From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: JohnF Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: beginner questions Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 08:16:10 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1380356418 24406 80.91.229.3 (28 Sep 2013 08:20:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 08:20:18 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Sep 28 10:20:23 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 1VPplF-0001ku-Rs for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 28 Sep 2013 10:20:21 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40100 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VPplF-0004CT-EH for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 28 Sep 2013 04:20:21 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!panix!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 44 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com Original-X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1380356170 19103 166.84.1.3 (28 Sep 2013 08:16:10 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 08:16:10 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: tin/2.0.0-20110823 ("Ardenistiel") (UNIX) (NetBSD/5.1.2 (i386)) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:201425 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:93694 Archived-At: Ken Goldman wrote: > On 9/25/2013 3:55 AM, JohnF wrote: >> Most importantly, how to "turn off everything". For example, >> no html help, e.g., I don't want to see stuff or >>

stuff

underlined. 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 > > For a beginner, I suggest you give 'everything' a try > before you turn emacs into a dumb editor. Not a beginner programmer, just a beginner with emacs. And to begin with, I want to get some real work done immediately -- use emacs as a tool, not as a toy. Dumbing it down will just help me get down to work. Otherwise, not yet being familiar with emacs, I have to look up every second or two to see what it's doing, to make sure I'm not doing something it's already done for me, etc. > Emacs was written by real users, and does the right thing so often that > you'll wonder how you ever used any other editor. > If you're writing code (and html is code) parenthesis matching, region > commenting, coloring, indenting, inserting tags, headers, lists, check > boxes and such will save a lot of typing and debug. You're welcome to prefer what you like. Personal preferences are personal. That's why they call them personal. My working habits are different than yours. I absolutely hate colors, parentheses matching, indenting. Speaking of which, I hadn't really exercised that fundamental-mode properly when I remarked in preceding post that it worked fine. It stops "parentheses" matching , which is what I'd noticed since I'm currently writing some html (but mostly write C nowadays). But it still matches (stuff) and [stuff] and {stuff}. Any way to turn that off? Thanks. > Once you get into emacs, you can change the colors to your liking, as > well as assign keys for frequently used operations. The only colors I like are black fg on white bg -- for >>everything<<. And I usually prefer learning and using an editor's native command set, rather than having it learn me. But some of those M-x commands can get pretty lengthy. -- John Forkosh ( mailto: j@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )