Emacs notes

Last change April 2, 2004 AD

Index

• Introduction, short glossary
• Commands (the basics,  programming etc.)
• Text editing - abbreviations, autom. completion, narrowing
• Other ('more advanced': tags, RegExp (RegExp examples ), Macros ...)
• Tools (Ediff, Ebrowse)
• Modes (major, minor) - some of the useful editing modes found either in Emacs or XEmacs
• Languages & coding - various format of files (dos, unix, windows ...), language support
  • Czech language in Emacs
• Programming tools
  • eLisp notes
  • tags
• Appearance (indentation rules, reverse video etc.)
• Examples may help too (Batch mode ...)
• .emacs files & utils- customizing the editor
• Various notes (Emacs Fonts and Faces)
• Useful packages
• Links (.emacs init file)

Introduction

Glossary

Buffer

'the basic editing unit'. Corresponds to one opened file (text). The command "kill (or delete) buffer" means "close the file being edited".

Region

Part of a buffer, e.g. selected by mouse (you know what I mean by "select text", right? Usually it's highlighted)

Rectangle

A rectangular area of text defined by a top line, bottom line, leftmost column and rightmost column. Commands that operate on a rectangle enable you to remove particular columns etc.

Keys - notion

SPC = space, ESC = escape, TAB = tabulator, RET = Enter, M = hold Meta (Alt or Escape[only press and release]), C = hold Control.

Note about the Meta key: usually it is not called 'Meta'; it can be Alt (the left one, usually), on a Sun keyboard there may be a diamond on that key, it may be called 'Edit' ...

Some notes on emacs & programming

Commands

• basics
• open/create file: C-x c-f (hold control & press first x and then f). Note that creating a file = opening a non-existing file (to create file myfil.txt, 'open' file of that name)
• cancel a command: C-g (a command is if you press Control or Alt)
• save: C-x C-s
• search: C-s and type the searched string. Repeat search: press C-s again (do not enter a string). Don't pres RET after the first search. See more on search below.
• undo/redo: C-_  to undo; to redo break the undo sequence (do anything else) and C-_ (undo the undone)
• C-x C-q toggle read-only in a buffer
• help
  • M-x list-options lists all options and their values (indeed a long file).
  • C-h ? displays the available help you can use ('C-h a' searches commands for a keyword/regexp, 'C-h m' describes the current modes and their key bindings etc.)
• moving around
• C-a moves to the beginning of a line
• C-e moves to the end of a line
• M-m moves to the first character of the current line (not to the beginning - ignores white spaces)
• M-f moves one word forward
• M-b moves one word backward
• C-v moves one screen forward
• M-v  moves one screen backward
• M-< moves to the beginning of the current buffer
• M-> moves to the end of the current buffer
• scrollbars: if Emacs has a scrollbar, you can use it as normally, just do not forget to use the middle (2nd) mouse button, not the left one
• C-u C-SPC (space key) returns to the previous mark ('mark' is a point in the buffer, that emacs has remembered for some reason; you can set one by using C-SPC)
• C-up (arrow up) - moves one paragraph up (test and see; good for jumping over functions)
• registers: saving and jumping to a position:

