Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition

Summary

Now you know the basic commands for starting and stopping Emacs and for working with files. Chapter 2 builds on these commands to give you the skills you need for editing with Emacs. Table 1-4 summarizes the commands we covered in this chapter.

Table 1-4. File handling commands

Keystrokes	Command name	Action
C-x C-f File → Open File	find-file	Find file and read it in a new buffer.
C-x C-v	find-alternate-file	Read an alternate file, replacing the one read with C-x C-f.
C-x iFile → Insert File	insert-file	Insert file at cursor position.
C-x C-sFile → Save (current buffer)	save-buffer	Save file.
C-x C-wFile → Save Buffer As	write-file	Write buffer contents to file.
C-x C-cFile → Exit Emacs	save-buffers-kill-emacs	Exit Emacs.
C-h	help-command	Enter the online help system.
C-h fHelp → Describe Function	describe-function	Gives online help for a given command name.
C-h kHelp → Describe Key	describe-key	Gives online help for a given keystroke sequence.
C-h tHelp → Emacs Tutorial	help-with-tutorial	Start the Emacs tutorial.
C-h iHelp → Browse Manuals	info-goto-emacs-command-node	Start the Info documentation reader.

Problems You May Encounter

• Emacs doesn't do what this book says or look like our screenshots. Make sure that you have GNU Emacs 21.3.5 or later running by typing M-x version Enter or selecting Help→ About Emacs. Read the section "Making Emacs Work the Way You Want" in Chapter 2. You may need to install a graphical version of Emacs if you are running in a terminal window; see Chapter 13 for details.

• The toolbar icons are completely different. The icons changed between Emacs 21.3.1 and Emacs 21.3.5. The older icons do the same thing; the newer ones are substantially better looking and more intuitive. Upgrade Emacs using instructions in Chapter 13.

• You can't access menus using the mouse. Use the text-based menus instead by pressing F10 or M-`. Better yet, install a graphical version of Emacs using the instructions in Chapter 13.

• PgUp doesn't work properly when using text-based menus. PgUp is probably bound to some application-specific function, such as scrolling in the Mac OS X Terminal application. Press Shift-PgUp, F10, or M-` to access the menus.

• You can't see a mode line or minibuffer. Your Emacs window is bigger than your display. See Chapter 10 for information on how to get Emacs to start with a reasonable window size. As a temporary workaround, resize the window. (On some Windows systems, maximizing the window ironically makes it smaller, solving the problem.)