Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[flebber]

I decided to use emacs starter kit to get myself using emacs rather
than just trying to configure it. However after installing the emacs
starter kit all the menu's are gone, is there anyway to reinstate the
menu's?

Sayth

Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[haziz]

I am not sure if this is the most efficient way to do it, but if you comment out (one or two semicolons ;; ) the first three lines of Lisp code in the init.el file, this will restore the menus, buttons and scrollbars. And please do complain to the original author (technomancy), I did but he still dismissed my complaint/ issue on github since it does not fit his vision. He should realize that not everyone agrees with his vision and he does not warn you adequately in the blurb on Github.

Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[haziz]

I am not sure if this is the most efficient way to do it, but if you comment out (one or two semicolons ;; ) the first three lines of Lisp code in the init.el file, this will restore the menus, buttons and scrollbars. And please do complain to the original author (technomancy), I did but he still dismissed my complaint/ issue on github since it does not fit his vision. He should realize that not everyone agrees with his vision and he does not warn you adequately in the blurb on Github.

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[Stefan Monnier]

> I am not sure if this is the most efficient way to do it, but if you comment
> out (one or two semicolons ;; ) the first three lines of Lisp code in the
> init.el file, this will restore the menus, buttons and scrollbars.

A simpler way might be to start with an empty .emacs file (no starter
kit or any such thing), check the Options menu since it contains the
most frequently asked configuration variables, and post questions in
this newsgroup when you don't know how to do something.


        Stefan

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[haziz]

On Friday, April 29, 2011 3:00:43 PM UTC-4, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > I am not sure if this is the most efficient way to do it, but if you comment
> > out (one or two semicolons ;; ) the first three lines of Lisp code in the
> > init.el file, this will restore the menus, buttons and scrollbars.
> 
> A simpler way might be to start with an empty .emacs file (no starter
> kit or any such thing), check the Options menu since it contains the
> most frequently asked configuration variables, and post questions in
> this newsgroup when you don't know how to do something.
> 
> 
>         Stefan

I agree to some extent, but that would basically disable the "Emacs Starter Kit" completely since it depends on loading a few packages through the init.el file and other Lisp files in the .emacs.d directory. The "Emacs Starter Kit" is heavily oriented towards dynamic languages e.g. ruby and I personally did not find it very useful, however if he wants to explore it further he can leave the init.el file intact and just comment out (or erase) the three offending lines of code, which are:

(if (fboundp 'menu-bar-mode) (menu-bar-mode -1))
(if (fboundp 'tool-bar-mode) (tool-bar-mode -1))
(if (fboundp 'scroll-bar-mode) (scroll-bar-mode -1))

This would enable him to restore the menus, buttons and scrollbars and still utilize the Emacs Starter Kit if he so chooses. I personally did not find it very useful but most of my use of emacs is in developing in C rather than dynamic languages and I also did not appreciate some of the defaults selected by Phil Hagelberg (technomancy) the original poster of the Starter Kit on Github.
BTW if you place a separate .emacs file in your home folder this would also automatically disable any references to the .emacs.d directory and the init.el file contained within also effectively disabling the Starter Kit completely. It really depends on whether you want to check out the "Emacs Starter Kit" at all or not. Most of my references to "dot" files and directories of course assumes you are working on a Unix system including Linux or Mac OS X. The names may start differently on a Windows system.

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[Stefan Monnier]

> I agree to some extent, but that would basically disable the "Emacs Starter
> Kit" completely since it depends on loading a few packages through the
> init.el file and other Lisp files in the .emacs.d directory.

That's the whole idea, yes.
You'll find a lot more people able to help you if you have "plain Emacs"
than "Emacs with Starter Kit".


        Stefan

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[Tim X]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> I am not sure if this is the most efficient way to do it, but if you comment
>> out (one or two semicolons ;; ) the first three lines of Lisp code in the
>> init.el file, this will restore the menus, buttons and scrollbars.
>
> A simpler way might be to start with an empty .emacs file (no starter
> kit or any such thing), check the Options menu since it contains the
> most frequently asked configuration variables, and post questions in
> this newsgroup when you don't know how to do something.
>
>
+1 for this suggestion. 

