12/21   In Emacs, how do I make it so that it will resize its screen
        when the maximum resolution of my monitor changes? When I
        use my laptop, my emacs is too big (and I can't resize it
        because the bottom-right corner is not accessible).
        \_ Which OS?  Can't you drag the top border (not a corner) to resize
           the height to be smaller?
           \_ MacOS 10.7, bottom right only.
              \_ How about "M-x eval-expression (set-screen-height
                 <some number>)"?  You'll have to type this without seeing
                 the minibuffer.
                 \_ yes that works. I tried this at home (when
                    my screen is downsized from a 24" work monitor
                    to my laptop) and had to do this blind without
                    seeing the mini buffer and had to do it a few
                    times. I guess I should learn how to write
                    a keyboard shortcut in elisp :(
              \_ Can't you drag/move windows by any border, or am I thinking
                 of a different OS?

8/9     So I just found out that an old college friend of mine lost her
        four month old daughter to SIDS. What is the correct response here?
        \_ "Did she sleep with her belly?" and "Did you breastfeed?"
        \_ try this joke:
           How do you make a dead baby float?

           ˙ʎqɐq pɐǝp ɟo sdooɔs oʍʇ puɐ ɹ�\
�ǝqʇooɹ ɟo ƃnɯ ɐ
           \_ I will try this one at the memorial service, thanks.
           \_ Can't read the inverted text in emacs.
              \_ i can. GNU Emacs 23.2.1
                 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS apple-appkit-1038.29)
                 \_ I was using the emacs here on soda which is 22.2.1.  -- PP
        \_ "I'm so sorry for your loss." Then shut up.

4/30    When I ssh into soda and run emacs, how do I activate the File/Edit/...
        menus at the top?  Thanks.
        \_ Hit F10 or M-`.  If you ever forget this, it's on the startup
           screen that emacs displays every time you run it.
           \_ It works!  Thanks.  I thought there was going to be a drup-down
              menu like when I run it under X or in Windows.
              menu like when I run it under X or in Windows.  Many text-based
              editors in the DOS era did that.

6/29    When will we have the real emacs back?  Thx.
        \_ real men use pico and ed!!!                          -kchang
           \_ It's hard to teach old men (me) new tricks.  -- OP
        \_ Done.  emacs22 installed. --root
           \_ Thanks!  -- OP

6/12    Does emacs or vi include a column paste?  I sometimes have a block
        text I want to insert horizntally next to another block/column.  This
        is common for data plotting etc.  In Microsoft Word has this, I need
        it in a Unix text editor.
        \_ Does M-x picture-mode in emacs work for you?
           \_ Yes, with the commands below, thanks.
        \_ C-x r k runs `kill-rectangle'
           C-x r y runs `yank-rectangle'
           \_ Does this work outside picture mode?
              \_ Yes. There are quite a few other rectangle commands as well.
                 \_ How do you select a rectange?
                    \_ It's defined by point and mark. RTFM for details.
                       \- also valuable in emacs is align-regexp

3/14    Is there any good document composition mode in emacs?  auto-fill-mode
        is pathetic.

3/6     Dear emacs expert, how do I make emacs highlight leading
        spaces (but ignore tabs)?

2/2     Real programmers use emacs:
        http://xkcd.com/378

11/12   emacs masters with macbooks, why do my arrow keys in emacs + Terminal
        not work?

11/9    What's the best standard Xemacs font?

11/9    What's the best Xemacs font for coding?
        \- the Entrella Font
          \_ no no, the ETANRETLA font!

11/7    When I use ssh with X11 forwarding my emacs would run. But when
        I NX into the machine and launch emacs, it would complain that
        fontset-16 is not found. What is going on?
        \_ different set of fonts in your nx's virtual X server.

10/29   Is there such a command in emacs where I can say "mark this point
        so I can roam around and then jump back immediately?"  -learning
        \_ Ctrl-SPACE to mark, Ctrl-X Ctrl-X to jump back.
        \_ Ctrl-SPACE to mark, Ctrl-X Ctrl-X to jump back.  You can do Ctrl-X
           Ctrl-X repeatedly to jump back and forth.
           \_ Thank emacs guru!!!
           \_ Is there a way to avoid the annoying highlighting?
              \- i am not sure exactly what you are seeing, but you might see
                 if the issue is the "transient-mark-mode" setting.
              \_ What type of file are you looking at (.cpp? .html? ...)  What
                 is emacs highlighting in that file?

10/10   Anyone know emacs has a session saver? It drives me nuts to have
        to reload and restore.
        \_ I looked at this six or twelve months ago, and they do exist, but
           no one implementation seemed simple nor robust enough for my needs.
           Let me know if you find anything. -dans
        \_ run emacs in screen, never kill it!
        \_ emacsserver/emacsclient
           \_ What do these have to do with saving sessions?  -- !OP
           \_ If you never 'quit' emacs, there is no need to 'save' sessions.
        \_ I have an idea.  How about you do "kill -9" to kill emacs every time
           you want to quit it, then user M-x recover-session to restore it?
           you want to quit it, then use M-x recover-session to restore it?
           You might even map C-x C-c to do "kill -9" on itself, and add
           recover-session to you ~/.emacs.
        \_ Can't you just boot directly into emacOS and use the system suspend
           and restore functions?
        \_ The following works for me without having to do too much work:
           http://www.phys.ufl.edu/docs/emacs/emacs_423.html
           basically, add an entry to your .emacs and then do
           "M-x desktop-save <path>"   for the very first time, and subsequent
           launch of emacs from <path> will auto reload previous files,
           buffers, history, etc. I have this setup in less than a minute.

7/23    kchang i am using emacs + tramp to edit /etc/motd.public .
        this is a great solution for anyone editing the motd.
        emacs notifies me if the motd has changed since i started
        editing it, so i don't rudely stomp on anyone's changes.
        \_ Just lock the motd, like everyone else and you won't have
           to worry about it.
           \_ i guess it's for my own benefit, so the dude I am
              writing over doesn't write over what I just wrote!

7/17    why doesn't my fucking backspace key work in emacs
        \_ Maybe you need the following in your .emacs:
           (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?)

4/17    In Linux 2.6, if two users run Emacs 21 to open the same 100MB file
        for viewing, do the two processes eat up ~100MB of RAM/swap-space, or
        ~200MB?  Thanks.
        \_ Test and see.
           \_ It seems to be the latter.  Too bad.  Thanks.  -- OP
              \_ Considering how emacs handles buffers that's almost a given.

4/17    In Linux 2.6, if two users runs Emacs 21 to open the same 100MB file
        for viewing, do the two processes eat up ~200MB of RAM or swap space
        just for that file?  Thanks.

