Re: Emacs for writers (was Emacs users a dying breed?)

[rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com>]

On Jun 27, 2:47 am, James Freer <jesseja...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25 June 2012 10:38, James Freer <jesseja...@gmail.com> wrote:
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> > On 25 June 2012 03:58, rusi <rustompm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Jun 25, 4:19 am, James Freer <jesseja...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> <snipped>
> >>> What do i use at present while i'm still trying to get used to vim or
> >>> emacs - pico for email and bluefish. Both vim and emacs development
> >>> have gone down strange routes and yet both are popular.
>
> >>> james
>
> >> Ok James lets see if we can get you off the ground with emacs.
> >> To start with are you on linux? If not whats your OS?
> >> Next whats your emacs version? To find out do M-x emacs-version RETURN
> >> where M-x is emacs-funnyspeak for Alt-x or Escape-x.
> >> Next whats in your init file? Beginners are usually recommended to
> >> use .emacs (note the .)
> >> I recommend .emacs.d/init.el
> >> If all this is trivial to you please excuse; no intent to be
> >> patronizing here; just dont know at what level you are stuck
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> > Rusi
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> > I really appreciate your reply and offer of help. At present i've got
> > to get a car sorted out so i'll leave it for a couple of days and then
> > i can be focussed and look these things up.
>
> > thanks
> > james
>
> Hi Rusi
>
> Finally got the domestic side under control. I look after my mother
> with Alzheimer's so i needed to get the car sorted to get her
> medication. The head gasket had gone and on these cars you've got to
> take the engine out... which involves quite a bit of work.

O my!

>
> On to emacs.
>
> IT experience: used to do some programming in the 90's and used
> wordstar for editing but have an engineering degree not computing.
> Ideal choice for me would be to use Joe or E3 editors but they don't
> do bookmarks so i was thinking of Vim or emacs. Been using linux
> ubuntu for about 4 years and about 18 months ago changed to xubuntu...
> just like the minimal approach switching before Unity came along. Have
> tried other distros but prefer apt package management. I know my way
> around xubuntu fairly well although i'm not as technical as a
> programmer - couldn't call myself a ' geek'.

Geek enough to have an intelligible and intelligent conversation

>
> OS: currently using xubuntu 10.04 with emacs 23 installed although i'm
> just about to install  12.04 on a new pc which will have emacs 24. I'm
> hoping to set things up before i switch over to the new pc.
>
> config files: .emac, .emac.d [i know about hidden files but there are
> just comments in these both are bare]..emac.d appears to have an
> 'auto-save' directory and nothing there.

I guess you are misspelling these?  Should be .emacs and .emacs.d/
init.el
If the first is useless throw it out (ie rm .emacs) If you have
something useful there 'mv' it to the second.

Once thats done make sure its 'reached.'
I do that by making an obvious syntax error -- eg a single opening '('
without closing ')'  and make sure you get a lisp syntax error on
starting emacs. [Usually this just works on linux and gives all kinds
of hell on windows]
There are many different things to set up specifically for your needs
-- many of them I dont know about.
For now lets use one example -- wordwrap/linebreak -- to understand
the workflow.
In emacs there are two commands longlines-mode and visual-line-mode
for this.
To try these do M-x (I guess you know M-x is Alt-x)
longlines-modeRET
Start playing with tab-expansion: type longTAB and see it expand etc
You turn it off by running the same command again.
Try both; the current fashion is visual-line-mode but it does not seem
t respect fill-column as longlines does.

Play around with both and decide which you like.
Now comes the next stage -- getting it into your standard config --
ie .emacs.d/init.el.
Now what goes in there is elisp corresponding to the command you want.
If say you want the command longlines then the corresponding elisp is
this line

(longlines-mode)

But its important to understand how to get there.
Do
C-h f
You should see the cursor at the bottom (its called the minibuffer)
Type longlines-mode (get used to using tab expansion)
RET
You should see something like

longlines-mode is an interactive compiled Lisp function in
`longlines.el'.
---------------------------------------------
(longlines-mode &optional ARG)

Toggle Long Lines mode.
In Long Lines mode, long lines are wrapped if they extend beyond
`fill-column'.  The soft newlines used for line wrapping will not
show up when the text is yanked or saved to disk.

If the variable `longlines-auto-wrap' is non-nil, lines are
automatically
wrapped whenever the buffer is changed.  You can always call
`fill-paragraph' to fill individual paragraphs.

If the variable `longlines-show-hard-newlines' is non-nil, hard
newlines
are indicated with a symbol.

--------------------------------------------------
Read it
Whats the ARG?? God knows -- seems to be a doc-bug (Interesting
considering this thread :-) )
Anyhow its optional so we can try dropping it and so we get from the
'command'
M-x longlines-mode
to the elisp
(longlines-mode)

Put it into your emacs and restart emacs.  Check that its now your own
new personal default.
----------------------------------------------------
There are other stops in the hacking and checking of emacs/elisp like
using eval-expression, using the scratch buffer etc.  But for now this
much should be just right.

Get this much running and post back here preferably with specific
questions on where you are stuck.

>
> For me the requirements are; bookmarks, word count, split windows,
> wordwrap (linebreak i think it's called (but not saving in that form
> like nano/pico does)) if possible to remove some of the programming
> features and things like calculator in order to have a faster app for
> using with Alpine mail. [I know one can use MH but i don't know that
> it's as fast as Alpine - i did have a look at it about a year ago but
> i got lost somewhere setting it up].
>
> Hope that's enough info for the moment.
>
> thanks
> james