From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jude DaShiell Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: beginner questions Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:22:35 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: References: <87eh8d2qxi.fsf@informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1380162170 18205 80.91.229.3 (26 Sep 2013 02:22:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 02:22:50 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: JohnF Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Sep 26 04:22:55 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VP1EE-0007HK-FJ for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 04:22:54 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55794 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP1ED-0000m3-VL for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:22:53 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:34924) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP1E1-0000lb-Fh for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:22:45 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP1Dx-0001ve-Fn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:22:41 -0400 Original-Received: from shellworld.net ([69.60.117.94]:65521 helo=server1.shellworld.net) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP1Dx-0001v0-9C for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:22:37 -0400 Original-Received: by server1.shellworld.net (Postfix, from userid 1024) id 802DF22969; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 21:22:35 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by server1.shellworld.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E88222968; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:22:35 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Mac OS X 10.x X-Received-From: 69.60.117.94 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:93593 Archived-At: On Wed, 25 Sep 2013, JohnF wrote: > Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: > > JohnF writes: > > > >> Can't use my favorite editor any more (long story, don't ask:), > >> and decided to go with emacs. Of course, there are zillions of > >> tutorials, etc, but most are almost-infinitely wordy, whereas > >> I'm comfortable with editors and basically want a cheat sheet. > >> But even they're usually too long, with lots of arcane commands > >> that I'm sure I'll eventually want to know, but not while I'm > >> still trying to remember how to cut-and-paste. > >> So I started making my own forkosh.com/emacs.txt but am > >> having difficulty zeroing in on some info. > >> Most importantly, how to "turn off everything". For example, > >> no html help, e.g., I don't want to see stuff or > >>

stuff

underlined. > > > M-x fundamental-mode RET > > This gives you the basic editor features and nothing more. > > M-x text-mode RET > > is designed to edit natural language texts (paragraphs, lines, > > words, characters). It may not be useful to edit code, which is > > structured quite differently from natural language text. > > Thanks, Pascal, that's perfect. Don't know how I missed it > during maybe ~5 minutes trying various google queries. > > >> And really annoying, I don't want > >> the cursor to momentarily jump back to ( after I type (stuff). > >> Ditto , etc. Very distracting (to me). Basically, > >> I just want a dumb editor in the sense that it shouldn't think > >> it knows >>anything<< about the language/syntax I'm writing in, > >> regardless of filename extension. It should just see a stream > >> of uninterpreted characters, unless it sees C- or M- (or > >> something with special emacs significance). > > > > Yep, fundamental-mode will give you that. > Yep, works great. > > >> And various and sundry minor questions, e.g., what exactly > >> is the undo scope of C-/ and how do you just undo "last keystroke", > >> and no more than that (if last keystroke was a C-y then, okay, > >> undo the entire yank)? > > > > It seems to me, history coalesce input, so that undo can't undo text > > entry character by character, (unless you separate each character by > > some other command, such as cursor move). Other than that, it seems to > > me that undo works like that, undoing one command at a time. > > No big problem, I don't suppose. I guess I'll get used to it. > Just caused me some minor inconvenience when it behaved > unexpectedly (unexpected to me, that is) and undid lots more > than I'd intended. I'm just being more careful now, until > I comfortably know what to actually expect. > > >> Finally, have I missed some tutorial/cheat-sheet-type info designed > >> for my kind of needs -- already familiar with various languages > >> and editors, and just wants to get down to work using emacs? > >> Just wants the 100 or so most used commands "telegraphed", without > >> more extra words than necessary? Thanks, > > > > http://cs.iupui.edu/~kweimer/EmacsCheatSheet.pdf > > seems to be a nice and short cheat sheet. > > Thanks, again, Pascal. That's perfect, too. Just what I wanted, > and had also failed to find (neither that nor anything close to it) > during google searches. > > > Now of course, the big win of emacs, is when you activate those modes > > that provide automatic features specific to the kind of document you're > > editing and its syntax. So fundamental-mode is not used often. But I > > agree that it may help for newbies, to start with it, and add layers and > > tools later. > > Yeah, I peeked at your informatimago.com homepage, and saw all > your gpl'ed emacs tools. The asm7090 seemed especially unusual. > I started with keypunches (and that's 026's), and ran stuff > on the 7040 in CCNY's EE dept a long (long,...) time ago. > But the creation date on your pjb-asm7090.el is 2005-06-04. > Somebody still emulating that somewhere? > Control+g may be useful here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- jude