3/7     In emacs 21, is there a way in Emacs-Lisp to detect whether emacs was
        started with the "-r" switch?  In C mode, the syntax colors are
        different when I start emasc with and without "-r".  I want to do the
        same in my elisp code, but I can't find how this is done in cc-mode.el.
        Thanks.  -- yuen
        \- are you sure what you are talking about is being done by the cc*.el
           and not the font-lock package? also, it is likely they are checking
           "inverse-video" than the argv. btw, who are you? i almost always
           run emacs in a terminal window without any syntax highlighting,
           so i havent looked at this deeply, but i'm guessing from
           plausibility. --psb
           "inverse-video" than the argv. btw, who are you? --psb
           \_ Actually I'm not sure whether it's cc*.el or font-lock.el.
              Whether I run "emacs" or "emacs -r", "inverse-video" is always
              nil.  -- yuen
              \- the cmdline is parsed by the "startup.el" file.
                 [which in turn calls a function in $lisp/term/x-*.el
                 for "windowish" commands].
                 for "windowish" options].
                 if you want to test for reverse video, i guess the modern
                 way is to look in default-frame-alist. it sounds like you
                 know how to do that. i'd look in the frame properites,
                 not the command lien to do this. that is sort of the
                 point of the side-effects of the startup funcs. --psb
                 ------------------------------------------------------
                    default-frame-alist's value is
                      ((tool-bar-lines . 0)
                       (menu-bar-lines . 0)
                       (reverse . t))
                    Documentation:
                    Alist of default values for frame creation.
                    These may be set in your init file, like this:
                     (setq default-frame-alist '((width . 80) (height . ...
                    These override values given in window system configuration
                    data,  including X Windows' defaults database.

3/4     Does anyone have a good C# mode package for emacs?  I'm using 21.3.1.
        According to http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/CSharpMode it
        seems like none of the available ones are good.  Thanks.
        \_ for all languages invented in the past 25 years, the emacs
           modes are not good.
           \_ Probably.  But is there any other editor that has modes for all
              languages invented in the past 25 years?  (Plain text mode
              doesn't count. :-) )

2/10    Looking for a decent lightweight Javascript editor that can do
        simple error detections (like IntelliJ) on UNIX. Emacs can highlight
        well but doesn't do anything wrt to js errors. Recommendations?

3/30    Does anyone know a good, free, C++ code formatter?  We'd like to
        enforce some semi-arbitrary coding guidelines.  (Like, a keyword
        should not be on the same line as a closing brace.)
        \_ astyle comes with Cygwin http://astyle.sourceforge.net
           \_ Cool, this looks like it might help.  Thanks. (Does
              anyone else have suggestions?) -op

8/22    In emacs21, is there a way to change the number of spaces that emacs
        indents my C code at each level when I press the <TAB> key?  Thx.
        \_ http://csua.com/?q=emacs+indent&sort=d
        \_ (c-basic-offset . 2)

8/11    How do I open a unicode file containing English text in Emacs 21.3.1
        such that I won't see tons of "^@" characters?  Thanks.
        \_ The emacs portion of the Unicode-HOWTO may be useful:
           http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/Unicode-HOWTO

8/8     My emacs fu is weak.  How do I specify a position offset when I
        start Emacs (windows, not linux)? If I do -g 100x70, it specifies the
        size of the window, but the window starts at the top left
        corner. I don't want it at the top left corner.. Thanks!
        \_ "-g 100x70+xxx+yyy".  Same as running it on X.
           \_ Thanks!

8/2     So what patches do I need in order to prevent the system-wide
        web site defacement thing?
        \_ 1, 3, and 17
        \_ All of them.  -tom
        \_ ask a stupid question...
        \_ "How do I use emacs?"
        \_ 62.974 and 17.2  -proud American
        \_ Cabbage patch.

7/14    Do you like cscope or ctags? What do you prefer and why?
        \_ They do totally different things.
        \_ etags (since I use emacs).

3/18    What is a good emacs mode for editing the motd? I'm looking for
        something that will do word wrap properly w/ M-q. I tried text-
        mode but it doesn't play nice w/ followups.
        \_ Is this the same as M-x auto-fill-mode? -dans
           \_ I think that M-q is different than M-x auto-fill-mode.

3/16    I'm looking to troll the motd. What are some good topics guaranteed
        to get results?
        \_ sex!
        \_ Easy.  Anything of interest to more than 1 person that isn't
           resolvable.  Next!
        \_ http://www.trollwars.com  -John
         \_ http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/GrammarFascist1.html
            \_ This would make the motd so fun.
        \_ You've got a couple at the top now.
        \_ tom -dans
        \_ Evolution vs. Intelligent Design.
        \_ Emacs vs. vi.
           \_ uh, not this again. It's so boring. Besides, it has been
              established by now that vi lost.
              \_ how about emacs vs. vim?
                 \_ And xemacs vs. vim?
                 \_ Emacs. No contest. When vim grows up and gets modes
                    for reading mail, reading news, surfing the web,
                    compiling lisp, running in client-server mode, &c.
                    lets talk.
                    \_ Someone has been trolled.
                       \_ Someone was trying to make a joke.
        \_ Linux vs. FreeBSD vs. ......
        \_ Any environmental issue.  (Is global warming real?  Does recycling
           help?  Should we conserve?  Etc.)
        \_ Years ago "Is Windows a real OS?" used to be a hot topic.
        \_ Gun control. Postgres v. MySQL. The MacMini.

3/15    dans, would you like to explain your accessing patterns? Why you've
        become really active all of a sudden?   -anonymous coward, dans #1 fan
        http://csua.com/?q=dans&type=hist&sort=d
        \_ Sure.  I'm writing lots of code.  The motd serves as an amusing
           distraction that gives my mind a chance to recharge and helps my
           subconcious chew on the problems I'm hacking on. -dans
           \_ Alright thanks. May I add that you've been very entertaining,
              especially the dans vs. tom cat fight. And thanks for sharing
              your emacs know hows, it's quite educational     -dans #1 fan

3/14    Emacs TRAMP, best Emacs extension evAR!!!  In a nutshell, it lets you
        transparently edit files on remote hosts, e.g.
        Find File: /user@host.tld:/path/to/file/on/host.tld/file
        will open up file on the remote host.  It even supports remote
        filename completion.  I wanted this for years, and always considered
        writing it until a friend pointed out that someone had done it
        already.  It's built in to the build of Emacs 22.0.50.1 for OS X I
        have, but you can build it yourself if necessary.  Check it out. -dans
        \_ Someone wanna write me a edit the motd remotely mode?  thanks.
           \_ No.  Need.  With tramp:
              C-x C-f /user@soda.csua.berkeley.edu:/etc/motd.public
        \_ http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/tramp and it uses scp!
        \_ Hmm... while I'm talking about my emacs wishlist, does anyone know
           if there's a way to save the `project state' of emacs.  i.e. if I
           have 17 files open in emacs, and need to close emacs to upgrade,
           reboot, or whatever, is there a way to open emacs, and have it
           automagically reopen all the files I was working with? -dans
           \_ http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/SessionManagement
              \_ Okay, that's pretty cool -- thanks for posting that! -mice
              \_ Sweet!  Thank you anonymous motd emacs wizard. -dans
        \_ If you have DarwinPorts installed on OSX, you can install a new
           version of emacs w/ tramp enabled via:
           $ sudo port -d install emacs-devel
           TRAMP is unbelievably k3wl. Thanks dans.