C-x r SPC reg (or C-x / reg) saves the current position in the register reg (reg is a single letter = name of the register)
C-x r j reg jumps to the position saved in the register reg
• deleting
• C-x d the same as the delete key in other application (delete the current character)
• C-k deletes the rest of the line to the right of the cursor
• M-d deletes the rest of the current word to the right of the cursor
• M-DEL (=M-backspace)deletes a word from the cursor to its beginning
• ESC-SPC replaces all blanks (spaces, tabs) around the point by a single space
• ESC-k kills a sentence
• C-w kills region (and copies in into the kill ring, you can yank - paste - it by C-y)
• M-w copies a region (it's the same as C-w only it doesn't delete the region)
• C-x C-o deletes a blank line
• buffers
• C-x k kills a buffer (the current one by default)
• C-x b switches to another buffer (to the last visited one by default)
• Mouse
• Mouse-2 (2nd mouse button, i.e. the middle one) selects an item on a list (e.g. a file list)
• C-Mouse-1 brings up the buffer selection window
• C-Mouse-2 pops up the menu for editing formatted text (whatever that means ;-)
• C-Mouse-3 pops up the mode specific window (e.g. with C++ editing commands, if you are in a C++ buffer)
• programming
• C-M-a moves to the beginning of the current function
• C-M-e moves to the end of the function
• M-m moves to the first character of the current line (not to the beginning - ignores white spaces)
• see Tags and sexp.
• C-c C-d toggles the 'hungry mode'. If one then delete deletes all blanks after the point.
• sexp ("balanced parentheses" expression; include also quotes)
• C-M-b moves backward( to the left of the current expression; if the cursor is inside a word, moves to its beginning)
• C-M-f moves forward
• C-M-u moves one sexp level up (to the beginning of the enclosing expression of the current one; good e.g. for moving inside a function)
• C-M-d moves one sexp level down
• customization (easy way of changing/inspecting values of variables that influence Emacs's behavior)
• M-x customize brings up the customization buffer, that lets you to browse & change various variables (settings). See the part of the gnu emacs tutorial devoted to the customization (includes e.g. examples of the init [.emacs] file)
• version control (VC) (assumes you're editing a file that has been checked out of a control version system, namely CVS, RCS, or SCCS)
• C-x C-q checks in the file you're just editing (in other cases does st. else), asks for the log message first. The commands M-n, M-p, M-s, and M-r can be used to move in the log 'history' (so you don't need to retype a log message you've already used). After you finish editing the log message, type C-c C-c.
• C-x v i registers the currently visited file for version control
• C-x v l displays the version control history for the current file
• C-x v ~ show the revision REV of the current file (for instance REV is 1.2)
• search & replace
• M-x set-variable RET case-fold-search RET nil  if you want case-sensitive search/replace otherwise t
• SEARCH ----------------------
• C-s or C-r - starts (incremental) search or searches again (for the next occurrence); s-forward, r-backward; if you type C-s or C-r twice, it repeats the last search (searches for the same string as the last time)
• repeat last (finished) search: issue C-s C-s (after the first C-s you'll be asked for a string to search, after the second it starts searching for the last used string)
• M-C-s regular expression search; Type M-C-s RET, you'll be prompted for the regexp. Type it, don't press RET. Press C-s to find the next occurrence. (Note: it seems to be better to type the command, compared to using the menu).
• SEARCH for ------ word - rest of line - killed text - end of line ....
• C-s C-w C-s search for the word starting at the current point (cursor).
• C-s C-y C-s - like C-w, but search the rest of line instead of a single word
• C-s M-y C-s - like C-y, but search the last killed (deleted) text
• C-s C-j search end of line 
• C-s M-n searches for the next item in the search ring (Emacs remembers last 16 search strings)
• C-s M-p searches for the previous item in the search ring
• M-TAB completes the search string using the search ring (use during typing the string).
• REPLACE ---------------------
• M-C-% (M-x replace-regexp) - see RegExp 
• M-% (M-x replace-string) 
• printing (there are always at least 2 versions of the command: replace "buffer" by "region" to print only a region)
• M-x print-buffer for normal printing
• M-x ps-print-buffer for pretty printing (using PostScript). Recommended (because it's pretty ;-)

You can also use ps-print-buffer-with-faces (or ...-region-...).
To print 2 pages on 1: 1) set the variable ps-landscape-mode to true and 2) set ps-number-of-columns to two. Voilà!

• ps-print variables: in the group [Emacs]->[Wp]->[Ps Print] (Wp = word processing)
• copy & paste (if mouse buttons don't do that)
• M-w copy a region, it can be paste by C-y (actually it's C-w without killing)
• C-x r s reg - copy region into register reg (reg is a single letter = name of the register) (with prefix C-u works as 'cut')
• C-x r i reg - insert text from register reg
• C-y (yank) pastes previously killed region (kill is similar to delete, but in addition it saves the deleted text - region - in 'kill ring')
• M-y replaces text just yanked with an earlier batch of killed text (i.e. goes deeper into the kill ring history)
• C-SPC sets mark; a region is (if active) between the mark and the point (cursor)
• text mode
  • M-x ttm-menubar emulates the menu bar in a text mode (if you can't use X).

Emacs also contains or offers an interface to a number of applications (e-mails, version control, comparing files, calendar ...).

• Mule - abbreviation of "multi lang." - support for other character coding than the basic English one (needed if you use for example French)
• Tools->Display Speedbar - very useful thing, try it. Contains an 'index' of the current file (or the current directory, if no file opened yet). Great for finding a definition of a function in C source ... You can bring it up by the command M-x speedbar . Use the 2nd mouse button to "follow a link".

