This is ../info/emacs, produced by makeinfo version 4.0f from
emacs.texi.
This is the Fourteenth edition of the `GNU Emacs Manual', updated
for Emacs version 21.2.
INFO-DIR-SECTION Emacs
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Emacs: (emacs). The extensible self-documenting text editor.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
Published by the Free Software Foundation 59 Temple Place, Suite 330
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Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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Invariant Sections being "The GNU Manifesto", "Distribution" and "GNU
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Manual," and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the
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modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free
Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development."
File: emacs, Node: General Variables, Next: Misc Variables, Up: Environment
General Variables
-----------------
Here is an alphabetical list of specific environment variables that
have special meanings in Emacs, giving the name of each variable and
its meaning. Most of these variables are also used by some other
programs. Emacs does not require any of these environment variables to
be set, but it uses their values if they are set.
`CDPATH'
Used by the `cd' command to search for the directory you specify,
when you specify a relative directory name.
`EMACS_UNIBYTE'
Defining this environment variable with a nonempty value directs
Emacs to do almost everything with single-byte buffers and
strings. It is equivalent to using the `--unibyte' command-line
option on each invocation. *Note Initial Options::.
`EMACSDATA'
Directory for the architecture-independent files that come with
Emacs. This is used to initialize the Lisp variable
`data-directory'.
`EMACSDOC'
Directory for the documentation string file, `DOC-EMACSVERSION'.
This is used to initialize the Lisp variable `doc-directory'.
`EMACSLOADPATH'
A colon-separated list of directories(1) to search for Emacs Lisp
files--used to initialize `load-path'.
`EMACSPATH'
A colon-separated list of directories to search for executable
files--used to initialize `exec-path'.
`ESHELL'
Used for shell-mode to override the `SHELL' environment variable.
`HISTFILE'
The name of the file that shell commands are saved in between
logins. This variable defaults to `~/.bash_history' if you use
Bash, to `~/.sh_history' if you use ksh, and to `~/.history'
otherwise.
`HOME'
The location of the user's files in the directory tree; used for
expansion of file names starting with a tilde (`~'). On MS-DOS, it
defaults to the directory from which Emacs was started, with `/bin'
removed from the end if it was present. On Windows, the default
value of `HOME' is `C:/', the root directory of drive `C:'.
`HOSTNAME'
The name of the machine that Emacs is running on.
`INCPATH'
A colon-separated list of directories. Used by the `complete'
package to search for files.
`INFOPATH'
A colon-separated list of directories in which to search for Info
files.
`LC_ALL'
`LC_COLLATE'
`LC_CTYPE'
`LC_MESSAGES'
`LC_MONETARY'
`LC_NUMERIC'
`LC_TIME'
`LANG'
The user's preferred locale. The locale has six categories,
specified by the environment variables `LC_COLLATE' for sorting,
`LC_CTYPE' for character encoding, `LC_MESSAGES' for system
messages, `LC_MONETARY' for monetary formats, `LC_NUMERIC' for
numbers, and `LC_TIME' for dates and times. If one of these
variables is not set, the category defaults to the value of the
`LANG' environment variable, or to the default `C' locale if
`LANG' is not set. But if `LC_ALL' is specified, it overrides the
settings of all the other locale environment variables.
The value of the LC_CTYPE category is matched against entries in
`locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
`locale-preferred-coding-systems', to select a default language
environment and coding system. *Note Language Environments::.
`LOGNAME'
The user's login name. See also `USER'.
`MAIL'
The name of the user's system mail inbox.
`MAILRC'
Name of file containing mail aliases. (The default is
`~/.mailrc'.)
`MH'
Name of setup file for the mh system. (The default is
`~/.mh_profile'.)
`NAME'
The real-world name of the user.
`NNTPSERVER'
The name of the news server. Used by the mh and Gnus packages.
`ORGANIZATION'
The name of the organization to which you belong. Used for
setting the `Organization:' header in your posts from the Gnus
package.
