editing in emacs by overwriting existing contents

editing in emacs by overwriting existing contents

[Manik Raina]

Hi,

I had a question. Normally when we type into a file using emacs,
we add new characters but the buffer places the new characters 
and displaces the old characters to the right. 

I've noticed a mode of emacs in which the existing characters are
not shifted to the right but are overwritten. Any clues as to how
we enable that mode and leave it once we're done ?

thanks,
Manik

Re: editing in emacs by overwriting existing contents

[Daniel Jensen]

manik.raina@honeywell.com (Manik Raina) writes:

> I had a question. Normally when we type into a file using emacs,
> we add new characters but the buffer places the new characters 
> and displaces the old characters to the right. 
>
> I've noticed a mode of emacs in which the existing characters are
> not shifted to the right but are overwritten. Any clues as to how
> we enable that mode and leave it once we're done ?

Are you talking about overwrite-mode? You can toggle it with 
M-x overwrite-mode or your INS key. If the INS key doesn't work it's
probably because it sends <insertchar> instead of <insert>, and then
you'll have to bind that to overwrite-mode.

-- 
Daniel Jensen
* (format (concat "mailto:" "%s@%s.%s") "daniel" "bigwalter" "net")