Emacs New User Questions

Emacs New User Questions

[Benjamin Badgley]

I will probably thrashed for asking, is there a way to colorize the 
buffers in a manner similar to Vim? Also could possibly use a bit of 
help on getting started with Clisp development. I search Google and come 
up with all sorts of otherworldly arcane wizardry documentation. "Slow 
down, I'm a newbie that really wants to learn this stuff but I'm a slow 
learner. Break it down into easy chunks for me, please?"

-- 
Ben

Re: Emacs New User Questions

[Richard Riley]

Benjamin Badgley <mortecanine@peoplepc.com> writes:

> I will probably thrashed for asking, is there a way to colorize the 
> buffers in a manner similar to Vim? Also could possibly use a bit of 

In what way does Vim colourise the buffers? Do you just mean normal
keyword/font/color associations? Emacs already does this in Emacs 22 and
later where font-lock-mode is turned on by default I think.

e.g see

http://richardriley.net/projects/emacs/dotemacs

For fancier stuff see:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ColorTheme

(It's a bit confusing that page imo, but the main point is to download the latest
color-theme tar, add it to your lisp load path and then install a color
theme)

I actually started to use a vim favorite recently and so my .emacs
contains

(require 'zenburn)
(color-theme-zenburn)

Google will locate the zenburn.el file.

But for your googling efforts, "color-theme emacs" are the key words.

regards

r.


> help on getting started with Clisp development. I search Google and come 
> up with all sorts of otherworldly arcane wizardry documentation. "Slow 
> down, I'm a newbie that really wants to learn this stuff but I'm a slow 
> learner. Break it down into easy chunks for me, please?"

-- 

Re: Emacs New User Questions

[Tassilo Horn]

Benjamin Badgley <mortecanine@peoplepc.com> writes:

Hi Benjamin,

> I will probably thrashed for asking, is there a way to colorize the
> buffers in a manner similar to Vim?

All recend emacsen do syntax highlighting by default.  With emacs 21 or
older, I think you need to do `M-x global-font-lock-mode RET', or put

  (global-font-lock-mode 1)

into your ~/.emacs.  But you really shouldn't use such an ancient beast.

> Also could possibly use a bit of help on getting started with Clisp
> development.

For any lisp development I'd recommend to install SLIME [1].

HTH,
Tassilo
__________
[1] http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/
-- 
"Ubuntu" - an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".

Re: Emacs New User Questions

[notbob]

On 2009-05-23, Benjamin Badgley <mortecanine@peoplepc.com> wrote:
>
> I will probably thrashed for asking, is there a way to colorize the 
> buffers in a manner similar to Vim? 

From one noob to another:

You can customize the display of types of fonts, colors, etc.  These
style elements are known as "faces" in emacs.  To see what you currently
have, type:

M-x list-faces-display

To change faces, use your menus (F10) and choose options (o), then customize
emacs (0 <-zero), then specific face (f) and finally hit Enter (default all
faces).  This will take you to a buffer with all the fonttype faces options.
Type C-x o to get to the list buffer and scroll down.

Here's a link with some more specifics:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/info2www?(emacs)Faces

Note the Face Cusomization link for more info on the options with each face.

Don't forget to save your changes.  

F10 > o > o

When this is done, you can look at your ~/.emacs file and see the change.  I
changed my mini-buffer prompt color.  It now looks like this:

'(minibuffer-prompt ((t (:foreground "cyan3")))))

Now, my change will be in effect anytime I start emacs.  Looks like a good
way to customize things.  Copy n' paste this code and change the face name
and color and away you go.  This is also what lisp code looks like ....and
that's all I know about that!  

I have found myself at this website many times when googling for the answer
to an emacs question.  A good learning resource:  

http://www.emacswiki.org/

I hope this helps.  I figure if I can do it, anyone can.  ;)


nb

Re: Emacs New User Questions

[Stefan Kamphausen]

Hi,

Benjamin Badgley <mortecanine@peoplepc.com> writes:

> Also could possibly use a bit of help on getting started with Clisp
> development.

consider reading Peter Seibels very, very fine book "Practical Common
Lisp".  Try it at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/


And -of course- get the dead tree edition if you like it.


