent CL if-clauses correctly?
--------------------------------------------------------------

I'd like XEmacs to indent all the clauses of a Common Lisp if the same amount instead of indenting the 3rd clause differently from the first two.

One way is to add, to .emacs:

     (put 'if 'lisp-indent-function nil)

However, note that the package cl-indent that comes with XEmacs sets up this kind of indentation by default.  cl-indent also knows about many other CL-specific forms.  To use cl-indent, one can do this:

     (load "cl-indent")
     (setq lisp-indent-function (function common-lisp-indent-function))

One can also customize cl-indent.el so it mimics the default if indentation then indented more than the else. Here's how:

     (put 'if 'common-lisp-indent-function '(nil nil &body))

Also, a new version (1.2) of cl-indent.el was posted to comp.emacs.xemacs on 12/9/94.  This version includes more documentation than previous versions.  This may prove useful if you need to customize any indent-functions.

Q5.3.2: Fontifying hang when editing a postscript file.
-------------------------------------------------------

When I try to edit a postscript file it gets stuck saying: fontifying 'filename' (regexps....) and it just sits there.  If I press C-c in the window where XEmacs was started, it suddenly becomes alive again.

This was caused by a bug in the Postscript font-lock regular expressions.  It was fixed in 19.13.  For earlier versions of XEmacs, have a look at your .emacs file.  You will probably have a line like:

     (add-hook 'postscript-mode-hook	'turn-on-font-lock)

Take it out, restart XEmacs, and it won't try to fontify your postscript files anymore.

Q5.3.3: How can I print WYSIWYG a font-locked buffer?
-----------------------------------------------------

Font-lock looks nice.  How can I print (WYSIWYG) the highlighted document?

The package ps-print, which is now included with XEmacs, provides the ability to do this.  The source code contains complete instructions on its use, in <xemacs_src_root>/lisp/packages/ps-print.el.

Q5.3.4: Getting M-x lpr to work with postscript printer.
--------------------------------------------------------

My printer is a Postscript printer and lpr only works for Postscript files, so how do I get M-x lpr-region and M-x lpr-buffer to work?

Put something like this in your .emacs:

     (setq lpr-command "a2ps")
     (setq lpr-switches '("-p" "-1"))

If you don't use a2ps to convert ASCII to postscript (why not, it's free?), replace with the command you do use.  Note also that some versions of a2ps require a -Pprinter to ensure spooling.

Q5.3.5: How do I specify the paths that XEmacs uses for finding files?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

You can specify what paths to use by using a number of different flags when running configure.  See the section MAKE VARIABLES in the top-level file INSTALL in the XEmacs distribution for a listing of those flags.

Most of the time, however, the simplest fix is: do not specify paths as you might for GNU Emacs.  XEmacs can generally determine the necessary paths dynamically at run time.  The only path that generally needs to be specified is the root directory to install into.  That can be specified by passing the --prefix flag to configure.  For a description of the XEmacs install tree, please consult the NEWS file.

Q5.3.6: [This question intentionally left blank]
------------------------------------------------

Obsolete question, left blank to avoid renumbering.

Q5.3.7: Can I have the end of the buffer delimited in some way?
---------------------------------------------------------------

Say, with: [END]?

Try this:

     (let ((ext (make-extent (point-min) (point-max))))
       (set-extent-property ext 'start-closed t)
       (set-extent-property ext 'end-closed t)
       (set-extent-property ext 'detachable nil)
       (set-extent-end-glyph ext (make-glyph [string :data "[END]"])))

Since this is XEmacs, you can specify an icon to be shown on window-system devices.  To do so, change the make-glyph call to something like this:

     (make-glyph '([xpm :file "~/something.xpm"]
                   [string :data "[END]"]))

You can inline the XPM definition yourself by specifying :data instead of :file.  Here is such a full-featured version that works on both X and TTY devices:

