1Copyright (c) 1985 Richard M. Stallman. See end for copying conditions. 2 3You are looking at the Emacs tutorial. 4 5Emacs commands generally involve the CONTROL key or the META (ESC) 6key. Rather than write out META or CONTROL each time we want you to 7prefix a character, we'll use the following abbreviations: 8 9 C-<chr> means hold the CONTROL key while typing the character <chr> 10 Thus, C-f would be: hold the CONTROL key and type f. 11 M-<chr> means type <ESC>, release it, then type the character <chr>. 12 13The characters ">>" at the left margin indicate directions for you to 14try using a command. For instance: 15 16>> Now type C-v (View next screen) to move to the next screen. 17 (go ahead, do it by depressing the control key and v together). 18 From now on, you'll be expected to do this whenever you finish 19 reading the screen. 20 21Note that there is an overlap when going from screen to screen; this 22provides some continuity when moving through the file. 23 24The first thing that you need to know is how to move around from 25place to place in the file. You already know how to move forward a 26screen, with C-v. To move backwards a screen, type M-v (type <ESC>v). 27 28>> Try typing M-v and then C-v to move back and forth a few times. 29 30 31SUMMARY 32------- 33 34The following commands are useful for viewing screenfuls: 35 36 C-v Move forward one screenful 37 M-v Move backward one screenful 38 C-l Clear screen and redisplay everything 39 putting the text near the cursor at the center. 40 (That's control-L, not control-1. 41 There is no such character as control-1.) 42 43>> Find the cursor and remember what text is near it. 44 Then type a C-l. 45 Find the cursor again and see what text is near it now. 46 47 48BASIC CURSOR CONTROL 49-------------------- 50 51Getting from screenful to screenful is useful, but how do you 52reposition yourself within a given screen to a specific place? There 53are several ways you can do this. One way (not the best, but the most 54basic) is to use the commands previous, backward, forward and next. 55As you can imagine these commands (which are given to Emacs as C-p, 56C-b, C-f, and C-n respectively) move the cursor from where it 57currently is to a new place in the given direction. It is also 58possible to move the cursor with the arrow keys, but this requires you 59move your hand from the keyboard, it is also not supported on other 60machines that do support Emacs. Emacs runs on everything from a CP/M 61machine to large mainframes. Here then, in a more graphical form are 62the commands: 63 64 Previous line, C-p 65 : 66 : 67 Backward, C-b .... Current cursor position .... Forward, C-f 68 : 69 : 70 Next line, C-n 71 72>> Move the cursor to the line in the middle of that diagram 73 and type C-l to see the whole diagram centered in the screen. 74 75You'll probably find it easy to think of these by letter. P for 76previous, N for next, B for backward and F for forward. These are 77the basic cursor positioning commands and you'll be using them ALL 78the time so it would be of great benefit if you learn them now. 79 80>> Do a few C-n's to bring the cursor down to this line. 81 82>> Move into the line with C-f's and then up with C-p's. 83 See what C-p does when the cursor is in the middle of the line. 84 85>> Try to C-b at the beginning of a line. Do a few more C-b's. 86 Then do C-f's back to the end of the line and beyond. 87 88When you go off the top or bottom of the screen, the text beyond 89the edge is shifted onto the screen so that your instructions can 90be carried out while keeping the cursor on the screen. 91 92>> Try to move the cursor off the bottom of the screen with C-n and 93 see what happens. 94 95If moving by characters is too slow, you can move by words. M-f 96(ESC-f) moves forward a word and M-b moves back a word. 97 98>> Type a few M-f's and M-b's. Intersperse them with C-f's and C-b's. 99 100Notice the parallel between C-f and C-b on the one hand, and M-f and 101M-b on the other hand. Very often Meta characters are used for 102operations related to English text whereas Control characters operate 103on the basic textual units that are independent of what you are 104editing (characters, lines, etc). C-a and C-e move to the beginning or 105end of a line. 106 107>> Try a couple of C-a's, and then a couple of C-e's. 108 See how repeated C-a's do nothing. 109 110Two other simple cursor motion commands are M-< (Meta Less-than), 111which moves to the beginning of the file, and M-> (Meta Greater-than), 112which moves to the end of the file. You probably don't need to try 113them, since finding this spot again will be boring. On most terminals 114the "<" is above the comma and you must use the shift key to type it. 115On these terminals you must use the shift key to type M-< also; 116without the shift key, you would be typing M-comma. 