12/16   Anyone figure out how to fix tabbing inside emacs?
        \_ Maybe if you mentioned what you perceive to be wrong with tabbing
           inside emacs, someone could offer a helpful response.
        \_ Try it now.  I changed the default file motdedit uses to edit.  It
           previously had a .c in there and that caused emacs to snort cocaine.
           \_ Thanks. It runs in Fundamental mode now. Works well.
              \- among the emacs standard modes, i'd use text-mode over
                 fundamental-mode for the motd.
                  \_ What's the best way to set that?
                  \_ Wow, you're right, text-mode is great for the motd!
                     What's the best way to automatically set that mode
                     for files named motd.public.r
                     \_ (setq auto-mode-alist
                          (append
                            '(("\\.xsl\\'" . sgml-mode)
                             ("\\motd.public.r\\'" . text-mode))
                          auto-mode-alist))

12/11   Since the SSH change, I've been getting the following error
        message in Outlook Express:  "The certificate's CN name does not
        match the passed value".  How can I get rid of this message?  I'm
        guessing it has to do with the certificate I'm using.  I got it from:
        <DEAD>soda.csua.berkeley.edu:995<DEAD>  It's called "localhost".  Do I
        need to use a new POP server?  Right now I'm using
        http://soda.csua.berkeley.edu port 995.  Or get a certificate from elsewhere?
        \_ ever since the new soda, emacs has been acting up on me.
           Anyone have a good default .emacs that allows me to do standard
           text editing, like editing motd?  Tab doesn't even work anymore;
           it's checking for programming(lisp?) statements, I think, and
           overriding all standard editing.
           \- i find the new emacs a little strange too. the issue isnt so
              much as a "good emacs" but solving specific problems.
           \_ Looks like an issue with the name of the temp file assigned
              by /csua/bin/me:   my $motdcurrent = "/tmp/motd.public.c.$>.$$";
           \_ That's strange.  Ever since the new soda, my emacs works better
              than before even though it's the same emacs version.  Now the
              prompt in my shell buffer is displayed in color, and my commands
              in bold.  When I do Ctrl-S to search, all the nearby matches are
              highlighted.  global-font-lock-mode now does color highlighting.
              BTW my .emacs file hasn't changed for 12 years.  If anyone can
              shed light on what's behind these improvements, that'll be great.
              --- yuen
              \_ New soda is now running emacs 21, that's why.
                 \_ I thought it was also 21 before the upgrade.  No?
              \_ A fixed termcap maybe?
        \_ The self-signed SSL certs are now fixed. Thanks. You might want
           to look into using Mozilla Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express.
           \_ Thanks, the error is gone! -op
              \- i have noticed some interoperability issues between
                 older SSL programs and recent SSL applications.
                 doing a little digging, it looks like there are
                 some different padding strategies.
        \_ I've fixed the self-signed SSL certs, but that might not fix the
           message in Outlook Express. Try Mozilla Thunderbird. -brett
        \_ The self-signed SSL certs have been fixed. Try Mozilla Thunderbird.
        \_ telnetd is broken, can we get telnet turned back on?  thanks!

12/6    After the upgrade, when I do M-x shell in emacs, the prompt has color
        and my commands are automatically highlighted.  Wow!  What change
        enabled this?

11/22   Emacs users: Do your fingers get tired of pressing the Ctrl key
        so much?
        \_ No.     -mice
        \_ I use Kinesis keyboards where they map CTRL to thumb
           operation and I've been really happy since then.
        \_ http://csua.com/?entry=21074
           http://csua.com/?entry=28755
           http://csua.com/?entry=38806
        \_ No.  I don't use the cntl keys for everything -- I try to spread
           basic navigation between both hands, and leave special functions
           to my left.  So far, this has worked very well for me.    -mice
        \_ No.  Actually I've been using only the left Ctrl and Shift keys
           (instead of both left and right ones) for emacs and everything else,
           so as to train my left pinkie which is the weakest.  It works.
           -- piano player
           \- if you are C-f/b/n/p too much, you are probably not doing
              something correctly/optimally.
              \_ My keystrokes are far, far from optimal.  But then I press
                 a lot of C-a C-e C-a C-e ...... out of no reason but boredom
                 anyway, so being optimal is not my concern.  BTW I bind C-q /
                 C-z to scroll down / up one line, and I use them a lot.  Also,
                 I don't swap Caps and Ctrl on my PC keyboard.  -- piano player
                 \- if you dont use incremetnal search to move, you may want to
                    consider that.
           \_ what piano piece(s) are you working on?
              \_ I like Chopin's short pieces like Nocturnes and Etudes.  I'm
                 not good enough to play any of his long pieces.  With a kid in
                 in the family, I rarely practise now.  But on the rare
                 occasion that I play, I find that over the years my left
                 pinkie have gained strength.  Now I don't need any wrist
                 action when playing the low notes.  I think it's nice to write
                 code and get paid at my job while training my fingers at the
                 same time.  BTW, if anyone still remembers the Sun4's in 260
                 Evans and the TVI920c's in Evans basement, those keyboards
                 were even better for training fingers even though they drove
                 me crazy when a project deadline was coming up.
                 were even better for training fingers too even though they
                 drove me crazy when a project deadline was coming up.
                 -- piano player
                 \_ oh my god yes.  I recall how stiff those keys were to
                    press!
        \_ No, I play FPS games and bind walk and crouch to shift and ctrl.
           I can press them all day with my pinky. But I was amused to notice
           that after recently not playing for 6 weeks or so, the next time
           I tried both my hands got really tired.
           \_ Nostromo is calling you! http://csua.org/u/e23 (Belkin)
              \_ lame, it's not even a mouse
        \_ Yes. very. Emacs and screen both kill my pinky finger. switching
           the caps and ctrl key helps, but doesn't make it go away.
           Ultimately, using *nix less helps the most.
        \_ Yes, so I switched to VIM. -emarkp
        \_ As a vi user, no, but doing HTML kills them (all of the <>s and
           ""s)
           \_ ouch.  html is for html-editors
        \_ No, and don't be such a baby.  -meyers

11/2    Does anyone still use VM (Vmail) in Emacs?  I reluctantly switched to
        Outlook 4 yrs ago when I switched job, and I haven't used VM since
        then.
        \_ Used it until ~1 year ago. It unfortunately hasn't been updated
           for several years. It's really solid for what it does, but it
           doesn't do IMAP. I switched to the similar "Wanderlust" which
           does support IMAP and haven't looked back.
           \_ In the VM 7.19 from http://www.wonderworks.com/vm there is an
              vm-imap.el dated 5/30/2003.
              \_ VM's IMAP support is marginal. You can pretty much use it
                 like POP to fetch mail, but you can't do things like
                 disconnected operation etc. ... if you need to use it just
                 like POP because your server only supports IMAP not POP,
                 it's fine, but if you need to do server synching, marks,
                 disconnected operation, etc., VM is not your bag. -pp

11/1    In emacs, I'm editing a C++ header file in C++-mode.  However,
        when I tab, it only goes 2 spaces instead of 4.  Tabbing in a source
        file does work, but not a header file.  TIA.
        \_ I think the 2 spaces are for "public:/private:" lines; then another
           tab and you can get to the 4 spaces for member vars, decls, etc.

10/27   My new job is completely Windoze based...anyone know of a windows
        version of TextWrangler.  I'm looking for a free text editor with
        extended capabilities.  Thanks.  -scottyg
        \_ I'm completely in love with Crimson Editor.
         \_Thanks, I downloaded SciTE and it seems to rock.  I've heard good
           things about Crimson Editor though. -scottyg
           \_ Thanks, I downloaded SciTE and it seems to rock.  I've heard
              good things about Crimson Editor though. -scottyg
        \_ a friend of mine uses visual slick edit. You could always try
           xemacs.
           \_ most expensive dedicated code editor you can buy
              != "free text editor"

9/21    Emacs sucks.
emacs user was here
\- you may wish to use:
(defun next-line (arg)
  "Move cursor vertically down ARG lines.
   ... If at the end of the buffer, it will add up to
  next-line-max-inserted-newlines newline characters to
  allow moving to the next line."
  (interactive "p")
  (if (= arg 1)
      (let ((opoint (point)))
        (forward-line 1)
        (if (or (= opoint (point))
                (not (eq (preceding-char) ?\n)))
            (if (< (- (point)
                      (save-excursion
                        (skip-chars-backward "\n")
                        (point)))
                   next-line-max-inserted-newlines)
                (insert ?\n))
          (goto-char opoint)
          (next-line-internal arg)))
    (next-line-internal arg))
  nil)
\_ Just add (setq next-line-add-newlines nil) to your ~/.emacs.
   \- the above lets you pick how many blank-lines are ok. i set to 2.
      i find this more useful than the binary option.

