Re: Emacs for writers (was Emacs users a dying breed?)

[James Freer <jessejazza@gmail.com>]

On 25 June 2012 10:38, James Freer <jessejazza@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25 June 2012 03:58, rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 25, 4:19 am, James Freer <jesseja...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> <snipped>
>>> What do i use at present while i'm still trying to get used to vim or
>>> emacs - pico for email and bluefish. Both vim and emacs development
>>> have gone down strange routes and yet both are popular.
>>>
>>> james
>>
>> Ok James lets see if we can get you off the ground with emacs.
>> To start with are you on linux? If not whats your OS?
>> Next whats your emacs version? To find out do M-x emacs-version RETURN
>> where M-x is emacs-funnyspeak for Alt-x or Escape-x.
>> Next whats in your init file? Beginners are usually recommended to
>> use .emacs (note the .)
>> I recommend .emacs.d/init.el
>> If all this is trivial to you please excuse; no intent to be
>> patronizing here; just dont know at what level you are stuck
>
> Rusi
>
> I really appreciate your reply and offer of help. At present i've got
> to get a car sorted out so i'll leave it for a couple of days and then
> i can be focussed and look these things up.
>
> thanks
> james

Hi Rusi

Finally got the domestic side under control. I look after my mother
with Alzheimer's so i needed to get the car sorted to get her
medication. The head gasket had gone and on these cars you've got to
take the engine out... which involves quite a bit of work.

On to emacs.

IT experience: used to do some programming in the 90's and used
wordstar for editing but have an engineering degree not computing.
Ideal choice for me would be to use Joe or E3 editors but they don't
do bookmarks so i was thinking of Vim or emacs. Been using linux
ubuntu for about 4 years and about 18 months ago changed to xubuntu...
just like the minimal approach switching before Unity came along. Have
tried other distros but prefer apt package management. I know my way
around xubuntu fairly well although i'm not as technical as a
programmer - couldn't call myself a ' geek'.

OS: currently using xubuntu 10.04 with emacs 23 installed although i'm
just about to install  12.04 on a new pc which will have emacs 24. I'm
hoping to set things up before i switch over to the new pc.

config files: .emac, .emac.d [i know about hidden files but there are
just comments in these both are bare]..emac.d appears to have an
'auto-save' directory and nothing there.

For me the requirements are; bookmarks, word count, split windows,
wordwrap (linebreak i think it's called (but not saving in that form
like nano/pico does)) if possible to remove some of the programming
features and things like calculator in order to have a faster app for
using with Alpine mail. [I know one can use MH but i don't know that
it's as fast as Alpine - i did have a look at it about a year ago but
i got lost somewhere setting it up].

Hope that's enough info for the moment.

thanks
james