     (let ((ext (make-extent (point-min) (point-max))))
       (set-extent-property ext 'start-closed t)
       (set-extent-property ext 'end-closed t)
       (set-extent-property ext 'detachable nil)
       (set-extent-end-glyph ext (make-glyph '([xpm :data "\
     /* XPM */
     static char* eye = {
     \"20 11 7 2\",
     \"__ c None\"
     \"_` c #7f7f7f\",
     \"_a c #fefefe\",
     \"_b c #7f0000\",
     \"_c c #fefe00\",
     \"_d c #fe0000\",
     \"_e c #bfbfbf\",
     \"___________`_`_`___b_b_b_b_________`____\",
     \"_________`_`_`___b_c_c_c_b_b____________\",
     \"_____`_`_`_e___b_b_c_c_c___b___b_______`\",
     \"___`_`_e_a___b_b_d___b___b___b___b______\",
     \"_`_`_e_a_e___b_b_d_b___b___b___b___b____\",
     \"_`_`_a_e_a___b_b_d___b___b___b___b___b__\",
     \"_`_`_e_a_e___b_b_d_b___b___b___b___b_b__\",
     \"___`_`_e_a___b_b_b_d_c___b___b___d_b____\",
     \"_____`_`_e_e___b_b_b_d_c___b_b_d_b______\",
     \"_`_____`_`_`_`___b_b_b_d_d_d_d_b________\",
     \"___`_____`_`_`_`___b_b_b_b_b_b__________\",
     } ;"]
                                               [string :data "[END]"]))))

Note that you might want to make this a function, and put it to a hook. We leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Q5.3.8: How do I insert today's date into a buffer?
---------------------------------------------------

Like this:

     (insert (current-time-string))

Q5.3.9: Are only certain syntactic character classes available for abbrevs?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Markus Gutschke writes:

     Yes, abbrevs only expands word-syntax strings. While XEmacs does not prevent you from defining (e.g. with C-x a g or C-x a l) abbrevs that contain special characters, it will refuse to expand them. So you need to ensure, that the abbreviation contains letters and digits only. This means that xd, d5, and 5d are valid abbrevs, but &d, and x d are not.

     If this sounds confusing to you, (re-)read the online documentation for abbrevs (C-h i m XEmacs RET m Abbrevs RET), and then come back and read this question/answer again.

Starting with XEmacs 20.3 this restriction has been lifted.

Q5.3.10: How can I get those oh-so-neat X-Face lines?
-----------------------------------------------------

Firstly there is an ftp site which describes X-faces and has the associated tools mentioned below, at ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces/.

Then the steps are

 1. Create 48x48x1 bitmap with your favorite tool

 2. Convert to "icon" format using one of xbm2ikon, pbmtoicon, etc., and then compile the face.

 3. cat file.xbm | xbm2ikon |compface > file.face

 4. Then be sure to quote things that are necessary for emacs strings:

          cat ./file.face | sed 's/\\/\\\\/g'
          | sed 's/\"/\\\"/g' > ./file.face.quoted

 5. Then set up emacs to include the file as a mail header - there were a couple of suggestions here---either something like:

          (setq  mail-default-headers
                 "X-Face:  Ugly looking text string here")

     Or, alternatively, as:

          (defun mail-insert-x-face ()
            (save-excursion
              (goto-char (point-min))
              (search-forward mail-header-separator)
              (beginning-of-line)
              (insert "X-Face:")
              (insert-file-contents "~/.face")))

          (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-insert-x-face)

However, 2 things might be wrong:

Some versions of pbmtoicon produces some header lines that is not expected by the version of compface that I grabbed. So I found I had to include a tail +3 in the pipeline like this:

     cat file.xbm | xbm2ikon | tail +3 |compface > file.face

Some people have also found that if one uses the (insert-file) method, one should NOT quote the face string using the sed script .

It might also be helpful to use Stig's script (included in the compface distribution at XEmacs.org) to do the conversion.

Contributors for this item:

Paul Emsley, Ricardo Marek, Amir J. Katz, Glen McCort, Heinz Uphoff, Peter Arius, Paul Harrison, and Vegard Vesterheim

Q5.3.11: How do I add new Info directories?
-------------------------------------------

You use something like:

     (setq Info-directory-list (cons
     			   (expand-file-name "~/info")
     			   Info-default-directory-list))

David Masterson writes:

     Emacs Info and XEmacs Info do many things differently.  If you're trying to support a number of versions of Emacs, here are some notes to remember:

      1. Emacs Info scans Info-directory-list from right-to-left while XEmacs Info reads it from left-to-right, so append to the correct end of the list.

      2. Use Info-default-directory-list to initialize Info-directory-list if it is available at startup, but not all Emacsen define it.

      3. Emacs Info looks for a standard dir file in each of the directories scanned from #1 and magically concatenates them together.

      4. XEmacs Info looks for a localdir file (which consists of just the menu entries from a dir file) in each of the directories scanned from #1 (except the first), does a simple concatenation of them, and magically attaches the resulting list to the end of the menu in the dir file in the first directory.