9/21    Dear motd loser who posted "Female wants to keep last name, male
        wants her to take his, marriage this summer, what do you do" guy:
        http://csua.com/?entry=17194
        Did you ever resolve the issue and how?
        \- to the guy: she gets to keep the name ... since it is hers.
           but since you are buying the ring, you get to choose between
           DIAMOND and DIAMEL. --not debeers
           \_ if the man hyphenates his last name, then the kids can have
              the same hyphenated last name too!

emacs user was here
\- you may wish to use:
(defun next-line (arg)
  "Move cursor vertically down ARG lines.
   ... If at the end of the buffer, it will add up to
  next-line-max-inserted-newlines newline characters to
  allow moving to the next line."
  (interactive "p")
  (if (= arg 1)
      (let ((opoint (point)))
        (forward-line 1)
        (if (or (= opoint (point))
                (not (eq (preceding-char) ?\n)))
            (if (< (- (point)
                      (save-excursion
                        (skip-chars-backward "\n")
                        (point)))
                   next-line-max-inserted-newlines)
                (insert ?\n))
          (goto-char opoint)
          (next-line-internal arg)))
    (next-line-internal arg))
  nil)
\_ Just add (setq next-line-add-newlines nil) to your ~/.emacs.
   \- the above lets you pick how many blank-lines are ok. i set to 2.
      i find this more useful than the binary option.

9/20    Is there a way to tell Emacs not to append an LF at the end of a C file
        if the last line doesn't end with an LF?  Thanks.
        \- i dont undersand exactly what you mean [append when?] but emacs
           can certainly do anything in this area with the approprite hook
           (which should already exist for what youa re trying to do) calling
           an appropriate function (which you may have to write). if what
           want to do is reasonable, it is probably already solved. who are
           you?
           \_ Say I have a 7-byte file foo.c like this:
                'F' 'O' 'O' <LF> 'B' 'A' 'R'
              i.e. the second line doesn't end with <LF>.
           \_ Found it: (setq require-final-newline nil).  Thanks.  -- OP

7/26    I work on Mac's mostly.  I use a lot of emacs and screen.  My left
        hand is in pain due to the pinky finger constantly stretching downwards
        to reach the Ctrl key.  How do you people deal with it?
        \_ It is impossible to get pains by typing. williamc says so, and
           will prove it. He'll also prove that you're an idiot.
           http://csua.com/?entry=37970
        \_ Tiger lets you remap the caps lock to the control key.

7/25    I'm wondering what people's favorite test editors are under Windows.
        Notepad has terrible performance on very large ascii or binary files,
        (X)Emacs is very slow-loading, and Vi is not mouse-driven.  Does anyone
        know a fast-loading, mouse driven text editor which handles large
        (multi megabyte) text and binary files nimbly?
        \_ One guy at work uses something called Visual Slick Edit. My
           mom uses jEdit.
        \_ Textpad, I sent in my $30-40.
        \_ How about WordPad?  Better than Notepad but not as full-blown as
           M$ Word.
        \_ How about WordPad?  Better than Notepad but not as bloated as M$
           Word.  I use Emacs21 though.
        \_ Ultraedit32 or nedi under cygwin.  -John
        \_ Last I checked vim does have mouse support.  Googling for
           "notepad replacement" is a fruitfull search but this is a very
           religious topic and I'm not about to endorse any of them. -gabriel
        \_ Standard GNU emacs works great for me. Of course I leave it open
           all the time, but it seems quick to load when I launch it.
        \_ I use textpad, and my colleagues editplus.  I don't know if they
           are good or not, but they work for what I do.
        \_ I've been using vinvi32, which is a decent vi port to windows. Has
           a good balance of mouse/keyboard UI, and is entriely contained in
            a single .exe so installation/removal/management is easy.
            I cannot comment on its abaility to open truly huge files. -ERic
        \_ So anyone want to comment on hte performance of these with large
           files? -op
           \_ On OS X, vim is actually the only thing I've found that
              will read some very large files (even more/less won't handle
              some of them).
        \_ When you're an administrator you don't have time to install
           Cygwin or other UNIXy stuff on 1000s of machines in a 15000
           employee company, so you use whatever you can find.
           I prefer vi for configuration, but usually I use Notepad
           because that's what exists on people's machines.
        \_ Emacs -- made Windows so much more enjoyable for serious development
        \_ Crisp (vertical edits are a breeze with this text editor)

6/30     What .emacs option will tell emacs to not write a file like
         #*scratch*#4271V0C# in the current working directory?
         \- look at the auto-save section of the emacs manual.
            it looks like C-ha auto-save is a little lean here. --psb