117 118The location of the cursor in the text is also called "point". To 119paraphrase, the cursor shows on the screen where point is located in 120the text. 121 122Here is a summary of simple moving operations including the word and 123sentence moving commands: 124 125 C-f Move forward a character 126 C-b Move backward a character 127 128 M-f Move forward a word 129 M-b Move backward a word 130 131 c-n Move to next line 132 C-p Move to previous line 133 134 C-a Move to beginning of line 135 C-e Move to end of line 136 137 M-< Go to beginning of file 138 M-> Go to end of file 139 140>> Try all of these commands now a few times for practice. 141 Since the last two will take you away from this screen, 142 you can come back here with M-v's and C-v's. These are 143 the most often used commands. 144 145Like all other commands in Emacs, these commands can be given 146arguments which cause them to be executed repeatedly. The way you 147give a command a repeat count is by typing C-u and then the digits 148before you type the command. 149 150For instance, C-u 8 C-f moves forward eight characters. 151 152>> Try giving a suitable argument to C-n or C-p to come as close 153 as you can to this line in one jump. 154 155The only apparent exception to this is the screen moving commands, 156C-v and M-v. When given an argument, they scroll the screen up or 157down by that many lines, rather than screenfuls. This proves to be 158much more useful. 159 160>> Try typing C-u 8 C-v now. 161 162Did it scroll the screen up by 8 lines? If you would like to 163scroll it down you can give an argument to M-v. 164 165 166WHEN EMACS IS HUNG 167----------------- 168 169If Emacs gets into an infinite (or simply very long) computation which 170you don't want to finish, you can stop it safely by typing C-g. 171You can also use C-g to discard a numeric argument or the beginning of 172a command that you don't want to finish. 173 174>> Type C-u 100 to make a numeric arg of 100, then type C-g. 175 Now type C-f. How many characters does it move? 176 If you have typed an <ESC> by mistake, you can get rid of it 177 with a C-g. 178 179WINDOWS 180------- 181 182Emacs can have several windows, each displaying its own text. 183At this stage it is better not to go into the techniques of 184using multiple windows. But you do need to know how to get 185rid of extra windows that may appear to display help or 186output from certain commands. It is simple: 187 188 C-x 1 One window (i.e., kill all other windows). 189 190That is Control-x followed by the digit 1. 191C-x 1 makes the window which the cursor is in become 192the full screen, by getting rid of any other windows. 193 194>> Move the cursor to this line and type C-l (Control-L). 195>> Type M-x. The cursor will move to the bottom of the screen. 196>> Type the words "describe-bindings" and hit return. 197 See how this window shrinks, while a new one appears 198 to display which functions are connected to which keys. 199 200>> Type C-x 1 and see the documentation listing window disappear. 201 202 203INSERTING AND DELETING 204---------------------- 205 206If you want to insert text, just type it. Characters which you can 207see, such as A, 7, *, etc. are taken by Emacs as text and inserted 208immediately. Type <Return> (the carriage-return key) to insert a 209Newline character. 210 211You can delete the last character you typed by typing <DEL>. More 212generally, <DEL> deletes the character immediately before the current 213cursor position. 214 215>> Do this now, type a few characters and then delete them 216 by typing <DEL> a few times. Don't worry about this file 217 being changed; you won't affect the master tutorial. This is just 218 a copy of it. 219 220>> Now start typing text until you reach the right margin, and keep 221 typing. When a line of text gets too big for one line on the 222 screen, the line of text is "continued" off the edge of the screen. 223 The dollar sign at the right margin indicates a line which has 224 been continued. 225>> Use <DEL>s to delete the text until the line fits on one screen 226 line again. The continuation mark goes away. 227 228>> Move the cursor to the beginning of a line and type <DEL>. This 229 deletes the newline before the line and merges the line onto 230 the previous line. The resulting line may be too long to fit, in 231 which case it has a continuation mark. 232>> Type <Return> to reinsert the Newline you deleted. 233 234Remember that most Emacs commands can be given a repeat count; 235this includes characters which insert themselves. 236 237>> Try that now -- type C-u 8 * and see what happens. 238 239You've now learned the most basic way of typing something in 240Emacs and correcting errors. You can delete by words or lines 241as well. Here is a summary of the delete operations: 242 243 <DEL> delete the character just before the cursor 244 C-d delete the next character after the cursor 245 246 M-<DEL> kill the word immediately before the cursor 247 M-d kill the next word after the cursor 248 249 C-k kill from the cursor position to end of line 250 251Notice that <DEL> and C-d vs M-<DEL> and M-d extend the parallel 252started by C-f and M-f (well, <DEL> isn't really a control 253character, but let's not worry about that). 