     Another alternative is to convert the documentation to HTML with texi2html and read it from a web browser like Lynx or W3.

Q5.3.12: What do I need to change to make printing work?
--------------------------------------------------------

For regular printing there are two variables that can be customized.

lpr-command
     This should be set to a command that takes standard input and sends it to a printer.  Something like:

          (setq lpr-command "lp")

lpr-switches
     This should be set to a list that contains whatever the print command requires to do its job.  Something like:

          (setq lpr-switches '("-depson"))

For postscript printing there are three analogous variables to customize.

ps-lpr-command
     This should be set to a command that takes postscript on standard input and directs it to a postscript printer.

ps-lpr-switches
     This should be set to a list of switches required for ps-lpr-command to do its job.

ps-print-color-p
     This boolean variable should be set t if printing will be done in color, otherwise it should be set to nil.

NOTE: It is an undocumented limitation in XEmacs that postscript printing (the Pretty Print Buffer menu item) requires a window system environment.  It cannot be used outside of X11.

6 XEmacs on MS Windows
**********************

This is part 6 of the XEmacs Frequently Asked Questions list, written by Hrvoje Niksic and others.  This section is devoted to the MS Windows port of XEmacs.

6.0: General Info
=================

Q6.0.1: What is the status of the XEmacs port to Windows?
---------------------------------------------------------

Is XEmacs really getting ported to MS Windows?  What is the status of the port?

Yes, a group of volunteers actively works on making XEmacs code base cleanly compile and run on MS Windows operating systems.  The mailing list at xemacs-nt@xemacs.org is dedicated to that effort (please use the -request address to subscribe).

At this time, XEmacs on MS Windows is usable, but lacks some of the features of XEmacs on UNIX and UNIX-like systems.  Notably, internationalization does not work.

Q6.0.2: What flavors of MS Windows are supported? The list name implies NT only.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The list name is misleading, as XEmacs will support both Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT.  The MS Windows-specific code is based on Microsoft Win32 API, and will not work on MS Windows 3.x or on MS-DOS.

Q6.0.3: Are binary kits available?
----------------------------------

Binary kits are available at ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/binary-kits/win32/ for the "plain" MS Windows version.

Q6.0.4: Does XEmacs on MS Windows require an X server to run?
-------------------------------------------------------------

Short answer: No.

Long answer: XEmacs can be built in several ways in the MS Windows environment, some of them requiring an X server and some not.

One is what we call the "X" port -- it requires X libraries to build and an X server to run.  Internally it uses the Xt event loop and makes use of X toolkits.  Its look is quite un-Windowsy, but it works reliably and supports all of the graphical features of Unix XEmacs.

The other is what we call the "native" port.  It uses the Win32 API and does not require X libraries to build, nor does it require an X to run.  In fact, it has no connection with X whatsoever.  At this time, the native port obsoletes the X port, providing almost all of its features, including support for menus, scrollbars, toolbars, embedded images and background pixmaps, frame pointers, etc.  Most of the future work will be based on the native port.

There is also a third special case, the Cygwin port.  It takes advantage of Cygnus emulation library under Win32, which enables it to reuse much of the Unix XEmacs code base, such as processes and network support, or internal select() mechanisms.

Cygwin port supports all display types -- TTY, X & MS gui, and can be built with support for all three.  If you build with ms gui support then the Cygwin version uses the majority of the msw code, which is mostly related to display.  If you want to build with X support you need X libraries.  If you want to build with tty support you need ncurses.  MS gui requires no additional libraries.

Some of the advantages of the Cygwin version are that it:

  * integrates well with Cygwin environment for existing Cygwin users;

  * uses configure so building with different features is very easy;

  * has process support in X & tty.

The disadvantage is that it requires several Unix utilities and the whole Cygwin environment, whereas the native port requires only a suitable MS Windows compiler.  Also, it follows the Unix filesystem and process model very closely (some will undoubtedly view this as an advantage).

6.1: Building XEmacs on MS Windows
==================================

Q6.1.1: I decided to run with X. Where do I get an X server?
------------------------------------------------------------

Pointers to X servers can be found at http://dao.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/grads/win32/X11R6.3/;

look for "Where to get an X server".  Also note that, although the above page talks about Cygnus gnu-win32 (Cygwin), the information on X servers is Cygwin-independent.  You don't have to be running/using Cygwin to use these X servers, and you don't have to compile XEmacs under Cygwin to use XEmacs with these X servers.  An "X port" XEmacs compiled under Visual C++ will work with these X servers (as will XEmacs running on a Unix box, redirected to the server running on your PC).