Text editing

• completition - Emacs has completition for symbol names, which you can use normally in a buffer. For a programming language, it's based either on the TAGS table or, for standard functions, on Info files for the particular standard library; of course the Info file must be installed, TAGS file created (see the unix etags command). In the Text mode, the completition is based on the spell-checker's dictionary. See emacs(compl.) gnu tutorial. The completition is "run" by M-TAB.
• abbreviations (see gnu) - there are 2 kinds of them. Normal ones, which must be defined and which are expanded automatically as you type (e.g. if you define 'fw' as the abbreviation for 'funny world', after you type 'fw ', it will be expanded to it) and so called dynamic abbreviations, which don't need to be defined, but their use must be explicitly demanded; Emacs then searches the previous text to find the first word starting with the same prefix. You run the expansion by using M-/. For example if I wrote 'Em' and typed M-/, it would have been expanded to 'Emacs'.
• static abbrevs (Abbrev mode must be enabled!) - definition: type the expression the abbrev expands to, type the (following) command sequence and then type the abbreviation. To define 'fw' as mentioned above, 1) type 'funny world' 2) type C-u 2 C-x a g fw RET ('RET' means 'press return', i.e. Enter). The first part (C-u  2) gives the input parameter 2 (which means "the abbrev is abbreviation for the sequence of the tw previous words" - the exp. 'funny world' has 2 words). the second part then defines the abbrev (a - abbrev, g - global). Note: if the Abbrev mode isn't enabled, you can still create and expand abbrevs, but the expansion must be explicitly required (type the   abbrev - e.g. 'fw' - and then C-x a e [a - abbrev, e - expand]). You can save your abbrevs so they 'survive' till the next time (see "abbrev-file-name", "write-abbrev-file" and "read-abbrev-file")
• dynamic abbrevs (Abbrev mode doesn't need to be enabled): use the M-/ command sequence, as described above. If you use ESC C-/ instead, it will not find the last matching word, but searches the whole buffer and presents the possible completitions.
• hippie-expand - this function can complete lines of text in addition to words 
• narrowing - you can make temporarily a part of the buffer invisible and inaccessible. Only the selected part (the region) stays 'normal': use C-x n n to narrow and C-x n w to 'widen', i.e. to remove the narrowing effect.

Other

• text editing (normal human language text)
• M-x text-mode  to enter the text (normal language) editing mode
• M-x auto-fill-mode  toggles the auto-fill-mode (breaking the text when the lines are too long). M-q 'refils' a paragraph.
• help
• C-h k displays a description (definition) of a command (e.g. the command C-p)
• C-h c as k, but only very short description
• C-h f describes a function
• C-h a apropos (finds any function/command/variable including the input string)
• C-h m describes the current mode (type q to close the result window) (go to *scratch* and test it)
• C-h b lists key bindings
• - language related help -
• C-h L describes the language environment (latin-1, Czech ...)
• C-h I describes input methods of the current lang. environment (input method are used to produce non-standard characters)
• C-h C describes the current coding system
• C-h v describes a variable: C-h v c-mode-map displays a keymap for the c mode
• special prefixes (input parameter, printing special characters)
• C-u number another_command (give parameter) is used to give numeric parameters to commands(lot of times it causes the command to repeat itself, for instance C-u 20 C-p). Instead of C-u you can use ESC (Escape).
• C-q (print spec. character) is used to type the 'characters' that mean st. to emacs (e.g. if you want to inset Control into your file, use C-q Control)

RegExp

= regular expressions. For the syntax see M-x info RET g (emacs)Regexps. See als RegExp examples .

    To match a newline type C-q C-j (it won't insert a symbol, instead it will make a new line in the minibuffer). . (dot) matches any character except a new line, c* = any number of occurrences of the character c (greedy - the largest match possible), c*? (non-greedy, the smallest match possible), c? matches 0 or 1 occurrence of c, \t matches a tabulator.
    Reference the whole string: \&
The dth parentheses: \d (the substring matched by the regexp enclosed in the d-th parentheses of the whole regexp; to match parens. use: \( and \) )
Note: \s- matches any blank character; the string \s- behaves as being only 1 character (special) => you don't need parens to use e.g.*: \s-*
    During the search & replace operation, you can, in the 'replace part' (replace string) refer to the string matched by the search part by '\&'. E.g. to insert '!' at the end and beg. of all lines starting with ';', you would issue (RET is Enter): M-x replace-regexp RET  ^;.*$ RET !\&! RET
Search&Replace for a tag: (while (re-search-forward "\\(<\\(TAG\\)\\(.\\|\n\\)*?</\\2>\\)" nil t) (replace-match "X\\&X" t nil)) (We search for <TAG[.EOL]*</TAG> using minimal (x greedy) match)
See search (and replace).

