how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs

how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs

[Robert P. J. Day]

  in my quest to now learn elisp, i wanted to read "programming in
emacs lisp (2nd ed.)", using the info form of that doc.  i've already
figured out that, when i'm in regular emacs, i can open up an info
document with "C-h i" and, conveniently, if there are elisp expressions,
i can execute them with "C-x C-e".

  however, the info form of the document i want to read, while it is
downloadable from www.fsf.org, is not part of the installed info
library on my latest version of red hat.

  so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
info file that i've downloaded from the net?  (short of installing
it, that is; i want to be able to do this to arbitrary info files
that i might download from arbitrary locations.)

  am i making any sense here?

rday

Re: how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs

[Klaus Berndl]

On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

>  
>    in my quest to now learn elisp, i wanted to read "programming in
>  emacs lisp (2nd ed.)", using the info form of that doc.  i've already
>  figured out that, when i'm in regular emacs, i can open up an info
>  document with "C-h i" and, conveniently, if there are elisp expressions,
>  i can execute them with "C-x C-e".
>  
>    however, the info form of the document i want to read, while it is
>  downloadable from www.fsf.org, is not part of the installed info
>  library on my latest version of red hat.
>  
>    so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
>  info file that i've downloaded from the net?  (short of installing
>  it, that is; i want to be able to do this to arbitrary info files
>  that i might download from arbitrary locations.)
>  
>    am i making any sense here?

If i understand you right you do not want install these info-files in any path
where Emacs searches autom., right?!

If yes, then just press "C-u C-h i" instead of just "C-h i" and you will be
asked for the filename of an info-file to open.

Klaus

>  
>  rday

-- 
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Re: how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs

[Jonas Steverud]

"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com> writes:

>   so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
> info file that i've downloaded from the net?

C-u C-h i

>   am i making any sense here?

Yep. :-)

-- 
(          www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d4jonas/         !     Wei Wu Wei     )
(        Meaning of U2 Lyrics, Roleplaying        !  To Do Without Do  )

Re: how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Jonas Steverud wrote:

> "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com> writes:
> 
> >   so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
> > info file that i've downloaded from the net?
> 
> C-u C-h i

ok, i'll bite -- why does adding the "C-u" universal argument on the front
of "C-h i" cause this behavior?  it certainly isn't intuitive, at least
not to me.  should i have guessed this somehow?

rday

Re: how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs

[Jesper Harder]

"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com> writes:

> On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Jonas Steverud wrote:
>
>> "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com> writes:
>> 
>> > how can i open in info mode a specific info file that i've
>> > downloaded from the net?
>> 
>> C-u C-h i
>
> ok, i'll bite -- why does adding the "C-u" universal argument on the
> front of "C-h i" cause this behavior?  it certainly isn't intuitive,
> at least not to me.  should i have guessed this somehow?

It's probably hard to guess, but `C-h k C-h i' would have told you.  The
node "(emacs)Misc Help" also mentions it.

Re: how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs

[Thomas F. Burdick]

"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com> writes:

> On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Jonas Steverud wrote:
> 
> > "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com> writes:
> > 
> > >   so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
> > > info file that i've downloaded from the net?
> > 
> > C-u C-h i
> 
> ok, i'll bite -- why does adding the "C-u" universal argument on the front
> of "C-h i" cause this behavior?  it certainly isn't intuitive, at least
> not to me.  should i have guessed this somehow?

It is intuitive when you've internalized some of the logic of C-u, and
I originally found it by guessing -- but that's not to say I would've
expected J. Random Emacsuser to necessarily guess it.

For commands where a numeric argument makes sense, they generally take
a numeric argument as a repeat count.  For commands where a numeric
argument doesn't make sense, they generally give you an expanded
version of the command.  For C-s, this means using a regexp search.
For something like C-x C-f (when you're using ffap), this means
defaulting to whatever "thing" is right at or around the point.  For
something like C-h i, which has a default place to look (the system
info dir file), this means prompting you for a different place.

I found this originally by saying, "I want to look at this info file,
but C-h i is defaulting to the wrong place ... maybe an `expanded'
version of this would let me choose the default place".

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