254 255Now suppose you kill something, and then you decide that you want to 256get it back? Well, whenever you kill something bigger than a 257character, Emacs saves it for you. To yank it back, use C-y. You 258can kill text in one place, move elsewhere, and then do C-y; this is 259a good way to move text around. Note that the difference 260between "Killing" and "Deleting" something is that "Killed" things 261can be yanked back, and "Deleted" things cannot. Generally, the 262commands that can destroy a lot of text save it, while the ones that 263attack only one character, or nothing but blank lines and spaces, do 264not save. 265 266For instance, type C-n a couple times to postion the cursor 267at some line on this screen. 268 269>> Do this now, move the cursor and kill that line with C-k. 270 271Note that a single C-k kills the contents of the line, and a second 272C-k kills the line itself, and make all the other lines move up. If 273you give C-k a repeat count, it kills that many lines AND their 274contents. 275 276The text that has just disappeared is saved so that you can 277retrieve it. To retrieve the last killed text and put it where 278the cursor currently is, type C-y. 279 280>> Try it; type C-y to yank the text back. 281 282Think of C-y as if you were yanking something back that someone 283took away from you. Notice that if you do several C-k's in a row 284the text that is killed is all saved together so that one C-y will 285yank all of the lines. 286 287>> Do this now, type C-k several times. 288 289Now to retrieve that killed text: 290 291>> Type C-y. Then move the cursor down a few lines and type C-y 292 again. You now see how to copy some text. 293 294 295FILES 296----- 297 298In order to make the text you edit permanent, you must put it in a 299file. Otherwise, it will go away when your invocation of Emacs goes 300away. You put your editing in a file by "finding" the file. What 301finding means is that you see the contents of the file in your Emacs; 302and, loosely speaking, what you are editing is the file itself. 303However, the changes still don't become permanent until you "save" the 304file. This is so you can have control to avoid leaving a half-changed 305file around when you don't want to. 306 307If you look near the bottom of the screen you will see a line that 308begins and ends with dashes, and contains the string: 309 "Mg: TUTORIAL" 310Your copy of the Emacs tutorial is called "TUTORIAL". Whatever 311file you find, that file's name will appear in that precise 312spot. 313 314The commands for finding and saving files are unlike the other 315commands you have learned in that they consist of two characters. 316They both start with the character Control-x. There is a whole series 317of commands that start with Control-x; many of them have to do with 318files, buffers, and related things, and all of them consist of 319Control-x followed by some other character. 320 321Another thing about the command for finding a file is that you have 322to say what file name you want. We say the command "reads an argument 323from the terminal" (in this case, the argument is the name of the 324file). After you type the command 325 326 C-x C-f Find a file 327 328Emacs asks you to type the file name. It echoes on the bottom line of 329the screen. When you type <Return> to end the file name it disappears. 330 331>> Type C-x C-f, then type C-g. This cancels the C-x C-f command 332 that was using the minibuffer. So you do not find any file. 333 334In a little while the file contents appear on the screen. You can 335edit the contents. When you wish to make the changes permanent, 336issue the command 337 338 C-x C-s Save the file 339 340The contents of Emacs are written into the file. 341 342When saving is finished, Emacs prints the name of the file written. 343You should save fairly often, so that you will not lose very much 344work if the system should crash. 345 346>> Type C-x C-s, saving your copy of the tutorial. 347 This should print "Wrote TUTORIAL" at the bottom of the screen. 348 349To make a new file, just find it "as if" it already existed. Then 350start typing in the text. When you ask to "save" the file, Emacs 351will really create the file with the text that you have inserted. 352>From then on, you can consider yourself to be editing an already 353existing file. 354 355 356BUFFERS 357------- 358 359If you find a second file with C-x C-f, the first file remains inside 360Emacs. This way you can get quite a number of files inside Emacs. 361 362The object inside Emacs which holds the text read from one file 363is called a "buffer." Finding a file makes a new buffer inside Emacs. 364To see a list of the buffers that exist in Emacs, type 365 366 C-x C-b List buffers 367 368>> Try C-x C-b now. 369 370See how each buffer has a name, and it may also have a file name 371for the file whose contents it holds. Some buffers do not correspond 372to files. For example, the buffer named "*Buffer List*" does 373not have any file. It is the buffer which contains the buffer 374list that was made by C-x C-b. ANY text you see in an Emacs window 375has to be in some buffer. 