• non-English languages (Mule)

See "set-keyboard-coding-system" (use C-h f ), "set-buffer-file-coding-system", help related to this topic (see help above), "iso-accents", "set-language-environment", "buffer-file-coding-system" (variable), "coding-category-emacs-mule", "mule-diag", "toggle-input-method". For Czech in Emacs see links.
• customizing Emacs
• key bindings can be changed for a session or permanently (by using the .emacs file).

M-x local-set-key prompts first for the key, then for the command to be executed. There's also unset-key function.
M-x global-set-key is the same as above, but sets the key for all modes.

Macros

= recorded set of keystrokes.

• C-x ( start recording a macro, finish it with C-x )
• C-x e execute last macro
• M-x apply-macro-to-region-lines = move to the beginning of each line in the selection and execute the last macro.
• edit-last-kbd-macro (C-x C-k C-x e)
• name-last-kbd-macro give a name to the last macro
• ---
• insert-kbd-macro insert in buffer the definition of kbd macro NAME, as Lisp code.
• kbd-macro-query

Tools

Ediff

• move around
• j - jump to the first region which is different in the two compared buffers
• n or SPC - jump to the next difference region
• p or DEL - jump to the previous difference region
• editing etc. (if you compare only two files/buffers/...)
• a - copy the current region from A to B (replaces the region in B)
• b - copy from A to B (as a, but the other way round)
• ! - recomputes the differences between the two regions (useful after you've done some editing)
• q - quit the Ediff session; the edited buffers are not closed, so you can save them or whatever
• and many more, for instance
• ## - skip the difference regions if they differ only in white spaces/newlines

Modes

Some major modes

• hm--html-mode [XEmacs] - see 'homepage' (contains also a documentation)
• html-mode [the XEmacs version is nicer]
• html-helper-mode [?] - see html-helper-mode (another page)

Some minor modes

• Pending-Delete minor mode (indicator PenDel) [XEmacs] - inserted text replaces the selection (that's what we are normally accustomed to).But it seems to have an undesired influence on regions(if you select a region by mouse and than you scroll the screen, the region grows).
• Font-Lock minor mode (indicator Font) [both] - highlighted syntax (text is fontified)
• auto-fill-mode [both] breaks  line when it becomes too long (that is, automatically inserts line-break [end-of-line], used in the Text major mode.
• abbrev-mode [both] enables automatic expansion of (static) abbreviations. See abbreviations above.
• flyspell-mode automatically highlights misspelled words and offers possible corrections (click on the misspelled word by the middle mouse button).
• auto-save-mode
• line-number-mode, column-number-mode - toggle on/off the display of the current line/column number in the mode line (above the minibuffer).
• recentf-mode - a menu for visiting files that were operated on recently is maintained
• dispaly-time-mode displays current time in the mode line
• pc-bindings-mode sets up certain key bindings for PC compatibility: Delete (and its variants) delete forward instead of backward, C-Backspace kills backward a word, M-Backspace does undo, Home and End move to beginning and end of line, C-Home and C-End move to beginning and end of buffer, C-Escape does list-buffers
• htmlize-buffer [both, must be downloaded separately] transform text into html (preserves visual appearance including font highlighting)
• iswitchb-mode [Emacs 21.3] - first  M-x load-library RET iswitchb RET . Fast switching of buffers.
• setnu-mode (download) display line numbers to the left of lines

html-mode (both)

Useful packages

• eol-conversion.el - adds a menu to easily convert mac<>unix<>windows codings.

Programming tools

Tags

1. create the tags table (e.g. to get tags for all .cc and .h files in the current directory as well as its subdirs, run $>etags -C */*.cc */*.h; it will create the file TAGS in the current dir)
2. tell the Emacs to use the tags file you've just created: M-x visit-tags-table (don't forget you can use the completition so you don't need to type the whole command). It will prompt you for the file name.
3. use it! For example, to find a tag, use M-. tagname (for instance M-. myFunction1). It enables you to do lot of cool things. See the documentation.
   • M-x visit-tags-table opens a tags table (necessary before tags are used).
   • M-. tagname search for a tag called tagname
   • C-M-.
   • M-* return to the place from which you started to search (try more times).

eLisp notes

• '.' is a special character (inside a string), you must escape it (use '\.' instead)

Ebrowse

Ebrowse is a tool for browsing a hierarchy of C++ classes, for programmers.