5/6     Is there a way to pass command-line arguments to emacs, and then detect
        them in my elisp code in .emacs?  I want to distinguish, in my .emacs,
        whether it's started by me typing "emacs" at the command line, or by
        some other program using the EDITOR environment variable.  So I'm
        thinking I can change EDITOR from "emacs" to "emacs -foo" and then
        detect it in .emacs.  Thanks.
        \_ try it the other way; set up an alias or wrapper script that gets
           run when you run emacs by hand, that does something like
           setenv IRANEMACS yes ; emacs $@ ; unsetenv IRANEMACS.
           Then you can just get it out of the environment.  -tom
           \- The argv is processed by startup.el and eventually will
              leave a list in the variable command-line-args, e.g.
                M-x lisp-interaction-mode
                (eval 'command-line-args)C-j
                ("emacs" "/tmp/holube")
              You can also look at command-switch-alist assuming unlike
              holube you dont find alists scary and hard. There are probably
              other ways to do what you want [e.g. with gnuclient/gnudoit]
              if you want to be specific or just calling emacs -f ...
              \_ I don't find them scary and hard; I find them stupid.  -tom
                 \- you find alists "stupid" and you love perl? there you
                    have it folks. do you also recommend people use environment
                    variables "instead" of hashes?
                    variables "instead" of hashes? any other data structures
                    you find "stupid"? how about say patricia trees?
                    \_ I wonder why, other than emacs, no other program uses
                       elisp for configuration.  It is not the data structure
                       I object to, it's the syntax and its use in an
                       application which should be simple.  -tom
                       \- do you know what guile is? are you making a
                          serious objection to elisp as opposed to objecting
                          to lisps in general? lisp has much more expressive
                          power than say a twmrc configuration language.
                          "emacs people" are more interested in power than
                          popularity. they also dont confuse aesthetic/elegant
                          and simple. the rule is not "thing should be simple"
                          but things should be as simple as necessary" there
                          are certainly problems [scoping] with elisp and
                          limitations as well [say with continuations] but
                          "alists are bad" is not one anybody reasonable would
                          take seriously. these comments of yours are getting
                          increasingly retarded. keep it up. bitching about m4
                          however is reasonable.
                          \_ I am not objecting to lisp; I am objecting to
                             lisp used as a configuration language for a text
                             editor.  I don't like it much as an extension
                             language, either, but that's more a personal
                             preference.  The fact that you have an extension
                             language doesn't mean that you have to use it
                             for everything.  It would be much more effective
                             to separate configuration and extension in
                             emacs.  -tom
                             \_ Tom, do you know lisp, or are you objecting to
                                not being able to figure out lisp syntax from
                                randomly looking at code snippets?  I don't
                                see any specific objections of the type
                                generally expected when critiquing programming
                                languages.  If you don't know what lambas,
                                let*, progn etc are, you are not qualified to
                                let*, progn are, you are not qualified to
                                  \- mapcar >> holube
                                comment on the language design.  Maybe you
                                should just stick to comments in the form
                                "I do not like elisp" instead of the arrogant
                                "Elisp is broken".  These kinds of incessant
                                "Elisp is broken".  These of incessant
                                arrogant pronouncements make you look like an
                                asshole.  But maybe you are an asshole.
                                \_ I'm not commenting on the language design
                                   at all; I'm commenting on its use in
                                   configuration of a text editor.  I also
                                   think it would be stupid to use java or
                                   perl to configure a text editor.  -tom
                             \- it might be more effecting at raising
                                emacs's mkt share but programmatically
                                i dont think it would be more effective at all.
                                it sounds really lame in fact to have an
                                .emacsrc where you do things like "set fgcolor=
                                blue" just to make people who dont understand
                                lisp a little happier. the way scope in handled
                                in web server configs or procmail configs
                                or mailagent configs is much lamer than how
                                it is handled in emacs. [like say if you want
                                to have one notion of what is a paragraph
                                when editing lisp vs english text].
                                \_ well for me, that's exactly why I hate lisp.
                                   (set fgcolor blue) instead of just
                                   fgcolor = blue, and it gets worse with the
                                   nested levels of parentheses and quoted
                                   identifiers and blah blah.
                                   I would much prefer a Ruby-like syntax.
                                   I always found lisp to be unpleasant.
                                   \- setq is more powerful than simple
                                      X=Y type assertions. also there is a
                                      point to having setq, setq-default,
                                      defvar, defmacro, defun, defadvise, let
                                      let* etc. you can happily "configure"
                                      much of emacs only knowing a little
                                      bit about setq. however if the
                                      documentation tells you something is
                                      expected to be a list and you dont use
                                      setq correctly, that's an E_TOOSHORT
                                      problem as far as i am concerned and not
                                      a problem with elisp. once again richer
                                      semantics != gratuitious complexity.
                                      \_ I'm inclined to think it is gratuitous
                                         in the context of text editor config.
                                         I don't want to learn all that stuff
                                         just for emacs. I find it questionable
                                         that all those setters are required;
                                         there's no such complexity in Ruby and
                                         I never felt constrained. Plus the oop
                                         stuff would probably work nicely for
                                         a text editor. But text editor
                                         arguments are stupid so I'll stop.
                                         I'm just saying I don't like lisp. I
                                         don't mind that config files use a
                                         rich language but it means I have to
                                         look in a thick manual to find how
                                         do do anything, since the gui tools
                                         are worthless.

3/15    Partha and/or emacs guru, how do I make my cursor blink?
        \_ Is it really so hard to M-x apropos and search for blink?
           \- i usually run emacs in a terminal so this is a
              non-issue. you can look for kyle jones' package
              for frame-based modes. His packages are of good
              quality, e.g. crypt++, VM, filladapt etc. --psb
        \_ My emacs21 in XP, SunOS5 and Linux all have blinking cursor by
           default.  I didn't do anything special to turn it on.

3/7     Suggestions for a Tex editor? I've used TeK, and found it lacking.
        any others?  -nivra
        \_ On windows? WINEDT!!!!!! WINEDT is the standard!!!
           http://www.winedt.com  If you use it, send the guy his money.
        \- emacs + auctex
        \_ I do all my latex work in vi.  *shrug*.  What do you want your
           editor to do? -- ilyas
        \_ obEDIsTheStandard!Editor!

3/5     I have a problem with X. Let's say I open up xemacs. If I don't do
        anything to it after 15 minutes, connection would die and I'd have
        to restart it. How do I make it more persistent? ok thx
        \_ you're connecting through a NAT gateway, aren't you... and X11
           forwarding throuh ssh?  Turn on connection keep-alives
           \_ NAT yes, X11 forward no (raw forward). Where is the option?
              \_ your NAT translation is timing out due to inactivity.  If
                 your router has an option to configure this, raise it.  If
                 not, perhaps you can script emacs to do something that
                 generates some change in the screen (maybe a redraw screen
                 command) every 5-10min.  But in openssh, it's something like
                 TCPKeepAlive. -dwc
                 \- You can put the time inthe mode-line, for one.
                 \_ I had a netgear router that would drop cxn's after 5 min.
                    Firmware upgrades wouldn't fix the problem, but the v2
                    box they started selling didn't have the problem. bastards.

2/18    Emacs guru please help.  I am running shell within emacs and have a
        couple hundred lines of text beyond the current prompt, which I use
        one by one as some command argument.  Somehow it just all disappeared
        (from the current prompt to the end).  It is not a c-w because I
        couldn't yank it back.  I didn't save it to another file/buffer.  Is
        there anyway to get it  back?

1/28    emacs question: How can I specify a keyboard combo for saving
        the file? I find "control x  s" awkward. I would like to use
        "control x  \" instead.
        \_ put this in your .emacs:
           (global-set-key "\C-x\"" 'save-buffer)
           to get rid of C-xs for saving, you can use:
           (global-unset-key "\C-xs")
            \_ Thank you. That's awesome. I tweaked it like this:
                (global-set-key "\C-x\C-\\" 'save-buffer)
                Now it works great. Thanks!
                Now it works great just like jove. Thanks!
        \_ As someone who's switched from jove to emacs (many years ago),
           and also from random package X to random package Y, I urge you
           to learn and use the default bindings. If you don't, you can't
           ever use the package outside of your own environment; your buddy
           says, hey, here, fix this piece of code in my buffer, and you
           can't move the cursor because you defined the move-cursor commands
           to be like the Doom bindings ...    -- one who's been there
           \_ Seconded. I also recommend learning vi to the point
              where you are comfortable editing code using it b/c
              one day you will end up crunched for time and stuck
              on a box w/o emacs and the last thing you want to
              worry about is how to insert text.
              \-In the case of C-xC-s/C-xs, I think it is a good idea
                to stick to those bindings unless there is some weird
                reason not to [like C-q/C-s lossage]. In some other cases
                it may be reasonable to swtich. You know there is nothing
                that says you have to unset C-xs ... I suppose since C-x\
                is not normally bound having both isnt too bad. Re: vi ...
                you probably want to be able to use vi enough to get
                emacs running and do basic edits but that is a long way
                from being able to edit code. In fact the whole approach
                to editing code is different between emacs and vi, so if
                you see them as interchangable [do i use ESC-l, or C-f to
                move to the right], then you are likely not using emacs
                correctly/fully [e.g. M-x compile etc]. --mr. emacs
                \_ My emacs session generally has mh-rmail, gnus,
                   w3c, gdb, compiles and dozens of buffers open
                   at any given time. At one point in my life I
                   used to use emacs client/server regularly.
                   However, I still think that knowing how to switch
                   btwn emacs and vi is a valuable skill (ex i is to
                   insert, a is to append, hjkl is to move, :1 is
                   first line, G is last line, / to pattern match,
                   % is to paren match, this will be good enough
                   for 95% of all problems).
                   \- By all means go for the "95%" but that is a
                      long way from "I am comfortable working on
                      large projects in either emacs or vi and
                      merely prefer emacs."