376 377>> Type C-x 1 to get rid of the buffer list. 378 379If you make changes to the text of one file, then find another file, 380this does not save the first file. Its changes remain inside Emacs, 381in that file's buffer. The creation or editing of the second file's 382buffer has no effect on the first file's buffer. This is very useful, 383but it also means that you need a convenient way to save the first 384file's buffer. It would be a nuisance to have to switch back to 385it with C-x C-f in order to save it with C-x C-s. So we have 386 387 C-x s Save some buffers 388 389C-x s goes through the list of all the buffers you have 390and finds the ones that contain files you have changed. 391For each such buffer, C-x s asks you whether to save it. 392 393 394EXTENDING THE COMMAND SET 395------------------------- 396 397There are many, many more Emacs commands than could possibly be put 398on all the control and meta characters. Emacs gets around this with 399the X (eXtend) command. This comes in two flavors: 400 401 C-x Character eXtend. Followed by one character. 402 M-x Named command eXtend. Followed by a long name. 403 404These are commands that are generally useful but used less than the 405commands you have already learned about. You have already seen two 406of them: the file commands C-x C-f to Find and C-x C-s to Save. 407Another example is the command to tell Emacs that you'd like to stop 408editing and get rid of Emacs. The command to do this is C-x C-c. 409(Don't worry; it offers to save each changed file before it kills the 410Emacs.) 411 412C-z is the usual way to exit Emacs, because it is always better not to 413kill the Emacs if you are going to do any more editing. On systems 414which allow it, C-z exits from Emacs to a CLI but does not destroy the 415Emacs; you can resume editing by ending that CLI or depth arranging. 416 417You would use C-x C-c if you were running out of memory. You would 418also use it to exit an Emacs invoked under mail handling programs and 419other random utilities, since they may not believe you have really 420finished using the Emacs if it continues to exist. 421 422There are many C-x commands. The ones you know are: 423 424 C-x C-f Find file. 425 C-x C-s Save file. 426 C-x C-b List buffers. 427 C-x C-c Quit Emacs. 428 429Named eXtended commands are commands which are used even less 430frequently, or commands which are used only in certain modes. These 431commands are usually called "functions". An example is the function 432replace-string, which globally replaces one string with another. When 433you type M-x, Emacs prompts you at the bottom of the screen with 434M-x and you should type the name of the function you wish to call; in 435this case, "query-replace". Just type "que<TAB>" and Emacs will 436complete the name. End the command name with <Return>. 437Then type the two "arguments"--the string to be replaced, and the string 438to replace it with--each one ended with a Return. 439 440>> Move the cursor to the blank line two lines below this one. 441 Then type M-x repl s<Return>changed<Return>altered<Return>. 442 443 Notice how this line has changed: you've replaced 444 the word c-h-a-n-g-e-d with "altered" wherever it occured 445 after the cursor. 446 447 448MODE LINE 449--------- 450 451If Emacs sees that you are typing commands slowly it shows them to you 452at the bottom of the screen in an area called the "echo area." The echo 453area contains the bottom line of the screen. The line immediately above 454it is called the MODE LINE. The mode line says something like 455 456--**-Mg: TUTORIAL (fundamental)------------------------ 457 458This is a very useful "information" line. 459 460The stars near the front mean that you have made changes to the text. 461Right after you visit or save a file, there are no stars, just dashes. 462 463The part of the mode line inside the parentheses is to tell you what 464modes you are in. The default mode is fundamental which is what you 465are in now. It is an example of a "mode". There are several modes in 466Emacs for editing different styles of text, such as indent, bsmap, 467fill, etc. Each mode makes a few commands behave differently. 468 469One mode which is very useful, especially for editing English text, is 470Auto Fill mode. When this mode is on, Emacs breaks the line in 471between words automatically whenever the line gets too long. You can 472turn this mode on by doing M-x auto-fill-mode<Return>. When the mode 473is on, you can turn it off by doing M-x auto-fill-mode<Return>. 474 475>> Type M-x auto-fill-mode<Return> now. Then insert a line of "asdf " 476 over again until you see it divide into two lines. You must put in 477 spaces between them because Auto Fill breaks lines only at spaces. 478 479The margin is usually set at 70 characters, but you can change it 480with the C-x f command. You should give the margin setting you want 481as a numeric argument. 482 483>> Type C-x f with an argument of 20. (C-u 2 0 C-x f). 484 Then type in some text and see Emacs fill lines of 20 485 characters with it. Then set the margin back to 70 using 486 C-x f again. 487 488If you make changes in the middle of a paragraph, Auto Fill mode 489does not re-fill it for you. 490To re-fill the paragraph, type M-q (Meta-q) with the cursor inside 491that paragraph. 