Cheers,
Stefan
-- 
Stefan Kamphausen --- http://www.skamphausen.de
a blessed +42 regexp of confusion (weapon in hand)
You hit. The format string crumbles and turns to dust.

Re: Emacs New User Questions

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Benjamin Badgley <mortecanine@peoplepc.com> writes:

> I will probably thrashed for asking, is there a way to colorize the
> buffers in a manner similar to Vim?

M-x customize-variable RET global-font-lock-mode RET
and set it to "on".


> Also could possibly use a bit of
> help on getting started with Clisp development. I search Google and
> come up with all sorts of otherworldly arcane wizardry
> documentation. "Slow down, I'm a newbie that really wants to learn
> this stuff but I'm a slow learner. Break it down into easy chunks for
> me, please?"

For Common Lisp questions, better go ask them in news:comp.lang.lisp
or in irc://irc.freenode.org/#lisp

There are a lot of resources for Common Lisp learning on http://cliki.net
and: http://www.cliki.net/Education
 
-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: Emacs New User Questions

[Ben Badgley]

I've been looking over "Practical Common Lisp" and of course "An 
Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp", along with "On Lisp".
Have read more in the past week than probably the past two years.
Also found Cliki and started delving into it. Been reading the Lisp
newsgroup a bit too.

Recently there was what seemed a major flame war over Lisp vs. Java. 
I'll keep out of those sorts of things. Everyone has a rectum and 
opinion. No point in showing how much both stink. And again thank you
for the excellent pointers, and reminding ever so gently to rtfm and 
source. :)

One of my goals at this point is to use Emacs as an environment to write 
short stories, novels. Learning to program will be an outlet hobby for 
me, as well as provide more practical means to attain the goals. Who 
knows? I might even be good enough at one, or the other to make a modest 
wage.

Well, better scoot along for now. Figure someone will want use their 
computer. Microsoft Windows Vista now scares me.

---
Ben

Re: Emacs New User Questions

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Ben Badgley <mortecanine@peoplepc.com> writes:

> I've been looking over "Practical Common Lisp" and of course "An
> Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp", along with "On Lisp".
> Have read more in the past week than probably the past two years.
> Also found Cliki and started delving into it. Been reading the Lisp
> newsgroup a bit too.
>
> Recently there was what seemed a major flame war over Lisp
> vs. Java. I'll keep out of those sorts of things. Everyone has a
> rectum and opinion. No point in showing how much both stink. And again
> thank you
> for the excellent pointers, and reminding ever so gently to rtfm and
> source. :)
>
> One of my goals at this point is to use Emacs as an environment to
> write short stories, novels. Learning to program will be an outlet
> hobby for me, as well as provide more practical means to attain the
> goals. Who knows? I might even be good enough at one, or the other to
> make a modest wage.


And you may even use Lisp to write story writing code :-)

(defun choose-from (items) (nth (random (length items)) items))
(defun noun  () (choose-from '(jack jane joe)))
(defun verb  () (choose-from '(eats paints drops)))
(defun thing () (choose-from '(the\ apple the\ wall the\ dog)))

#+common-lisp
(defun story () (loop :repeat (1+ (random 5)) 
                      :do (format t "~:(~A~) ~(~A ~A~).~%" (noun) (verb) (thing))))

#+emacs
(require 'cl)
#+emacs
(defun story () (loop repeat (1+ (random 5)) 
                      do (insert (format "%s %s %s.\n" (noun) (verb) (thing)))))

(story)
jane drops the dog.
jack paints the apple.
jane drops the apple.
nil

Of course, with time you may develop some kind of AI or at least
expert system to design more interesting stories and better literary
style...

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__