11/8    In emacs21 under Windoze, when I press and hold, say, Ctrl-V and emacs
        can't keep up with the scrolling, it skips redrawing the screen until I
        release the key.  Is there a way to disable this behavior so that it'll
        keep redrawing the screen the way emacs20 does?  Thanks.

9/15    Spaces or tabs?  I was almost converted to the tab true religion,
        and then I tried to actually set this up in emacs.  I find code with
        eight character wide tabs to be less readable.  This is totally a
        personal preference, if you like reading code with eight character
        wide tabs, more power to you.  Simple enough to fix, right, just:
        (setq tab-width 4)
        and, voila, my eyes stop bleeding from overexposure to white space.
        Not so fast!  Suppose you're editing in cc-mode with a style that
        sets c-basic-offset to 8.  cc-mode now inserts two tabs, which is
        definitely not the desired behavior.  See:
        http://csua.org/u/92a
        for a discussion of this on the emacs-devel list.  Note RMS smacking
        the original poster down.  Thoughts, suggestions?  What do folks
        using other editors do?
        \_ never use tabs in public text files. end of story. spaces are
           always spaces, tabs are a mess.
        \_ http://csua.com/?entry=12521
        \_ Check out astyle.  I use 3 spaces.
           \_ Sounds similar to gnu indent.  I was kind of hoping for
              something better than configuring [ your favorite revision
              control system ] to slam everything through [ your favorite
              code reformatting tool] at checkin time.  Thanks for the input
              though. -op
        \_ http://www.jwz.org/doc/tabs-vs-spaces.html "My opinion is
           that the best way to solve the technical issues is to
           mandate that the ASCII #9 TAB character never appear in
           disk files: program your editor to expand TABs to an appropriate
           number of spaces before writing the lines to disk"
        \_ I prefer pressing the TAB key goes to tab stops (whether they're
           every 8- or 4- or user-defined # of spaces), but spaces are actually
           output.  I prefer setting my editor to default to stripping all
           trailing spaces and converting all tab characters to spaces when
           saving.  Too bad jove (ancient, I know) doesn't do all this, emacs
           is too big, but my Windows editor TextPad does all this.
           Does anyone know a tight little non-GUI UNIX editor that I can
           configure to do all of this by default?
           \_ i'd be surprised if some vi/vim version can't do it.
              \_ yeah, I guess I just need to track down all the .vimrc magic

8/19    When I run "emacs -nw", the menu bar is still displayed.  How do I use
        it?  Thx.

8/17    hola, does anybody know of something already written
        to cronologically sort the default human readable date fmt,
        preferably via a pipe [as opposed to emacs etc]. --psb
          May 17 13:03:38 2001
          May 22 17:04:12 2001
          Nov 30 13:01:38 2001
          Aug 21 13:02:46 2002
          Aug 22 17:02:42 2002
          Aug  7 21:06:41 2002
          Aug  9 09:02:24 2002
          \_ You might want to pipe through something like
             php -r "echo strtotime(fgets(STDIN));" and then sort.
             This, of course, will get rid of strings and sort by unix seconds.
             Now I feel dirty for using php for something.  -- ilyas
          \_ Anything wrong with Perl Date::Parse?
             \- hey what happened to some of the other suggestions?
                nothing is "wrong" with the perl, i was just wondering
                if someone had done this alrady rather than my having
                to write something. i was hoping someone had cooked
                up something with gnu sort analogous to something
                like "sort -n -t . -k 1,1 -k 2,2 -k 3,3 -k 4,4" to
                sort ip addresses. --psb

7/24    Help.  I have an emacs session in which I made many edits without
        saving.  I played with undo and it goes on and on.  Now I want to
        return to the state before any undo and emacs does not seem to have
        a redo.  How can I undo the undo without reverting to the last
        autosave?  I haven't yet made any changes after the undo.   Thanks.
        \_ Move the cursor, then hit undo.

7/15    In emacs20, how do I set indent-tabs-mode to nil using ~/.emacs such
        that emacs will use spaces instead of tabs to indent in all my C files?
        I tried "(setq indent-tabs-mode nil)", but the value is still t.
        Thanks.
        --- yuen
        \_ use setq-default, or look up hooks in the emacs manual.
           \_ I see.  Now c-mode-common-hook does the trick.  Thx.  -- yuen

7/15    I am editing a binary file with some ascii in emacs.  It asks me
        which encoding to use when saving.  Should I use raw-text or
        no-conversion?  What's the difference between them anyway?
        \_ You want no-conversion.  Raw-text means it won't try to convert
           the text itself, but it will still do newline conversion -- it's
           intended for the opposite of what you have, a text file with some
           binary data in it.
           \_ ok tnx.
        \_ Use M-x hexl-mode instead.

6/1     Argh!  I accidently hit double-bucky-kill-XEmacs.  Is there some
        magical incantation to make it open up the 20-some-odd files I was
        editing?  (I don't need to recover lost data).
        \_ How about this? Find the last .saves-xxxxx file in your home dir,
           run "grep -v # ~/.saves-xxxxx", then somehow pass the resulting
           lines as arguments to the elisp function (find-file ......).
           \- no but you can plan for the future. there are a few packages to
              save your emacs state. look around the elisp archive or the
              emacs sources newsgroup or the emaccs wiki. --psb

5/17    emacsexpert:  I am using emacs in text mode.  When I use tab to indent
        (only) the the first line of a new paragraph, it always uses the first
        space (i.e. the beginning of the 2nd word) on the last line of the
        last paragraph as the tab stop, even though that is not what the
        manual say about indent-relative.  I have the same behavior even in
        Parindent mode.  I can turn this off only by going into fundamental
        mode, but then I lose the other feature of text mode and this also
        seems contrary to what the Emacs manual say about the various text
        modes.  Did I misunderstand the manual?  What's the right way to do it?
        \_ There's a blank line between paragraphs.
           \_ Yes there is, but even if I remove it, the problem remains.
        \_ you misunderstand the manual. use C-q TAB or create a keybinding
           for tab-to-tab-stop and use that for indenting.

5/12    Are there any emacs modes for .l files (lex) and .y files (yacc)?  I'm
        running emacs20.  Thanks.
        \_ just use c-mode or c++-mode.

5/10    I am using emacs to edit text file in the auto-fill or refill mode.
        It does not think tab = fixed number of spaces or fix column numbers
        but instead always take the first space of the last nonblank line as
        the tab position.  How to change that behavior?
        \_ M-x local-set-key <enter> <tab> self-insert-command <enter>
                -anonymous emacs user
        \_ M-x fundamental-mode

5/6     Why does my emacs 21.2 keep asking me for confirmation when I do
        ctrl-x-ctrl-s to save a file? it's fsking annoying!

4/29    Does anoyone know why ^K (delete line) works so slowly in xemacs
        over X-forwarding?  It takes like, 5 seconds a line over my DSL
        connection.  What's the deal?
        \_ It needs to re-transmit the whole screen so as to redraw?