The problem with the various "starter kits" is that you are at the mercy of someone
elses vision of what emacs should be. This in itself is not necessarily
bad, except this other vision is likely to be less documented, have less
users familiar with it who can provide help and may change the
environment sufficiently to make the existing emacs documentation less
useful. Its not always obvious how well maintained this other vision
is or to what extent it is specific to a platform etc. 

Another disadvantage of using a canned configuration is that these
setups often go to a lot of trouble to make emacs just like other
editors people are familiar with. While I can understand why some like
this, it is likely to be misleading. If you have decided to try out
emacs, you likely want to see how it differs from other editing
environments. Initially configuring it to ge as generic as possible is
likely to defeat this objective. There are also a number of things emacs
does very differently to most other editors out there. These differences
can seem very weird or unintuitive initially because of what we have
become accustomed to. However, my experience has been that many of them
are actually improvements. Using a canned starter configuration often
modifies these things to be more familiar, so you don't get to
experience the alternative and will miss out on this different perspectie.

There is a learning curve with emacs and the best thing to do is learn
it early. Try to stick with the default configuration initially and only
customize those aspects you find the most difficult to live with. Then,
over time, start to tweak/customize your setup little by little. In
addition to allowing you to experience the way emacs does things, this
will also allow you to learn how to customize it in smaller steps. This
means you will understand how your customizations work and what they do.
When you run into errors, you will be in a better position to fix them.
Don't hesitate to come back to this forum when you run into difficulty.

Many people think emacs is the best editor out there, some have a
love/hate relationship with it and some just think it sucks. It doesn't
matter which group your in. However, it is better to assess emacs and
not be side tracked into assessing someone elses vision of what it could
be. At the end of the day, you can then make a call as to which group
you fall into and to what extent you want to continue using it.

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Sun, 2011-05-01, Tim X wrote:
> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
>>> I am not sure if this is the most efficient way to do it, but if you comment
>>> out (one or two semicolons ;; ) the first three lines of Lisp code in the
>>> init.el file, this will restore the menus, buttons and scrollbars.
>>
>> A simpler way might be to start with an empty .emacs file (no starter
>> kit or any such thing), check the Options menu since it contains the
>> most frequently asked configuration variables, and post questions in
>> this newsgroup when you don't know how to do something.
>>
>>
> +1 for this suggestion. 
>
> The problem with the various "starter kits" is that you are at the mercy of someone
> elses vision of what emacs should be. This in itself is not necessarily
> bad, except this other vision is likely to be less documented, have less
> users familiar with it who can provide help and may change the
> environment sufficiently to make the existing emacs documentation less
> useful. Its not always obvious how well maintained this other vision
> is or to what extent it is specific to a platform etc. 
>
> Another disadvantage of using a canned configuration is that these
> setups often go to a lot of trouble to make emacs just like other
> editors people are familiar with. While I can understand why some like
> this, it is likely to be misleading. If you have decided to try out
> emacs, you likely want to see how it differs from other editing
> environments. Initially configuring it to ge as generic as possible is
> likely to defeat this objective. There are also a number of things emacs
> does very differently to most other editors out there. These differences
> can seem very weird or unintuitive initially because of what we have
> become accustomed to. However, my experience has been that many of them
> are actually improvements. Using a canned starter configuration often
> modifies these things to be more familiar, so you don't get to
> experience the alternative and will miss out on this different perspectie.
>
> There is a learning curve with emacs and the best thing to do is learn
> it early. Try to stick with the default configuration initially and only
> customize those aspects you find the most difficult to live with. Then,
> over time, start to tweak/customize your setup little by little. In
> addition to allowing you to experience the way emacs does things, this
> will also allow you to learn how to customize it in smaller steps. This
> means you will understand how your customizations work and what they do.
> When you run into errors, you will be in a better position to fix them.
> Don't hesitate to come back to this forum when you run into difficulty.
>
> Many people think emacs is the best editor out there, some have a
> love/hate relationship with it and some just think it sucks. It doesn't
> matter which group your in. However, it is better to assess emacs and
> not be side tracked into assessing someone elses vision of what it could
> be. At the end of the day, you can then make a call as to which group
> you fall into and to what extent you want to continue using it.

And a +1 for your posting too! I don't have the heart to trim it while
replying.

