Re: .emacs or .emacs-init file to modify ^H

["B. T. Raven" <ecinmn@alcisp.com>]

.emacs or .emacs-init file to modify ^H
"Anderson Krista" <Krista.Anderson@comverse.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.7483.1159355800.9609.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org...
Hello,
I'm a long-time emacs user (First Bell Labs and then GNU), but new to MS
Windows.  If I have a few simple things to do like:


(global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char)

Better to use some other key combo. C-h is a prefix for many useful help
functions. If you override this with your own assignment it will make the
documentation less useful.
Btw, why is there both 'delete-backward-char and 'backward-delete-char ???
Anyone ???

(global-set-key "\M-?" 'help-command)

This is okay since M-? is undefined 'out of the box'

>(display-time)

Maybe better to use  Customize Emacs > Specific Option from the Menu Bar.
This will write  '(display-time-mode t nil (time)) into a
custom-set-variables form in your .emacs.

>(setq line-number-mode t)

Same thing here. Apparently this is set to t automatically when you
specify  '(line-number-display-limit someinteger), also using Customize.
This should probably be set if there is a chance that you will look at
huges files.

>then how do I make gnu emacs point to the MS Windows directory that has
the .emacs or .emacs-init file?  Also, how do I make it find a >simple
lisp file in an MS Windows directory?

.emacs should be at home in the HOME directory. This defaults to the root
of the boot partition but can be set in autoexec.bat or another .bat file
if you wish. Maybe also in other ways in the later incarnations of msw. I
am using msw98 here.
If you make a short-cut  for launching Emacs then you can specify a start
directory in Properties > Program > Working: Lisp files should eventually
be stored in <emacsinstalldirectory>\lisp or ... \site-lisp but you can
start editing them in the Working: directory at first. LOADPATH is usually
something like ...\site-lisp;...\lisp;...\leim so that you will have to
specify the full path of the .el file if you want to load it from somewher
e else.

>I didn't build it from a configuration file, but just downloaded
binaries.

Same here. I don't think I would be able to figure out how to build it.

>Thanks much,
>Krista Anderson