Growing List

Here is a growing list of countries, viewing my blogs. This is based on November 2005 Stats. Buried it in October to hide it some. . .

• Nov 01: Japan, US
• Nov 02: Mexico, United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Japan, Poland
• Nov 01: Japan, US
• Nov 02: Mexico, United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Poland
• Nov 06: Croatia (Hrvatska), Australia, Brazil
• Nov 09: Seychelles, Netherlands, Germany, France, China
• Nov 10: Pakistan, Canada
• Nov 21: Austria, Philippines
• Nov 23: Taiwan, Russian Federation

Information
GlR

External: Wikipedia

What do they say about XEmacs and E-macs in Wikipedia? . . .

• GNU E-macs Entry
• XEmacs Entry
• Vim Editor Entry
• Linux Text Editors

Vim is a very good editor, as well. It's commands are more key symbolic. Vim stands for Vi Improved. The benefit of Vim over XEmacs is load-up time and installation size. Almost every Linux system comes with vim or vi. XEmacs and E-macs do tend to occupy a lot of space, around 50 megs or some such number. Installations frugal on space or minimal number of installed packages, leaving Emacsen editors out of the install choices, gives you a noticeable savings.

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

External: The XEmacs/GNU E-macs Schism

What happened? Why the Split? How different are these two fellow Emacsen? . . .

The Lemacs/FSFmacs Schism Only the top part of this page has the information. The remaining 70% are the emails showing the "unbalance" between the two main players. Jamie Zawinski and Richard Stallman

The timeline behind these events, and maintainers involved.

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

Tip: List Keys Used

Question: How can I show keys and commands, I just entered? . . .

Answer: Well, yes, you can see what you have been typing. The view-lossage function, it's technical name.

View Last 100 Keypresses: Ctrl-h, l.
Close the buffer: Ctrl-x, k, enter. (When you are done looking at the buffer.)

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

Apps: E-macs Speaks

What? You can talk to your editor? Why would you do that? . . .

This should be the next "new!" revolution in computer use. Voice applications and text to voice, voice to text.

Of course, there already are several such applications and OS supported programs. However, until everyone has it on their computer and it becomes "normal" to talk to your computer. The revolution won't be underway, until that point, to me. (People with disabilities are already using such systems.) (I've always wanted to learn braille and get a braille computer output display. Not a bad option to have open for getting older.)

• So, what does XEmacs have to do with speech-enabled applications? Just so happens, there is an E-macspeaks package. I'm not going to cover it here, yet. I don't have such a system. Wish I did. (This is the other Emacsen editor. However, I'm sure the package will work on XEmacs, as well. This gives me something to check into and confirm, later.)

However, here is a manual on it. Feel free to read it and think about the possibilities.

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

External: Searching the Blog

Question: Why use this blog? . . .

A newbie to advanced user "tip bank" for XEmacs users. Plus, for my own use in composing XEmacs ideas and new directions to check out.

The best way to "search it," is by the search feature. (This is for the Behind Nullx; second edition blog, only.) Simply, go to "search this blog" section and enter a few keywords.

• XEmacs is a fantastic editor and very powerful. However, there are indeed so many keyboard particulars. Plus, even with a reference sheet in hand. Remembering, "how did I do that," becomes a sticky problem.

This is exactly one of the largest issues, I use this blog to solve, also.

GlR

PS. Perhaps, in time, I'll create a cross reference of common terms. However, until there is a large blog base. The Movable Type search is certainly powerful enough. It even supports regex searching.

External: Emacsen Hot Links

What is Emacsen? A generic term for "all E-macs" family based editors.

Yes, there are actually Emacsen editors outside of E-macs and XEmacs, as well.

Here are the links. . . .

• E-macs Quotes


• Alex Shinn's E-macs Shrine


• E-macs FAQ Text


• Joe Keane Elisp files


• Dennis Howe Elisp files


• Turnbull Tools Web Site


• Debian apt-cache search list of E-macs


• Eric Ludlam: CEDET: Collection of E-macs Development Environment Tools


• E-macs Goodies: Barry Warsaw


• Things LISP


• SWIG: Tutorial


• GR: Customing E-macs Site


• Martin Schwenke: E-macs Hacks


• Michael Kifer: Viper, Ediff: E-macs page


• Wonderworks: Kyle Jones


• Noah Friedman E-macs Code


• M. Grigni E-macs Hacks


• Socha: my.gnus.org: Text Message Reader


• WOW! E-macs Tiny Tools Site


• Newbie Tutorial Reference Card


• The E-macs Wiki


• Stephen Eglen's amazing Elisp collection.


• Eglen's E-macs LISP List


• Open Directory Project: E-macs Page


• DMOZ OPD: Editors

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

External: Info Page's Sites

• XEmacs Info.gz TOC


• Gnu Info: Library Site One


• Gnu Info: Library Site Two Larger


• XEmacs Man Page: FreeBSD Site
  
  I believe this matches the Info Viewer of XEmacs? It is handy to have an Internet resource though.
  
