documentation

documentation

[Sean Sieger]

I'm trying my hand at juggling etc/NEWS, doc/lispref/*.texi and the
elisp files of CVS Emacs.  I am familiar with C-h v and C-h f,
find-library and locate-library ... but does anyone have any advice or
technique one could share with me in navigating NEWS, .texi and .el?

Thank you.

RE: documentation

[Drew Adams]

> I'm trying my hand at juggling etc/NEWS, doc/lispref/*.texi and the
> elisp files of CVS Emacs.  I am familiar with C-h v and C-h f,
> find-library and locate-library ... but does anyone have any advice or
> technique one could share with me in navigating NEWS, .texi and .el?

Others will no doubt have additional suggestions (e.g. for texi files).

* For NEWS, you can use `outline-minor-mode' or `outline-mode'. See the Emacs
manual, node Outline Mode. If you use `Help > Emacs News' (`C-h n') to read the
NEWS, then you are automatically put in Outline mode and View mode. `C-h m' in
the NEWS buffer will also tell you about these modes.

* Emacs Tags and Imenu are great ways to navigate code, including Emacs-Lisp
code. See the Emacs manual, node Tags and node Imenu (see also node Defuns).

* Use `M-x grep' on the source code to find stuff. See node Grep Searching of
the Emacs manual.

* Icicles has lots of features that help you find your way around Emacs and
Emacs Lisp. I shamelessly ;-) recommend it as a way to learn about Emacs and
Emacs-Lisp code. This page explains how it can help:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsNewbieWithIcicles

* In addition to what is mentioned at that URL, Icicles has enhancements for
Tags, Imenu, `grep', etc. (to navigate Emacs-Lisp code), explained here:

** Tags:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Tags_Enhancements

** Imenu: 
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Other_Search_Commands#IciclesImenu

** other navigation enhancements (Info, bookmarks, search, grep, markers,...):
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Tripping

Documentation

[Brandon Taylor]

I’m currently working on a simple .texi file which talks about how end users, if they so desire, can help patients in India who are struggling to recover from the current COVID-19 pandemic. Would it be worthwhile to include such a document in Emacs’ help files, and if so, where in the repository would be the best place to put it?

Brandon Taylor

Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10

Re: Documentation

[pillule]

Brandon Taylor <donnie126_2002@hotmail.com> writes:

> I’m currently working on a simple .texi file which talks about 
> how end users, if they so desire, can
> help patients in India who are struggling to recover from the 
> current COVID-19 pandemic. Would it be
> worthwhile to include such a document in Emacs’ help files, and 
> if so, where in the repository would
> be the best place to put it?
>
> Brandon Taylor
>
> Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> 
> for Windows 10

Hi Brandon,

Please don't take the following as an authoritative response, I am 
not a core developer ;

If I understand well, what you are referring by ‘help files’ are 
Info manuals. There are many Info manuals that are not directly 
related to Emacs. On a debian OS you can search for them and 
install them without Emacs. Eg one among many others, the package 
jargon that is described as :

Description: the definitive compendium of hacker slang
 This is the Jargon File, a comprehensive compendium of hacker 
 slang
 illuminating many aspects of hackish tradition, folklore, and 
 humor.
 The file is in info format, but includes an HTML page with links
 to the home site.

Installing this package, does not even update the info directory 
available from Emacs. Also Emacs does not have the monopoly of 
Info manuals, there is a shell command `info' that can be used to 
open a Info manual from a terminal (but it's better with emacs ;).

Even useful Info manuals that are related to programming are not 
in the Emacs repository (eg : the bash manual, the core-utils 
manual).

So to answer you question; no, I don't think that your .texi file 
belong to the Emacs repository because it does not seems directly 
related to Emacs. It can be distributed by many ways (on Internet, 
on GNU/Linux packages repositories), and exported in also others 
formats that an Info manual such as html etc.

But I maybe wrong, and if you want to request this addition on the 
emacs repository, the appropriate place to do so is to fill a bug 
report with M-x report-emacs-bug or via the emacs-bug mailing 
list.
--

Documentation

[Eli Zaretskii]

What's the plan for updating the documentation for Emacs 23?

So many new and improved features are in dire need of documenting
them, and so few people actually contribute to the manuals, that I
have a hard time believing we'll be done by the pretest.  IIRC, just
reviewing the manuals, _after_ they were already updated, was a
formidable job that took quite a few weeks.

I suggest we start this ASAP.

Re: Documentation

[Chong Yidong]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> What's the plan for updating the documentation for Emacs 23?
>
> So many new and improved features are in dire need of documenting
> them, and so few people actually contribute to the manuals, that I
> have a hard time believing we'll be done by the pretest.  IIRC, just
> reviewing the manuals, _after_ they were already updated, was a
> formidable job that took quite a few weeks.
>
> I suggest we start this ASAP.

If anyone would like to volunteer, please email me.

Re: Documentation

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

Don't forget the NEWS file, seems that there are quite huge changes
that have not been noted there.  For example, I opned a .pdf file
today, and to my suprise I was welcomed not by gibberish, but by an
PNG file rendered in splendid colour!

Re: Documentation

[Eli Zaretskii]

> CC: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org>
> Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:05:48 -0400
> 
> Don't forget the NEWS file, seems that there are quite huge changes
> that have not been noted there.  For example, I opned a .pdf file
> today, and to my suprise I was welcomed not by gibberish, but by an
> PNG file rendered in splendid colour!

The only way of making sure this isn't forgot is to add to NEWS an
item that mentions the change.