Languages and coding

• Save a buffer as a MS DOS file: e.g. "C-x RET f iso-latin-1-dos" (or -2- or any other)

Czech in Emacs:

Czech works correctly in my Emacs (on Mandrake Linux with support for Czech). The setting is:

• Keyboard Coding System: nil
• Default Input Method: czech
• Current Language Environment( result of `set-language-environment'): Czech (=> preferred coding system is Latin2)
• Enable Multibyte Characters: on
• Leim installed

End of line (Eol)

Appearance

See also .emacs file below.

• see color-theme.el (see http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2002-08/msg00641.html)

Indentation rules (Java, C ... modes)

See web how to customize indentation.

1. Interactive customization:
   • C-c C-s (c-show-syntactic-information) shows syntactic context (symbol) of the current line.
   • C-c C-o (c-set-offset) let's you set indentation for any syntactic symbol (context), by default the one of the current line.
2. Permanent customization: in .emacs file, e.g.:
   (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook ; Common across all languages (C, Java ...).
      '(lambda () (c-set-offset 'substatement-open 0) ) )

Reverse video by default

Normally you start emacs like this: emacs -rv for it to be in reverse video (black background ...). How to set it as default?

1. Linux: set it in .Xdefaults "emacs.reverseVideo:true"
2. Windows: a) set it in Registry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs - add  "emacs.reverseVideo" of the type REG_SZ (text variable) and set it to "true". See the original advice (HKEY_CURRENT_USER is preferable to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE: Emacs reads it first).

see faces.el: x-handle-reverse-video 
see http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2002-10/msg00060.html
see the variable inverse-video (setting it doesn't work?)
Solution 1 (which doesn't produce the same result as emacs -rv and is worse, not reccomanded):
(defun x-handle-reverse-video (frame)
"Handle the reverse-video frame parameter and X resource.
`x-create-frame' does not handle this one."
(when t
(let* ((params (frame-parameters frame))
(bg (cdr (assq 'foreground-color params)))
(fg (cdr (assq 'background-color params))))
(modify-frame-parameters frame
(list (cons 'foreground-color fg)
(cons 'background-color bg)))
(if (equal bg (cdr (assq 'border-color params)))
(modify-frame-parameters frame
(list (cons 'border-color fg))))
(if (equal bg (cdr (assq 'mouse-color params)))
(modify-frame-parameters frame
(list (cons 'mouse-color fg))))
(if (equal bg (cdr (assq 'cursor-color params)))
(modify-frame-parameters frame
(list (cons 'cursor-color fg)))))))

(x-handle-reverse-video nil )

Emacs Fonts and Faces

See: html-font.el
in *scratch* evaluate (x-list-fonts "*") (or (x-list-fonts "*2") for iso8859-2) to see what fonts are available

Examples

Index of examples

• search & replace (actually only replace)
• Batch mode

Search & Replace

1. transform '&': M-x replace-string RET  & RET &amp;
2. transform '<' : M-x replace-string RET  < RET &lt;
3. transform '>' : M-x replace-string RET  > RET &gt;
4. do whatever else you want
5. add break.lines: M-x replace-regexp RET  $ RET <br>
6. insert the HTML header (<html><body>) at the very beginning of the file (buffer)
7. insert the HTML footer (</body></html>) at the very end of the file. Save it.

Replace Text In A Subdirectory

If you want to search & replace "foo" with "bar" in all your C files (which have names like "file.c" or "file.h"):

* M-x dired
/home/path/
or
/home/path/*.c
* If you are using Gnu Emacs, you can mark a subtree of directories by
M-x find-dired
/home/path/
-name "*.[ch]"
Note that Microsoft Windows comes with a default find.exe that comes first in PATH, and interferes with Cygwin's find.exe
* Mark the files you want to work on.
See "Mark" in menu, or C-h a
dired-mark
* Type 'Q' dired-do-query-replace
* Type in your replacements as regexps

Batch mode

Indent all C++ files

This shows how to run Emacs in batch mode against several files. See also ~/emacs/bin/unix/e-batchcompile for another example.

for i in *.[ch]* #.cpp, .h, .hxx, ...
do
fcommand="$fcommand --find-file $i"
done

emacs -nw --batch --load ~/tabify-c++-buffers.el $fcommand --execute '(progn (tabify-all-c++-buffers) (kill-emacs 0))'

.emacs files

For examples of customizing Emacs via its start-up file see examples under Links.
Important: after you've edited .emacs you must restart the editor for all changes to take effect. If you call "evaluate-buffer" or st. like that, only some changes do apply.

initial-scratch-message

contains the message shown on start-up.

inhibit-eol-conversion

If 't' and you open a windows file you will see '^M' at the end of lines otherwise you will see 'DOS' in the mode line.