Q6.1.2: What compiler do I need to compile XEmacs?
--------------------------------------------------

You need Visual C++ 4.2 or 5.0, with the exception of the Cygwin port, which uses Gcc.

Q6.1.3: How do I compile for the native port?
---------------------------------------------

Please read the file nt/README in the XEmacs distribution, which contains the full description.

Q6.1.4: How do I compile for the X port?
----------------------------------------

Again, it is described in nt/README in some detail.  Basically, you need to get X11 libraries from ftp.x.org, and compile them.  If the precompiled versions are available somewhere, I don't know of it.

Q6.1.5: How do I compile for Cygnus' Cygwin?
--------------------------------------------

Similar as on Unix; use the usual `configure' and `make' process. Some problems to watch out for:

  * make sure HOME is set. This controls where you .emacs file comes from;

  * CYGWIN32 needs to be set to tty for process support work. e.g. CYGWIN32=tty;

  * picking up some other grep or other unix like tools can kill configure;

  * static heap too small, adjust src/sheap-adjust.h to a more positive number;

  * The Cygwin version doesn't understand //machine/path type paths so you will need to manually mount a directory of this form under a unix style directory for a build to work on the directory.

Q6.1.6: What do I need for Cygwin?
----------------------------------

You can find the Cygwin tools and compiler at:

http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/

You will need version b19 or later.

You will also need the X libraries.  There are libraries at http://dao.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/grads/win32/X11R6.3/, but these are not b19 compatible.  You can get b19 X11R6.3 binaries, as well as pre-built ncurses and graphic libraries, from:

ftp://ftp.parallax.co.uk/pub/andyp/.

6.2: Customization and User Interface
=====================================

Q6.2.1: How will the port cope with differences in the Windows user interface?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

XEmacs (and Emacs in general) UI is pretty different from what is expected of a typical MS Windows program.  How will the MS Windows port cope with it?

Fortunately, Emacs is also one of the most configurable editor beasts in the world.  The MS Windows "look and feel" (mark via shift-arrow, self-inserting deletes region, etc.) can be easily configured via various packages distributed with XEmacs.  The `pending-delete' package is an example of such a utility.

In future versions, some of these packages might be turned on by default in the MS Windows environment.

Q6.2.2: How do I change fonts in XEmacs on MS Windows?
------------------------------------------------------

You can change font manually, but not from the menubar, yet. For example:

         (set-face-font 'default "Lucida Console:Regular:10")
         (set-face-font 'modeline "MS Sans Serif:Regular:10")

Q6.2.3: Where do I put my .emacs file?
--------------------------------------

If the HOME environment variable is set, .emacs will be looked for there.  Else the directory defaults to `c:\'.

6.3: Miscellaneous
==================

Q6.3.1: Will XEmacs rename all the win32-* symbols to w32-*?
------------------------------------------------------------

In his flavor of Emacs 20, Richard Stallman has renamed all the win32-* symbols to w32-*.  Will XEmacs do the same?

We consider such a move counter-productive, thus we will not use the `w32' prefix.  However, we do recognize that Win32 name is little more than a marketing buzzword (will it be Win64 in the next release?), so we decided not to use it.  Using `windows-' would be wrong because the term is too generic, which is why we settled on a compromise `mswindows' term.

Thus all the XEmacs variables and functions directly related to Win32 are prefixed `mswindows-'.  The user-variables shared with NT Emacs will be provided as compatibility aliases.

Architectural note: We believe that there should be a very small number of window-systems-specific variables, and will try to provide generic interfaces whenever possible.

Q6.3.2: What are the differences between the various MS Windows emacsen?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

XEmacs, Win-Emacs, DOS Emacs, NT Emacs, this is all very confusing. Could you briefly explain the differences between them?

Here is a recount of various Emacs versions running on MS Windows:

  * Win-Emacs

       - Win-Emacs is a port of Lucid Emacs 19.6 to MS Windows using X compatibility libraries.  Win-Emacs has been written by Ben Wing.  The MS Windows code has not made it back to Lucid Emacs, which left Win-Emacs pretty much dead for our purposes.  Win-Emacs used to be available at Pearlsoft, but not anymore, since Pearlsoft went out of business.

  * GNU Emacs for DOS

       - GNU Emacs features support for MS-DOS and DJGPP (D.J. Delorie's DOS port of Gcc).  Such an Emacs is heavily underfeatured, because it does not supports long file names, lacks proper subprocesses support, and is far too big compared to typical DOS editors.