  Platform: Linux
  Level: Amateur
  GlR

Tip: Save As File

Question: So, I'm editing a file and I want to save it under another name. How do I do that? . . .

Why would I need to? Quite often, it is useful to "change a file" in steps. So, you'll save it with different names after each stage. Such as: fileedit.txt, fileed10,txt, fileed11.txt, fileed12.txt, fileeg20.txt, and so on.

Answer 1: The keyboard sequence is Ctrl-x, Ctrl-w. Then, type the name of your file.

Answer 2: Menu, File, Save As, and type your name. Although, the dired viewer will popup. You still have to type the name in full.

• I will cover dired, later. Just another one of those applications within XEmacs.

Platform: Linux
Level: Basic
GlR

Tip: Transpose Words

Question: How to flip two words. . . .

Answer: Occasionally, you'll run into circumstances to flip words. They have to be beside each other of course. Simply use the transpose command.

A curious thing is it works by ignoring symbols. So, if you want to switch a boolean variables value. Try this.

statePrinting = TRUE; // FALSE

Place the cursor on the // and try it out.

Capitalize Word: Alt-t

Platform: Linux
Level: Basic
GlR

Modes: Info Mode

Question: Why should I care about modes? . . .
First off, if you haven't already. Please read about major and minor modes in the E-macs HOW-TO. It clearly describes the modes & more. Beside, the several options Emacsen have.

• XEmacs has an Info browser within itself. (Although, there is also an Info viewer on most Unix systems.) This is a documentation portal to an extensive online reference of XEmacs, components of XE, and programs connected to XE.

If your system doesn't have it installed? Simply google it, talk to your Sys Admin, or install a different Linux. No big deal.

Info Window: Alt-x info, enter.
(If you get a directory not found error? Just Ctrl-x, 1, and go to the Info Buffer frame.)

= Check it out: Move to an italicized topic and hit enter. (When you are in Info Browser. p for previous sub-topic, n for next sub-topic, t for top, h for HELP with Info.)
Close the Buffer: Ctrl-x, k, enter

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

Tip: More Changing

Question: I just want to change a the casing of a whole word. How can I do it? . . .

Answer: If you just need to change case of a word? Of course, XEmacs can. (The cursor must be place on it, as expected.)

You do need to place it at the starting letter of the word. Otherwise, it will only start from the letter it is on.

Upcase (whole) Word: Alt-u
Downcase Word: Alt-l
Capitalize Word: Alt-c

Platform: Linux
Level: Basic
GlR

Tip: Replacing Control Characters

Question: What is a control character? Why would I want to replace them? . . .

First, control character is a term for any non-printable symbol in an ASCII section of your text. Usually, they told a teletype to perform some sort of action. Which "transformed" into telling our ASCII printers to echo it. Then, the next generation became involved (after 1980) and now we have "outright anarchy." Anyhow.

• Why replace them? Here is why. Because, text files often get littered with them. Or you need to change LF/CR pairs to CR for Unix editing. (Although, usually I use unix2dos or dos2unix for the LF conversions.)

Steps:

1. Move to where the control character is.
   
2. Select it as a region
   
3. Start the regex Search-Replace command
   
4. Replace one occurence and then all the rest.
   

= Details

• Move there.
  
• Select Region: Ctrl-space, then cursor right
  
• Copy the region: Alt-y
  
• Start Regex Search-Replace: Alt-%
  
• = Yank back character: Ctrl-y, enter
  
• = Type replace character(s) or nada: **, enter
  
• = Hit "y" to replace once, "n" to skip one, then "!" to just replace the rest.
  

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

Tip: Copy the Shell

Coder Habit: Quite often as a System Administrator you need to capture the contents of a bash shell window. Why? So, you can save pertinent information or "create special" shell scripts to manage files, directories, or networks.

Quite often, I'll be running this sequence of commands. Simply: launch shell, issue commands, mark entire buffer, kill buffer (the shell), yank (killed) buffer.

Launch Shell: Alt-x, shell, enter
Issue a command: ls -ltr

Select whole buffer: Ctrl-x, h, enter
Copy region: Alt-w
Kill buffer: Ctrl-x, k, enter
Yank buffer: Ctrl-y

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR

Tip: Multiple Undo

Question: I just typed something, erased my whole buffer, or ran out tons of wrong commands. How do I restore my text?

Answer 1: First, if you don't need to save changes and simply want to release the original file. You can just exit XEmacs and don't save changes.

If you decide to "just exit" XEmacs? Please be aware, usually XEmacs will auto-save your file, after so many minutes. (This is an option you can configure, of course. However, changing the custom.el file is a later topic.)

Answer 2: Or simply invoke Undo. Ctrl-x, u, and repeat to your preference.

Exit: Ctrl-x, Ctrl-c, (to not save!), n, (leave with modified buffers?) yes, enter.
Undo: Ctrl-x, u
Multiple Undo: Repeat the above line.

Platform: Linux
Level: Amateur
GlR