`PATH'
A colon-separated list of directories in which executables reside.
This is used to initialize the Emacs Lisp variable `exec-path'.
`PWD'
If set, this should be the default directory when Emacs was
started.
`REPLYTO'
If set, this specifies an initial value for the variable
`mail-default-reply-to'. *Note Mail Headers::.
`SAVEDIR'
The name of a directory in which news articles are saved by
default. Used by the Gnus package.
`SHELL'
The name of an interpreter used to parse and execute programs run
from inside Emacs.
`TERM'
The type of the terminal that Emacs is using. This variable must
be set unless Emacs is run in batch mode. On MS-DOS, it defaults
to `internal', which specifies a built-in terminal emulation that
handles the machine's own display. If the value of `TERM'
indicates that Emacs runs in non-windowed mode from `xterm' or a
similar terminal emulator, the background mode defaults to
`light', and Emacs will choose colors that are appropriate for a
light background.
`TERMCAP'
The name of the termcap library file describing how to program the
terminal specified by the `TERM' variable. This defaults to
`/etc/termcap'.
`TMPDIR'
Used by the Emerge package as a prefix for temporary files.
`TZ'
This specifies the current time zone and possibly also daylight
saving time information. On MS-DOS, if `TZ' is not set in the
environment when Emacs starts, Emacs defines a default value as
appropriate for the country code returned by DOS. On MS-Windows,
Emacs does not use `TZ' at all.
`USER'
The user's login name. See also `LOGNAME'. On MS-DOS, this
defaults to `root'.
`VERSION_CONTROL'
Used to initialize the `version-control' variable (*note Backup
Names::).
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) Here and below, whenever we say "colon-separated list of
directories", it pertains to Unix and GNU/Linux systems. On MS-DOS and
MS-Windows, the directories are separated by semi-colons instead, since
DOS/Windows file names might include a colon after a drive letter.
File: emacs, Node: Misc Variables, Prev: General Variables, Up: Environment
Miscellaneous Variables
-----------------------
These variables are used only on particular configurations:
`COMSPEC'
On MS-DOS and MS-Windows, the name of the command interpreter to
use when invoking batch files and commands internal to the shell.
On MS-DOS this is also used to make a default value for the
`SHELL' environment variable.
`NAME'
On MS-DOS, this variable defaults to the value of the `USER'
variable.
`TEMP'
`TMP'
On MS-DOS and MS-Windows, these specify the name of the directory
for storing temporary files in.
`EMACSTEST'
On MS-DOS, this specifies a file to use to log the operation of the
internal terminal emulator. This feature is useful for submitting
bug reports.
`EMACSCOLORS'
On MS-DOS, this specifies the screen colors. It is useful to set
them this way, since otherwise Emacs would display the default
colors momentarily when it starts up.
The value of this variable should be the two-character encoding of
the foreground (the first character) and the background (the second
character) colors of the default face. Each character should be
the hexadecimal code for the desired color on a standard PC
text-mode display. For example, to get blue text on a light gray
background, specify `EMACSCOLORS=17', since 1 is the code of the
blue color and 7 is the code of the light gray color.
The PC display usually supports only eight background colors.
However, Emacs switches the DOS display to a mode where all 16
colors can be used for the background, so all four bits of the
background color are actually used.
`WINDOW_GFX'
Used when initializing the Sun windows system.
File: emacs, Node: Display X, Next: Font X, Prev: Environment, Up: Command Arguments
Specifying the Display Name
===========================
The environment variable `DISPLAY' tells all X clients, including
Emacs, where to display their windows. Its value is set by default in
ordinary circumstances, when you start an X server and run jobs
locally. Occasionally you may need to specify the display yourself; for
example, if you do a remote login and want to run a client program
remotely, displaying on your local screen.
With Emacs, the main reason people change the default display is to
let them log into another system, run Emacs on that system, but have the
window displayed at their local terminal. You might need to log in to
another system because the files you want to edit are there, or because
the Emacs executable file you want to run is there.