  * GNU Emacs compiled with Win32

       - Starting with version 19.30, it has been possible to compile GNU Emacs under MS Windows using the DJGPP compiler and X libraries.  The result is is very similar to GNU Emacs compiled under MS DOS, only it supports longer file names, etc.  This "port" is similar to the "X" flavor of XEmacs on MS Windows.

  * NT Emacs

       - NT Emacs is a version of GNU Emacs modified to compile and run under MS MS Windows 95 and NT using the native Win32 API.  As such, it is close in spirit to the XEmacs "native" port.

       - NT Emacs has been written by Geoff Voelker, and more information can be found at http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html.

  * XEmacs

       - Beginning with XEmacs 19.12, XEmacs' architecture has been redesigned in such a way to allow clean support of multiple window systems.  At this time the TTY support was added, making X and TTY the first two "window systems" XEmacs supported.  The 19.12 design is the basis for the current native MS Windows code.

       - Some time during 1997, David Hobley (soon joined by Marc Paquette) imported some of the NT-specific portions of GNU Emacs, making XEmacs with X support compile under Windows NT, and creating the "X" port.

       - Several months later, Jonathan Harris sent out initial patches to use the Win32 API, thus creating the native port.  Since then, various people have contributed, including Kirill M. Katsnelson (contributed support for menubars, subprocesses and network, as well as loads of other code), Andy Piper (ported XEmacs to Cygwin environment, contributed Windows unexec, Windows-specific glyphs and toolbars code, and more), Jeff Sparkes (contributed scrollbars support) and many others.

Q6.3.3: What is the porting team doing at the moment?
-----------------------------------------------------

The porting team is continuing work on the MS Windows-specific code.

7 What the Future Holds
***********************

This is part 7 of the XEmacs Frequently Asked Questions list.  This section will change monthly, and contains any interesting items that have transpired over the previous month.  If you are reading this from the XEmacs distribution, please see the version on the Web or archived at the various FAQ FTP sites, as this file is surely out of date.

7.0: Changes
============

Q7.0.1: What is new in 20.2?
----------------------------

The biggest changes in 20.2 include integration of EFS (the next generation of ange-ftp) and AUC Tex (the Emacs subsystem that includes a major mode for editing Tex and LaTeX, and a lot of other stuff).  Many bugs from 20.0 have been fixed for this release.  20.2 also contains a new system for customizing XEmacs options, invoked via M-x customize.

XEmacs 20.2 is the development release (20.0 was beta), and is no longer considered unstable.

Q7.0.2: What is new in 20.3?
----------------------------

XEmacs 20.3 was released in November 1997. It contains many bugfixes, and a number of new features, including Autoconf 2 based configuration, additional support for Mule (Multi-language extensions to Emacs), many more customizations, multiple frames on TTY-s, support for multiple info directories, an enhanced gnuclient, improvements to regexp matching, increased MIME support, and many, many synches with GNU Emacs 20.

The XEmacs/Mule support has been only seriously tested in a Japanese locale, and no doubt many problems still remain.  The support for ISO-Latin-1 and Japanese is fairly strong.  MULE support comes at a price -- about a 30% slowdown from 19.16.  We're making progress on improving performance and XEmacs 20.3 compiled without Mule (which is the default) is definitely faster than XEmacs 19.16.

XEmacs 20.3 is the first non-beta v20 release, and will be the basis for all further development.

Q7.0.3: What's new in XEmacs 20.4?
----------------------------------

XEmacs 20.4 is a bugfix release with no user-visible changes.

Q7.0.4: Procedural changes in XEmacs development.
-------------------------------------------------

 1. Discussion about the development of XEmacs occurs on the xemacs-beta mailing list.  Subscriptions to this list will now be fully automated instead of being handled by hand.  Send a mail message to xemacs-beta-request@xemacs.org with subscribe as the BODY of the message to join the list.  Please note this is a developers mailing list for people who have an active interest in the development process.

     The discussion of NT XEmacs development is taking place on a separate mailing list.  Send mail to xemacs-nt-request@xemacs.org to subscribe.

 2. Due to the long development cycle in between releases, it has been decided that intermediate versions will be made available in source only form for the truly interested.

     XEmacs 19.16 was the last 19 release, basically consisting of 19.15 plus the collected bugfixes.

 3. As of December 1996, Steve Baur has become the lead maintainer of XEmacs.