Re: Documentation

[Chong Yidong]

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org> writes:

> Don't forget the NEWS file, seems that there are quite huge changes
> that have not been noted there.  For example, I opned a .pdf file
> today, and to my suprise I was welcomed not by gibberish, but by an
> PNG file rendered in splendid colour!

This is already in NEWS:

  ** Doc View Mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
  One can also search for a regular expression in the document.  For
  details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.

This didn't mention that Doc View mode is used by default now for PS,
PDF, and DVI files.  I just added a note to that effect.

Re: Documentation

[Stefan Monnier]

> This didn't mention that Doc View mode is used by default now for PS,
> PDF, and DVI files.  I just added a note to that effect.

IIRC for PS files, it's not activated by default.  You get into
a postscript-mode instead, with a special binding that allows you to
toggle between postscript-mode and doc-view-mode.


        Stefan

Re: Documentation

[Chong Yidong]

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

>> This didn't mention that Doc View mode is used by default now for PS,
>> PDF, and DVI files.  I just added a note to that effect.
>
> IIRC for PS files, it's not activated by default.  You get into
> a postscript-mode instead, with a special binding that allows you to
> toggle between postscript-mode and doc-view-mode.

I've made a correction.  Thanks.

Re: Documentation

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   This is already in NEWS:

I must have missed that, I looked for PNG and docview, but not Dov
View or PDF...  And I did scroll through the whole file... 

     ** Doc View Mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
     One can also search for a regular expression in the document.  For
     details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.

   This didn't mention that Doc View mode is used by default now for PS,
   PDF, and DVI files.  I just added a note to that effect.

Thank you.

Re: Documentation

[Sean Sieger]

> boxquote.el

Yes, that's what I was looking for, thank you.
-- 
Sean Sieger

Re: Documentation

[Matthieu Moy]

Sean Sieger <sean.sieger@gmail.com> writes:

> come about? That is, how do you insert documentation into a message
> (or anywhere else), if that is indeed what has been done when I see this
> format in a message?

boxquote.el

-- 
Matthieu

Re: Documentation

[Tim X]

Sean Sieger <sean.sieger@gmail.com> writes:

> How does this,
> 
> ,----[ C-h k C-x o ]
> | C-x o runs the command other-window
> | (other-window ARG &optional ALL-FRAMES)
> |    which is an interactive built-in function.
> | 
> | Select the ARG'th different window on this frame.
> | All windows on current frame are arranged in a cyclic order.
> | This command selects the window ARG steps away in that order.
> | A negative ARG moves in the opposite order.  If the optional second
> | argument ALL_FRAMES is non-nil, cycle through all frames.
> `----
> 
> come about? That is, how do you insert documentation into a message
> (or anywhere else), if that is indeed what has been done when I see this
> format in a message?
> -- 

The above example is from a package called boxquote.el - it allows you
to do various 'quoting'. I think you can find the package at
http://www.emacswiki.org if its not already installed. 

Tim

-- 
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you 
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!

Documentation

[Sean Sieger]

How does this,

,----[ C-h k C-x o ]
| C-x o runs the command other-window
| (other-window ARG &optional ALL-FRAMES)
|    which is an interactive built-in function.
| 
| Select the ARG'th different window on this frame.
| All windows on current frame are arranged in a cyclic order.
| This command selects the window ARG steps away in that order.
| A negative ARG moves in the opposite order.  If the optional second
| argument ALL_FRAMES is non-nil, cycle through all frames.
`----

come about? That is, how do you insert documentation into a message
(or anywhere else), if that is indeed what has been done when I see this
format in a message?
-- 
Sean Sieger

Re: Documentation

[Lennart Borgman]

Sean Sieger wrote:

>How does this,
>
>,----[ C-h k C-x o ]
>| C-x o runs the command other-window
>| (other-window ARG &optional ALL-FRAMES)
>|    which is an interactive built-in function.
>| 
>| Select the ARG'th different window on this frame.
>| All windows on current frame are arranged in a cyclic order.
>| This command selects the window ARG steps away in that order.
>| A negative ARG moves in the opposite order.  If the optional second
>| argument ALL_FRAMES is non-nil, cycle through all frames.
>`----
>
>come about? That is, how do you insert documentation into a message
>(or anywhere else), if that is indeed what has been done when I see this
>format in a message?
>  
>
You really already know. Use C-h k C-h k to find out ;-)

Then just follow the links in the help buffer and find out for yourself. 
If you are using the current Emacs version (21.3) on MS Windows the 
links does not work if you use the mouse but they do if you use the 
keyboard. (Or at least they do not use if you click with the left mouse 
button.)

RE: Documentation

[Drew Adams]

    How does this come about?

    ,----[ C-h k C-x o ]
    | C-x o runs the command other-window
    | (other-window ARG &optional ALL-FRAMES)
    |    which is an interactive built-in function.
    |
    | Select the ARG'th different window on this frame.
    | All windows on current frame are arranged in a cyclic order.
    | This command selects the window ARG steps away in that order.
    | A negative ARG moves in the opposite order.  If the optional second
    | argument ALL_FRAMES is non-nil, cycle through all frames.
    `----

Are you asking how to document a command, function, or variable? If so, see
the Elisp manual, node "Documentation".

Documentation

[abhi.davande]

HI all,
Can anyone please let me know how to add items in documentation.
i want to add documentation for own menus in emacs 21.2 using M-x describe-key function.
Thanking you in advance,
Abhijit