I can add that IMHO what you write also applies to giving copies of
your own .emacs to people.  Some (most?) people have a lot of
undocumented stuff in it. Like this which I inherited from a guy
called Per in 1996:

    ;; Fix upcase-region and downcase-region
    (put 'downcase-region 'disabled nil)
    (put 'upcase-region 'disabled nil)

I have no idea what it does ...

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .  .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[Marco Parrone]

Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> writes:


> And a +1 for your posting too! I don't have the heart to trim it while
> replying.
>
> I can add that IMHO what you write also applies to giving copies of
> your own .emacs to people.  Some (most?) people have a lot of
> undocumented stuff in it. Like this which I inherited from a guy
> called Per in 1996:
>
>     ;; Fix upcase-region and downcase-region
>     (put 'downcase-region 'disabled nil)
>     (put 'upcase-region 'disabled nil)
>
> I have no idea what it does ...
>
> /Jorgen

It enables the downcase-region and upcase-region commands.

It does so by setting the 'disabled property of the respective symbols
to the value of nil.




-- 
Marco Parrone <marco@marcoparrone.com>
PGP Key fingerprint = 5E21 BED2 BF47 B3FB F17F  1DB4 D9BE B2B7 3C3A 07E2

upcase-region (was Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus)

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Sun, 2011-05-01, Marco Parrone wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> writes:
>
>
>> And a +1 for your posting too! I don't have the heart to trim it while
>> replying.
>>
>> I can add that IMHO what you write also applies to giving copies of
>> your own .emacs to people.  Some (most?) people have a lot of
>> undocumented stuff in it. Like this which I inherited from a guy
>> called Per in 1996:
>>
>>     ;; Fix upcase-region and downcase-region
>>     (put 'downcase-region 'disabled nil)
>>     (put 'upcase-region 'disabled nil)
>>
>> I have no idea what it does ...

> It enables the downcase-region and upcase-region commands.
>
> It does so by setting the 'disabled property of the respective symbols
> to the value of nil.

Thanks! If I remove that stuff and run M-x upcase-region, I get a
message that it's disabled "because new users often find it
confusing".

Some searching shows that that happened in Emacs 19 (twenty years ago).
From NEWS.19:

    C-x C-u (upcase-region) and C-x C-l (downcase-region) are now
    disabled by default; these commands seem to be often hit by
    accident, and can be quite destructive if their effects are not
    noticed immediately.

(Interesting. I never typed those by mistake. ^X^C happens by accident
a lot these days, though -- ever since I started using vc-mode.)

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .  .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[Marco Parrone]

flebber <flebber.crue@gmail.com> writes:

> I decided to use emacs starter kit to get myself using emacs rather
> than just trying to configure it. However after installing the emacs
> starter kit all the menu's are gone, is there anyway to reinstate the
> menu's?
>
> Sayth

If you find some code like:
  (menu-bar-mode -1)
  (tool-bar-mode -1)
  (scroll-bar-mode -1)

then delete it.

Else add this at the bottom of you ~/.emacs :
  (menu-bar-mode)
  (tool-bar-mode)
  (scroll-bar-mode)

I agree with the advice of Stefan anyway.

-- 
Marco Parrone <marco@marcoparrone.com>
PGP Key fingerprint = 5E21 BED2 BF47 B3FB F17F  1DB4 D9BE B2B7 3C3A 07E2

Re: Emacs starter kit - disabled menus

[despen]

Marco Parrone <marco@marcoparrone.com> writes:

> flebber <flebber.crue@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I decided to use emacs starter kit to get myself using emacs rather
>> than just trying to configure it. However after installing the emacs
>> starter kit all the menu's are gone, is there anyway to reinstate the
>> menu's?
>>
>> Sayth
>
> If you find some code like:
>   (menu-bar-mode -1)
>   (tool-bar-mode -1)
>   (scroll-bar-mode -1)
>
> then delete it.
>
> Else add this at the bottom of you ~/.emacs :
>   (menu-bar-mode)
>   (tool-bar-mode)
>   (scroll-bar-mode)
>
> I agree with the advice of Stefan anyway.

Me too.

There's way too much stuff in there for it to called a
"starter package".

If I read that stuff right, C-F10 toggles the menubar.

Strangely, that's the same key binding I use.