492 493>> Move the cursor into the previous paragraph and type M-q. 494 495SEARCHING 496--------- 497 498Emacs can do searches for strings (these are groups of contiguous 499characters or words) either forward through the file or backward 500through it. To search for the string means that you are trying to 501locate it somewhere in the file and have Emacs show you where the 502occurrences of the string exist. This type of search is somewhat 503different from what you may be familiar with. It is a search that is 504performed as you type in the thing to search for. The command to 505initiate a search is C-s for forward search, and C-r for reverse 506search. BUT WAIT! Don't do them now. When you type C-s you'll 507notice that the string "I-search" appears as a prompt in the echo 508area. This tells you that Emacs is in what is called an incremental 509search waiting for you to type the thing that you want to search for. 510<ESC> terminates a search. 511 512>> Now type C-s to start a search. SLOWLY, one letter at a time, 513 type the word 'cursor', pausing after you type each 514 character to notice what happens to the cursor. 515>> Type C-s to find the next occurrence of "cursor". 516>> Now type <DEL> four times and see how the cursor moves. 517>> Type <ESC> to terminate the search. 518 519Did you see what happened? Emacs, in an incremental search, tries to 520go to the occurrence of the string that you've typed out so far. To go 521to the next occurrence of 'cursor' just type C-s again. If no such 522occurrence exists Emacs beeps and tells you that it is a failing 523search. C-g would also terminate the search. 524 525If you are in the middle of an incremental search and type <DEL>, 526you'll notice that the last character in the search string is erased 527and the search backs up to the last place of the search. For 528instance, suppose you currently have typed 'cu' and you see that your 529cursor is at the first occurrence of 'cu'. If you now type <DEL>, 530the 'u' on the search line is erased and you'll be repositioned in the 531text to the occurrence of 'c' where the search took you before you 532typed the 'u'. This provides a useful means for backing up while you 533are searching. 534 535If you are in the middle of a search and happen to type a control 536character (other than a C-s or C-r, which tell Emacs to search for the 537next occurrence of the string), the search is terminated. 538 539The C-s starts a search that looks for any occurrence of the search 540string AFTER the current cursor position. But what if you want to 541search for something earlier in the text? To do this, type C-r for 542Reverse search. Everything that applies to C-s applies to C-r except 543that the direction of the search is reversed. 544 545 546GETTING MORE HELP 547----------------- 548 549In this tutorial we have tried to supply just enough information to 550get you started using Emacs. There is so much available in Emacs that 551it would be impossible to explain it all here. However, you may want 552to learn more about Emacs since it has numerous desirable features 553that you don't know about yet. 554 555 556CONCLUSION 557---------- 558 559Remember, to exit Emacs permanently use C-x C-c. To exit to a shell 560temporarily, so that you can come back in, use C-z. 561 562This tutorial is meant to be understandable to all new users, so if 563you found something unclear, don't sit and blame yourself - complain! 564 565 566COPYING 567------- 568 569This tutorial, like all of GNU Emacs, is copyrighted, and comes with 570permission to distribute copies on certain conditions: 571 572Copyright (c) 1985 Richard M. Stallman 573 574 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies 575 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the 576 copyright notice and permission notice are preserved, 577 and that the distributor grants the recipient permission 578 for further redistribution as permitted by this notice. 579 580 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions 581 of this document, or of portions of it, 582 under the above conditions, provided also that they 583 carry prominent notices stating who last altered them. 584 585The conditions for copying Emacs itself are slightly different 586but in the same spirit. Please read the file COPYING and then 587do give copies of GNU Emacs to your friends. 588Help stamp out ownership of software by using, writing, 589and sharing free software! 590 591Mg itself is public domain, and may be given away freely. See the 592README file about differences from GNU emacs, and why Mg exists. 593 594******************************************************************************* 595*** This document heavily cut by Randy M. Spencer to apply to *** 596*** Mg written my Mike Meyer and gang. It was released *** 597*** at the AAA users group meeting in Lafayette CA, an Amiga Users *** 598*** Group. My profound thanks to Richard Stallman for his work, I *** 599*** am proud to carry his initials. *** 600*** Additional modifacations were done by Robert A. Larson for Mg *** 601*** version 2a, mainly the name change from MicroGnuEmacs to Mg. *** 602******************************************************************************* 603 604See other files accompanying this for more system specific information. 605