4/14    In emacs, how to I turn off ~ backup file creation for files with
        a certain .extension?

4/2     problem with emacs. After I use it for a while (2-3 hours), the
        indentation went from 4 (default that I set and prefer) to 2.
        I have no idea why this is happening. Can someone tell me how
        to fix it? I tried M-x load-file .emacs but indentation sticks at
        2. Thanks.
        \_ this question was answered already. search the archives.
        \_ (setq-default c-basic-offset 4)  At least, that's what's in
           the archives.
        \_ So the following works for c, but somehow doesn't work for
           java, anyone know why?
                (setq         indent-level 2)
                (setq         c-indent-level 2)
                (setq         c-basic-indent 2)
                (setq         c-basic-offset 2)   ; this works!
                (setq-default c-basic-offset 2)   ; this works!
                ; none of the followings work!
                (setq         java-indent-level 4)
                (setq         java-basic-indent 4)
                (setq         java-basic-offset 4)
                (setq-default java-basic-offset 4)
           \_ maybe because there isn't a java-basic-offset variable, duh.
              java-mode is just a part of cc-mode.
                \_ so, in another word, emacs only allows 1 indentation
                   for all the modes?
                   \_ of course not. it just uses that sort of naming
                      convention. do 'info ccmode' and look at the section
                      on hooks.
        \_ USE PENCIL!
           \_ HUG TREE!
              \_ LIGHT CANDLE!
                 \_ CURSE THE GLARE!
                    \_ that's "CURSE GLARE!"
                       \_ AVOID PRONOUNS!
                          \_ LOOKUP "ARTICLE"!
                 \_ can you guys FUCK OFF!
                    \_ USE LINUX!
                    \_ CONTROL ANGER!!!!!
                       \_ ESCHEW !!!! !
        \_ (setq-default c-basic-offset 4)
        \_ Use M-x view-lossage to check what keystrokes you recently pressed.
           Maybe you changed the setting by mistake yourself.

4/3     (setq indent-tabs-mode nil)
        in .emacs has been the best thing I ever did in my 10 years as an
        emacs user. The tabification is just wayyyy annoying. Spaces rule.
        Fuck tabs go space!
        \_ doesn't work for me. When I save I still get tabs. How do I make
           it untabify automatically? Thanks.
        \_ what's wrong with tabs?  do you know using spaces is so annoying!?
           especially when I want to format my code, I have to hit space
           so manytimes.  With tab you get things done quicker.  The best
           practice is to have everyone working on the same file agree on
           the tab space.  Then problem solved.
           \_ you must use a crappy editor. do you use pico or something?
           \_ Please find out what it does before you comment on it.  It still
              lets you hit the TAB key to indent, but it insert spaces instead
              of tabs to the buffer.
                \_ that works for you, but someone else use a different editor
                   will have the pain to space things out.  One used to be
                   able to hit the del button and a tab is erased, now one has
                   to keep hitting space depending how deep the code is at.
                   All the time wasted on hitting the spacebar or the backspace
                   while coding can't be efficient.  Just simply agree on the
                   tab space, one setting and everyone is happy to use their
                   own editor of choice.
                   \_ Only users of a shit editor would have such pain.
                      You don't have to "keep hitting space" either, if you
                      have something like the mode-dependent indents in emacs.
                      Spaces are the common denominator, asking for tabs is
                      asking for special arrangement. In many default tools,
                      and printers, tab widths default to 8 which is ugly,
                      especially when spaces get mixed with tabs.
           \_ I'm with spaceman...tabs are annoying at best to get right,
              spaces are a no-brainer and always work. Just hope the editor
              you use lets you substitute the right number of spaces for
              a tab.
              \_ As the guy above noted, that's exactly what this command
                 does in emacs.
                 \_ Yes, but I'm talking more about an editor-agnostic
                    environment (i.e., not everyone using emacs).
                    \_ many other fine editors support this too. if you want
                       to drive a scooter on the freeway and complain about
                       how everyone is going so fast, well...

3/3     So I've compiled emacs 20.X and emacs 21.X and found out that 20.X
        with X is MUCH MUCH zippier than 21.X. Why is that?
        \_ they both work fine for me, unless you're MUCH MUCH more
           sensitive about zippiness than me.
        \_ tradition.  higher version # always = more bloat.

3/3     /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lX11
        What is wrong? I've included /usr/X11R6/lib and still no luck...
        \_ if you included the actual command line and OS details, maybe
           someone could give a more helpful response.
        gcc -nostdlib `./prefix-args -Xlinker  -R/usr/X11R6/lib -z nocombreloc -\
L/usr/X11R6/lib` -o temacs pre-crt0.o /usr/lib/crt1.o /usr/lib/crti.o dispnew.o\
frame.o scroll.o xdisp.o xmenu.o window.o charset.o coding.o category.o ccl.o cm\
.o term.o xfaces.o xterm.o xfns.o xselect.o xrdb.o fontset.o emacs.o keyboard.o\
macros.o keymap.o sysdep.o buffer.o filelock.o insdel.o marker.o minibuf.o filei\
o.o dired.o filemode.o cmds.o casetab.o casefiddle.o indent.o search.o regex.o u\
ndo.o alloc.o data.o doc.o editfns.o callint.o eval.o floatfns.o fns.o print.o l\
read.o abbrev.o syntax.o unexelf.o mocklisp.o bytecode.o process.o callproc.o re\
gion-cache.o sound.o atimer.o doprnt.o strftime.o intervals.o textprop.o composi\
te.o md5.o terminfo.o lastfile.o vm-limit.o ../oldXMenu/libXMenu11.a -L/usr/X11R\
6/lib -L/project/tom/lib -lX11 -lncurses -lm -lgcc -lc -lgcc /usr/lib/crtn.o
        \_ various "maybes": try -lx11; are you getting the error at compile
           time or runtime (if latter, man ldconfig); reduce it to a
           a smaller testcase (find some small source file that uses X
           and compile that); find out what exactly your X lib is called
           (the errors says that it can't find "-lX11", not "X11" so maybe
           it's interpreting it incorrectly.

3/2     How do I disable tab in emacs and make it output space only
        automatically (without doing "untabify" manually)? Thanks.
        \_ Why don't emacs users just mail directly to psb?  He's the only
           one here who knows anything about it.
           \_ on the contrary. (setq indent-tabs-mode nil). but since that
              only does it for the current buffer, you may want to do
              (setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) in .emacs.el
              or whatever.
           \_ do not underestimate the motd
        \_ Just do it on write?
      (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook
                (lambda ()
                  (add-hook 'local-write-file-hooks
                            (lambda () (untabify (point-min)(point-max)))) ...

1/27    If you used jove before do you still use it now?
        yes: .....
        no: .....
        \_ converted to emacs
        what is jove:
        \_ before what?  there was something after jove?
        \_ Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs (4.16)
        \_ haven't used jove since memory became cheap

12/30   Does anyone know what happened to Windows port of Emacs 21.x?
        I can only find downloads for 20.7 now on gnu.
        \_ look harder: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/windows/emacs/21.3
           \_ There are only README files in there.
              \_ tried reading any of them? you might have noticed that
                 http://ftp.gnu.org was hacked a while back, and they haven't
                 gotten verified files back up for some things, which is
                 pretty lame.
                 \_ Ah, thanks.  I tried to read them but somehow my
                    gunzip reports they weren't valid gzip files. -op
        \_ Is there really any difference?
           \_ Yes, 21 looks a lot more like Xemacs than previous versions.
              To OP, just get xemacs if you really want all that
              whizbang eyecandy that 21 gives you over 20.
              \_ 21 does syntax highlighting in consoles.
                 \_ can't you guys just edit?  do you really need all the toys
                    just to write some code?
                    \_ wait, let me guess. "i program with ED!!!"
                       \_ BZZZT! nice try.  What's wrong with any version of
                          emacs after, say, version 16.x?
                          \_ what's wrong with a car with, say, no power door
                             locks? depends on who you ask.