;; Completition of a file path in a buffer (from Emacs fr)
(autoload 'comint-dynamic-complete-filename "comint" "" t)
(global-set-key [S-tab] 'comint-dynamic-complete-filename) .

;; Open recent file without mouse (from Emacs fr)

(defun recentf-open-files-compl ()
(interactive)
(let* ((all-files recentf-list)
(tocpl (mapcar (function (lambda (x) (cons (file-name-nondirectory x) x))) all-files))
(prompt (append '("File name: ") tocpl))
(fname (completing-read (car prompt) (cdr prompt) nil nil)))
(find-file (cdr (assoc-ignore-representation fname tocpl)))))
recentf-open-files-compl
Et puis un petit global-set-key qui va bien:
(global-set-key "\C-c r" 'recentf-open-files-compl)

;; Display available fonts (in font-menus.el)

(defun display-fonts ()
"Sorted display of all the fonts Emacs knows about."
(interactive)
(with-output-to-temp-buffer "*Fonts*"
(save-excursion
(set-buffer standard-output)
(mapcar (lambda (font) (insert font "\n"))
(sort (x-list-fonts "*") 'string-lessp)))
(print-help-return-message)))

or in *scratch* evaluate (x-list-fonts "*")

;; Various

;; source of these ideas: http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~buja/STAT-540/.emacs
;;; current line to top of buffer:
;(global-set-key "\M-t" "\C-u0\C-l") 
;;; bind F10 to man of topic at cursor location:
(global-set-key [(f10)] (lambda () (interactive) (manual-entry (current-word))))
Test equality: ;(if (equal x-display-name "castle5082.research.att.com:0.0") ...)
;; This removes unsightly ^M characters that would otherwise
;; appear in the output of java applications.
(add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
'comint-strip-ctrl-m)

;; Change colors:
(modify-frame-parameters nil
(list (cons 'foreground-color "black")))

Various notes

• Get lot of info of current setting (eval as lisp expression):
  (setq myparams (frame-parameters)) ; prints only part of the param. list;
  ;or: (setq myparams (current-frame-configuration))
  ; see also set-frame-configuration, (modify-frame-parameters frame alist)
  (print myparams)
  ;params: width, height, background-mode (=dark==inverse video||light), name ...
  (frame-parameter nil 'background-mode) ;get value of backgr.mode
  (modify-frame-parameters nil '((name . "Emacs: KUBA")))

Useful packages

CmodeAddons

This package helps C programmers by displaying information about the arguments of C functions. It uses a C function database, which you can create from man pages or from your own sources. See CmodeAddons at Wiki.

Links

• CEDET: Collection of Emacs Development Environment Tools (smart code completition and more)
• Init files:
  • Wiki .emacs category - highly recommended
  • .emacs - sample init file from the XEmacs distribution (local link)
  • Mine: .emacs for Windows&Cygwin, old .emacs for Linux.
  • Good sample1 and sample2 - Emacs&Cygwin, using bash/dos, auto. load modes for .css etc ...
  • Multiple versions of Emacs and .emacs
• GNU Emacs manual
• Emacs tutorial (fr)
• Czech in Emacs - description & package.
• XEmacs homepage (see e.g. eLisp packages)
• EmacsWiki - even more info about [X]Emacs, packages, the modes ...
• Refcards.com - a collection of reference cards in various formats, including Emacs and XEmacs (as well as ANSI C ...)
• Craigh F. - one of the guys who worked with Emacs (lot of links, tools ...)
• Emacs FAQ - a long list (in XEmacs you can get also some FAQ via C-h F)
• Elwood - the Association of Lisp users homepage
• Java DE (development environment) for Emacs (JDEE)
• Packages 4 Emacs
  • Table editor for Emacs (elisp package providing text based table creation and editing featur, WYSIWYG)
  • preview-latex package - ender your displayed LaTeX equations right into the editing window where they belong
  • X-Symbol for WYSIWYG in Emacs - display real characters for entities (LaTeX, HTML, BibTeX or TeXinfo)
  • ! WebBot - replace a text when saving; similar to webbot used in MS FrontPage; timestamp, variable, navigation.
  • HTMLcleaner - beautifies html/xml code (indents, wraps lines etc)
• The Craft of Text Editing: Emacs for the Modern World [Book, online]