From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Nov 25 14:12:22 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from monsoon.mail.pipex.net (monsoon.mail.pipex.net [158.43.128.69]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 59A2314EFE for ; Thu, 25 Nov 1999 14:12:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mark@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org) Received: (qmail 7190 invoked from network); 25 Nov 1999 22:12:16 -0000 Received: from userbr41.uk.uudial.com (HELO marder-1.) (62.188.146.234) by smtp.dial.pipex.com with SMTP; 25 Nov 1999 22:12:16 -0000 Received: (from mark@localhost) by marder-1. (8.9.3/8.8.8) id WAA02449; Thu, 25 Nov 1999 22:11:41 GMT (envelope-from mark) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 22:11:41 +0000 From: Mark Ovens To: Greg Lehey Cc: Brooks Davis , James A Wilde , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Programmers' editor? Message-ID: <19991125221140.D1342@marder-1> References: <00e101bf3681$44cb04a0$8c0aa8c0@hk.tbv.se> <19991124103253.B2554@orion.ac.hmc.edu> <19991124135521.44585@mojave.sitaranetworks.com> <19991125192634.B316@marder-1> <19991125153045.40243@mojave.sitaranetworks.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0pre2i In-Reply-To: <19991125153045.40243@mojave.sitaranetworks.com> Organization: Total lack of Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, Nov 25, 1999 at 03:30:45PM -0500, Greg Lehey wrote: > =20 > Brave man. With "newbie", I really meant somebody who hadn't used > either editor. I'm not trying to convert vi users. >=20 Well it seems a good idea to learn emacs. I can see that it has a lot of useful features; run compilers, debuggers, apply patches, use version control etc. all from within the editor, and it is easier to manipulate multiple files. > > After the first couple of hours finding my way around (much use of > > C-h) I got quite productive with it. The biggest difference I had to > > adjust to was the fact that it doesn't have a command mode, any non > > Ctrl-, Meta-, Shift-, Esc- chars you type go into the document, but > > once I got used to that it wasn't so bad. >=20 > I'd look on that as a plus. I can imagine it is, when I get used to it :) [snip] >=20 > Yes, I don't understand that either. It's easy enough to bind, of > course. I have this in my .emacs: >=20 > (global-set-key "=18=07" 'goto-line) >=20 And now so do I. > > Indenting is a big mystery. OK, when in C-mode it will > > auto-indent, but for non-code text it doesn't seem to work. > > This e-mail is done in emacs and indenting this paragraph and > > the one above I found impossible to do other than manually. > > > > The first line of each was started with a TAB but no way could I make > > emacs indent the subsequent lines to match (``:se ai'' will do it > > automatically in vi, and if you later edit it and mess it up then > > ``!}fmt'' will clean it up). I tried selecting the paragraph and then > > Edit->Fill, but all it did was split it into lines ~75 chars but only > > the first line was indented! (the ``goto-line'' paragraph above). >=20 > Emacs has a different approach to this issue. Each buffer has a mode > assigned to it. When you edit C text, you automatically get the > c-mode loaded. With text, by default, you get fundamental, which > doesn't know much about indenting. The first thing you can do is load > letter-mode, which will do what you want to do. It also modifies the > way m-q (fill paragraph) works. >=20 I take it that by this you mean ``M-x mh-letter-mode''? I tried it, but just get: Cannot find the commands 'inc' and 'mhl' There is "Auto Fill (word wrap) in Text modes" on the Help->Options menu, but that doesn't seem to do anything. It certainly isn't formatting this paragraph as I type it. >=20 > No, but O'Reilly does a book. >=20 Is that a personal recommendation? Mark (Who's determined to master emacs) --=20 PERL has been described as "the duct tape of the Internet" and "the Unix Swiss Army chainsaw" - Computer Shopper 12/99 ________________________________________________________________ FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org My Webpage http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark/ mailto:mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message