Emacs Beginner's HOWTO

Emacs Beginner's HOWTO
Table of Contents
Emacs Beginner's HOWTO...............................................................................................................................	1
Jeremy D. Zawodny: [e-mail]........................................................................................	1
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................................	1
2. Running Emacs ...................................................................................................................................	1
3. Emacs Modes.......................................................................................................................................	1
4. Customizing Emacs ............................................................................................................................	1
5. Popular Packages ................................................................................................................................	1
6. Other Resources ..................................................................................................................................	2
7. Credits .................................................................................................................................................	2
1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................	2
1.1 Copyright...........................................................................................................................................	2
1.2 Audience and Intent...........................................................................................................................	2
1.3 What is Emacs?..................................................................................................................................	2
Ports and Versions......................................................................................................................	3
Getting Emacs.............................................................................................................................	3
2. Running Emacs ..................................................................................................................................	3
2.1 Starting & Quitting Emacs.................................................................................................................	3
What you'll see............................................................................................................................	4
The Menu Bar.............................................................................................................................	4
The Status Bar and Mini−buffer .................................................................................................	4
2.2 Some Terminology............................................................................................................................	5
Buffers & Files............................................................................................................................	5
Point & Region...........................................................................................................................	5
Windows.....................................................................................................................................	5
Frames.........................................................................................................................................	6
2.3 Keyboard Basics................................................................................................................................	6
Command Keys (Meta, Esc, Control, and Alt)...........................................................................	6
Moving Around in a Buffer........................................................................................................	6
Essential Commands...................................................................................................................	7
Tab Completion..........................................................................................................................	8
2.4 Tutorial, Help, & Info........................................................................................................................	8
3. Emacs Modes.......................................................................................................................................	8
3.1 Major vs. Minor Modes.....................................................................................................................	8
3.2 Programming Modes..........................................................................................................................	9
C/C++/Java...............................................................................................................................	10
Perl............................................................................................................................................	10
Python.......................................................................................................................................	10
Others........................................................................................................................................	10
3.3 Authoring.........................................................................................................................................	10
Spell−Checking (ispell mode)..................................................................................................	11
HTML (html−helper mode)......................................................................................................	11
TeX (tex−mode )........................................................................................................................	11
SGML (sgml−mode ).................................................................................................................	11
3.4 Other Modes.....................................................................................................................................	11
Version Control (vc mode).......................................................................................................	11
Shell Mode................................................................................................................................	11
Telnet and FTP..........................................................................................................................	12
Man...........................................................................................................................................	12

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Emacs Beginner's HOWTO
Table of Contents
Ange−FTP.................................................................................................................................	12
4. Customizing Emacs .........................................................................................................................	12
4.1 Temporary Customization...............................................................................................................	13
Variable Assignments...............................................................................................................	13
File Associations.......................................................................................................................	14
4.2 Using a .emacs File..........................................................................................................................	14
4.3 The Customize Package...................................................................................................................	15
4.4 X Windows Display.........................................................................................................................	15
5. Popular Packages .............................................................................................................................	16
5.1 VM (Mail)........................................................................................................................................	16
5.2 Gnus (Mail and News).....................................................................................................................	16
5.3 BBDB (A rolodex)...........................................................................................................................	17
5.4 AucTeX (another TeX mode)..........................................................................................................	17
6. Other Resources ...............................................................................................................................	17
6.1 Books...............................................................................................................................................	17
Learning GNU Emacs...............................................................................................................	17
Writing GNU Emacs Extensions..............................................................................................	17
Programming in Emacs Lisp: An Introduction.........................................................................	18
The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual................................................................................	18
6.2 Web Sites.........................................................................................................................................	18
EMACSulation..........................................................................................................................	18
6.3 Newsgroups......................................................................................................................................	18
6.4 Mailing Lists....................................................................................................................................	19
6.5 The Emacs Lisp Archive..................................................................................................................	19
7. Credits ..............................................................................................................................................	19

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