Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

[J. D. Leach]

Try to be easy with me folks, I'm VERY new to Emacs. What I would like
to do is be able to have the Speedbar load and display when I start
Emacs, instead of having to select it from the drop-down menu after
Emacs loads.

I have been very successful in finding answers to nearly all of my
questions regarding the use, and configuration, of Emacs and it's
associated programs by browsing the various sources of
documentation. I have progressed to the point that I've even correctly
set-up Gnus to read my news (that is how I am sending this
missive). Unfortunately, this particular config. has got me flummoxed. 

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated, and thank you in
advance.

P.S.: Great program! The power of Emacs is truly astounding. Many cudos
to those who have worked to create such an application. I wish I had
learned how to use it years ago.

J.D.

Re: Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

[Joost Kremers]

J. D. Leach wrote:
> Try to be easy with me folks, I'm VERY new to Emacs. What I would like
> to do is be able to have the Speedbar load and display when I start
> Emacs, instead of having to select it from the drop-down menu after
> Emacs loads.

well, i don't use speedbar, but it seems that it is invoked with the
command SPEEDBAR, which suggests that you can have it start
automatically by adding

(speedbar 1)

to your ~/.emacs.

> P.S.: Great program! The power of Emacs is truly astounding. Many cudos
> to those who have worked to create such an application. I wish I had
> learned how to use it years ago.

one always learns emacs too late... ;-)


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

[Joost Diepenmaat]

"J. D. Leach" <jdleach04@sbcglobal.net> writes:

> Try to be easy with me folks, I'm VERY new to Emacs. What I would like
> to do is be able to have the Speedbar load and display when I start
> Emacs, instead of having to select it from the drop-down menu after
> Emacs loads.
>
> I have been very successful in finding answers to nearly all of my
> questions regarding the use, and configuration, of Emacs and it's
> associated programs by browsing the various sources of
> documentation. I have progressed to the point that I've even correctly
> set-up Gnus to read my news (that is how I am sending this
> missive). Unfortunately, this particular config. has got me flummoxed. 

Any code in your .emacs file will get executed at startup. so just put
the following line in there:

;; open a new speedbar frame if there isn't one already
(speedbar-frame-mode 1)

that calls the function named "speedbar-frame-mode" with the argument 1

most of these kinds of extensive "options" are "modes", and modes get
switched on and off by calling functions instead of setting a variable,
for example (iow, this is not like most customization options).

> Any suggestions would be very much appreciated, and thank you in
> advance.

I found the name of the function above by doing
M-x describe-function <ENTER>
speedbar <TAB> <ENTER>

If you're not sure what to look for, you can also try
M-x apropros <ENTER>
speedbar <ENTER>

Also recommended:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsNewbie

-- 
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/

Re: Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

[J. D. Leach]

And the winner is...The Joosts, both of them (Kremers and Diepenmaat).

Thanks tremendously. I rather thought that there was some line such as was
suggested, that could be inserted into the .emacs file, but I have only
ventured into modifications of that document when I was absolutely certain
of what I was doing. 

I think what is throwing me most is the unique terminology and the lisp
coding style. I mean, where else in the computer field can you yank back
something after you killed it (I call that resurrection), play with atoms
and not get radiation sickness, and split your buffers? To the uninitiated
neophyte, such nomenclature and concepts can defun the learning experience.

I must admit, there have been feeble attempts on my part to learn about
Emacs in the past, but have heretofore quickly abandoned those attempts due
to the arcane language and inscrutable key-bindings. I just had not spent
enough time trying to discern the unique logic of the system. Thankfully,
my attitude has changed, I just needed to stick with it.

Thank you again.

J.D.

Re: Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

[Joost Diepenmaat]

"J. D. Leach" <jdleach04@sbcglobal.net> writes:

> And the winner is...The Joosts, both of them (Kremers and Diepenmaat).
>
> Thanks tremendously. I rather thought that there was some line such as was
> suggested, that could be inserted into the .emacs file, but I have only
> ventured into modifications of that document when I was absolutely certain
> of what I was doing. 

One thing you can do to experiment is to write testing code in the
*scratch* buffer and call M-x eval-buffer to run it. Or maybe easier:
type M-x ielm to start an interactive elisp prompt, which will execute
each complete form you enter.

> I think what is throwing me most is the unique terminology and the lisp
> coding style. I mean, where else in the computer field can you yank back
> something after you killed it (I call that resurrection), play with atoms
> and not get radiation sickness, and split your buffers? To the uninitiated
> neophyte, such nomenclature and concepts can defun the learning experience.

The language emacs uses for certain concepts seems mostly strange
because a lot of it was invented before the concepts were widely
used. There are good reasons to keep it the way it is, though.

> I must admit, there have been feeble attempts on my part to learn about
> Emacs in the past, but have heretofore quickly abandoned those attempts due
> to the arcane language and inscrutable key-bindings. I just had not spent
> enough time trying to discern the unique logic of the system. Thankfully,
> my attitude has changed, I just needed to stick with it.

My real appreciation for emacs grew tremendously when I started learing
common lisp, and from there, emacs lisp (which are pretty
similar). Learning the basics of lisp will help you a lot when messing
with emacs - from basic configuring to writing your own extensions.

If you want to get the most out of emacs, I recommend you read at least
a bit of the elisp manual, and/or possibly read a bit of the "practical
common lisp" book, which may be a little gentler, and a lot of which
translates to elisp:

http://gigamonkeys.com/book/

-- 
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/

Re: Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

[Joost Kremers]

Joost Diepenmaat wrote:
> If you want to get the most out of emacs, I recommend you read at least
> a bit of the elisp manual,

i'd suggest starting with the emacs lisp intro:

(info "eintr")

(put the cursor behind that line and type C-x C-e to take you directly to it.)


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: Start-Up Loading of Speedbar

[J. D. Leach]

Joost Kremers wrote:

> Joost Diepenmaat wrote:
>> If you want to get the most out of emacs, I recommend you read at least
>> a bit of the elisp manual,
> 
> i'd suggest starting with the emacs lisp intro:
> 
> (info "eintr")
> 
> (put the cursor behind that line and type C-x C-e to take you directly to
> it.)
> 
> 

Ahead of you both on the Intro to Lisp. Have started reading it, but have
not gone very far yet. Bear in mind, I just loaded Emacs 22.3.1 last week.
Before that ver., I toyed with 21.4.2 which came with my linux distro (and
was modified by Mandrake, which I firmly believe resulted in some loss of
functionality and increased errors).

And thank you for the link. I will take a peek at tonight.
-- 
J. D. Leach