At 5:22 PM +0200 4/14/02, System Administrator wrote:
Hello

I´m having problems with syntax highlighting in emacs under OS X. I use the "M-x font-lock-mode" and it seems to load with out problems. But nothing happens. What should I do?


As shipped with OS-X, emacs does not support that.  You will have to install X-Darwin on your Mac to give you support for X-windows, and then download a new version of Emacs that is configured for X.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_apps_utilities/

is a good place to get lots of stuff, like XFree86 for X-windows support, and the Bash shell.

Other sites of interest:

http://www.macosxhints.com
        Click on XFree86 Installation Guide

http://www.xdarwin.org

http://www.xfree86.org

http://sourceforge.net
        Search for emacs

In general, if you want to use OS-X as if it were a real Unix system, you will find that it is "not ready for prime time" as shipped.  You are going to have to download and install all sorts of freeware to add on the functionality that you are used to taking for granted.

I like to use the ALT key in Emacs as the keystroke modifier for binding a lot of my home-brewed commands.  After installing X-Darwin, put the following line in a file named .Xmodmap in your home directory to enable the Alt (option) key on your keyboard to work as the ALT key for Emacs:

        keycode 66 = Alt_L
(If it exists in $HOME, .Xmodmap is automatically invoked from .xinitrc)

By the way you may find, as I have, that when running Emacs under X-Darwin on your Mac the Control and Alt keys are not always "noticed" when you press them.  When they are not, you will have to release them and press them again.  I don't know whether that is due to a fault in the OS-X kernel or in X-Darwin.  If you ever become aware of a fix for it, please let us all know.

--Greg