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Date:      Thu, 25 Nov 1999 17:27:12 -0500
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@mojave.sitaranetworks.com>
To:        Mark Ovens <mark@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Cc:        Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net>, James A Wilde <james.wilde@telia.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Programmers' editor?
Message-ID:  <19991125172712.03192@mojave.sitaranetworks.com>
In-Reply-To: <19991125221140.D1342@marder-1>; from Mark Ovens on Thu, Nov 25, 1999 at 10:11:41PM %2B0000
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.9911231240360.4557-100000@fw.wintelcom.net> <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> <19991125221140.D1342@marder-1>

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On Thursday, 25 November 1999 at 22:11:41 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 25, 1999 at 03:30:45PM -0500, Greg Lehey wrote:
>>> 	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).
>>
>> 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.
>
> I take it that by this you mean ``M-x mh-letter-mode''? 

No, that's something to do with mh mode, I'd guess.  Oops, I see the
problem.  Put this in your .emacs:

(defun letter-mode ()			;this gets called by F8
  (interactive)
  (indented-text-mode)
  (flyspell-mode nil)
  (auto-fill-mode nil) )

What you really wanted was auto-fill-mode.  If you want flyspell mode,
you'll also need to install ispell (Ports Collection).

> I tried it, but just get:
>
> 	Cannot find the commands 'inc' and 'mhl'

They're probably executables for mh.

> 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.

No, it doesn't seem to do anything, does it?  If you do m-x
auto-fill-mode, it will work correctly, but letter-mode might be even
better.

>> No, but O'Reilly does a book.
>>
>
> Is that a personal recommendation?

Hmm.  I don't have it at hand, so I can't check, but ISTR it wasn't
too bad.

Greg
--
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