11/20   Setting up colours on my emacs. How do I check what colors are
        available on my OSX? thanks.
        \- mr. emacs doesnt like helping people with font-lock or color
           questions but mr. emacs suggesting trying M-x list-colors-display.
           On the question of homosexual marriage: try "papaya whip"

11/18   I'm using Emacs 21.X.X and it's complaining the following: "Error in
        init file: Symbol's function definition is void: hilit-translate"
        What is wrong?
        \_ exactly what it's saying maybe? i've not been impressed with
           the default redhat 9 install. one should really customize their
           own .emacs anyway.
        \_ 21.X.X?  Yeesh.  Kids today.  Back in the day we had emacs 17.x.
           We didn't have the E or the X.X.  We had to have one lousy .x and
           be happy with it.
           \_ Back in the days I used jove.  -- !OP
              \_ hah!  I still use jove!  If jove isn't installed, a unix
                 system isn't complete.
              \_ obREALMENUSEED!

11/7    My emacs says hilit-translate has a null definition, what does that
        mean?

10/9    in elisp, what's the difference between setq and set-variable?
        I've googled to no avail.
        \_ According to M-x describe-function, the name of the variable in setq
           is not evaluated.  So I guess you can't do something like
           "(setq (foo bar baz) 3)" but you can with set-variable.

10/3    Anybody know of a linux application to create and view SVG's? I know
        I could "draw" them in emacs-xml-mode, but I want to see them!
        \_ I think KDE 3.2 will partially support them.
        \_ http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg

9/3     What editor can be controlled by another program?  What I want is to
        have my program launch, say ED, and the user edit a given file.  Only
        a subset of ED's command is avaialbe to the user.  The rest of the
        functionality is controlled by the parent program, so that ED is
        acting like an embedded editor.
        \_ rex
           \_ Do you mean red?
        \_ I should have said that I want a VISUAL editor that can be embedded.
        \_ list the restrictions you want... if you just want to, e.g., limit
           file access, you can probably wrap it in a jail or something like
           that.
           \_ Suppose my program asks the user to type/edit some documents at
              some stage, and I don't want to write an embedded editor just
              for that.  The user is not allowed to edit any other file or
              change buffer (as in emacs).  And the parent program can change
              the file/buffer without relaunching the editor.  I guess the
              EMACS way is to write the program in elisp etc so everything
              is inside editor.  I want the other way around.
              \_ What are you actually trying to do?  If you want that level
                 of control you're going to have to completely manage the
                 widget.  This isn't as bad as it seems, many toolkits have
                 powerful rich text editor classes.

9/2     When I double-click the "FOO" part in "FOO_BAR" in an xterm, it selects
        the whole word "FOO_BAR".  However, when I do the same thing in
        Emacs20, it only selects "FOO".  Why?
        \- probably emacs notion of what word boundaries are. where does it
           delete to if you run delete-word or fwd-word. you can change the
           regexp. --psb
           \_ forward-word and kill-word only forwards over and kills "FOO".
              How do I change the regexp?  Thx.

8/20    Georgy (she has a CSUA acct) got /.'d...
        \_ she was also on the front page of USA Today, but of course that's
           nothing to slashdot.
        \_ she has my view on text editors:
        I'm so glad you asked!!
        Both. vi for quick editing, emacs (NOT xemacs) for coding projects.
        \_ As long as she isn't slapping the motd, she's okay by me.
        \_ What do people have against xemacs?

8/15    Is it really worth it for me to learn emacs?  I've been
        getting by with pico and vi for years and years and am pretty
        busy, but there sure seem to be a lot of emacs fans.
        Is there things i can't do because i don't use emacs?
        Is there uber-cool cvs plugins i should be using that i can't
        get for vi?  I know i'm risking a religious war, but i really
        am just asking and want to know. -phuqm
        \- you can use one of the vi-emulations in emacs. although i think
           they will bea little tricky to use if you know 0 emacs. --psb
        Is there things i can't do because i don't use emacs?
        Is there uber-cool cvs plugins i should be using that i can't
        get for vi?  I know i'm risking a religious war, but i really
        am just asking and want to know. -phuqm
         \_ what do you mean you're not a troll?  you don't even exist- danh
            \_ how can he be a troll if he doesn't exist? how did he post
               all that stuff if he doesn't exist?  what are you talking
               about?
        \_ I only use emacs, but there are many people here at my company
           who only use vi and they get by fine.
            \_ well, i get by fine too, but sometimes one "gets by"
               on american cheese 'cause he doesn't know that real cheese
               exists.  If there really is some spread-sheet hook (as
               discussed below) and/or other cool/powerful things about
           \_ I used RMAIL and then VMail in emacs and I loved it.  But now at
               emacs, then maybe it is worth learning. -phuqm
               \_ who moved my cheese!?!?
                  \_ what color is your cheese?
                  \_ please don't start that here
                     \_ that was a joke. your consternation is more of a
                        conversation starter than the joke
                        \_ you dont want to know
        \_ I use emacs when coding several files. I use vi for making small
           edits to those files or for writing perl/bash scripts. vi has the
           advantage in that it is quick to load and on almost every unix box.
           My big three pros about Emacs are
           1. fancy syntax highlighting
           \_ vi also has
           2. mouse support (!) if you running X or Windows
           \_ This is a plus?  Free yourself from the mouse.  You'll get more
              done.
              \_ Does emacs support a joystick?
           3. auto-tabbing
           \_ vi also has
           There are a million other features, those are just my favorites.
           \_ I used RMAIL and then VMail in emacs and I like them.  But now at
              this job I'm forced to use Outlook.
           \_ I concur. vi for stuff like our beloved motd. emacs for several
              C/Perl/language-du-jour files
        \_ This is kind of OT, but something I've always wanted: the major
           drawback (for me) with emacs was the setup process.  Once I had
           syntax highlighting, auto-tabbing, find-this-method-definition,
           etc., things were SUPERB.  But getting there, and staying
           there, has never been easy, and I'm currently using Eclipse,
           which I like.  Are there any quick and easy "distributions"
           of emacs that are well-polished and targetted to, say, java
           and jsp, or C/C++, or XML development?
        \_ I hated emacs setup and chording until I got RSI.  Now I happily use
           Vim, and have everything I liked about emacs in Vim out-of-the-box
           with the exception of gdb integration.

7/2     I just installed Emacs and XEmacs for Win2k. They both seem to kind of
        suck. Neither seem to automatically fontify. Does Xemacs vs emacs
        have a better reputation on NT (on UNIX I usually prefer emacs bc of
        the faster load time)
        also, anyone have a good NT .emacs file that I can steal?
        \_ Hmm.  I run emacs on win2k and have no problems getting emacs to
           fontify.  Are you sure you've got it set up correctly?
        \_ Post your username so I can send you mine.
        \_ Do you have "(global-font-lock-mode t)" in your %HOME%\_emacs?
           -- yuen