The syntax of the `DISPLAY' environment variable is
`HOST:DISPLAY.SCREEN', where HOST is the host name of the X Window
System server machine, DISPLAY is an arbitrarily-assigned number that
distinguishes your server (X terminal) from other servers on the same
machine, and SCREEN is a rarely-used field that allows an X server to
control multiple terminal screens. The period and the SCREEN field are
optional. If included, SCREEN is usually zero.
For example, if your host is named `glasperle' and your server is
the first (or perhaps the only) server listed in the configuration, your
`DISPLAY' is `glasperle:0.0'.
You can specify the display name explicitly when you run Emacs,
either by changing the `DISPLAY' variable, or with the option `-d
DISPLAY' or `--display=DISPLAY'. Here is an example:
emacs --display=glasperle:0 &
You can inhibit the direct use of the window system and GUI with the
`-nw' option. It tells Emacs to display using ordinary ASCII on its
controlling terminal. This is also an initial option.
Sometimes, security arrangements prevent a program on a remote system
from displaying on your local system. In this case, trying to run Emacs
produces messages like this:
Xlib: connection to "glasperle:0.0" refused by server
You might be able to overcome this problem by using the `xhost' command
on the local system to give permission for access from your remote
machine.
File: emacs, Node: Font X, Next: Colors X, Prev: Display X, Up: Command Arguments
Font Specification Options
==========================
By default, Emacs displays text in the font named `9x15', which
makes each character nine pixels wide and fifteen pixels high. You can
specify a different font on your command line through the option `-fn
NAME' (or `--font', which is an alias for `-fn').
`-fn NAME'
`--font=NAME'
Use font NAME as the default font.
Under X, each font has a long name which consists of eleven words or
numbers, separated by dashes. Some fonts also have shorter
nicknames--`9x15' is such a nickname. You can use either kind of name.
You can use wildcard patterns for the font name; then Emacs lets X
choose one of the fonts that match the pattern. Here is an example,
which happens to specify the font whose nickname is `6x13':
emacs -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-*-*-*-c-60-iso8859-1" &
You can also specify the font in your `.Xdefaults' file:
emacs.font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-*-*-*-c-60-iso8859-1
A long font name has the following form:
-MAKER-FAMILY-WEIGHT-SLANT-WIDTHTYPE-STYLE...
...-PIXELS-HEIGHT-HORIZ-VERT-SPACING-WIDTH-CHARSET
MAKER
This is the name of the font manufacturer.
FAMILY
This is the name of the font family--for example, `courier'.
WEIGHT
This is normally `bold', `medium' or `light'. Other words may
appear here in some font names.
SLANT
This is `r' (roman), `i' (italic), `o' (oblique), `ri' (reverse
italic), or `ot' (other).
WIDTHTYPE
This is normally `condensed', `extended', `semicondensed' or
`normal'. Other words may appear here in some font names.
STYLE
This is an optional additional style name. Usually it is
empty--most long font names have two hyphens in a row at this
point.
PIXELS
This is the font height, in pixels.
HEIGHT
This is the font height on the screen, measured in tenths of a
printer's point--approximately 1/720 of an inch. In other words,
it is the point size of the font, times ten. For a given vertical
resolution, HEIGHT and PIXELS are proportional; therefore, it is
common to specify just one of them and use `*' for the other.
HORIZ
This is the horizontal resolution, in pixels per inch, of the
screen for which the font is intended.
VERT
This is the vertical resolution, in pixels per inch, of the screen
for which the font is intended. Normally the resolution of the
fonts on your system is the right value for your screen;
therefore, you normally specify `*' for this and HORIZ.
SPACING
This is `m' (monospace), `p' (proportional) or `c' (character
cell).
WIDTH
This is the average character width, in pixels, multiplied by ten.
CHARSET
This is the character set that the font depicts. Normally you
should use `iso8859-1'.
You will probably want to use a fixed-width default font--that is, a
font in which all characters have the same width. Any font with `m' or
`c' in the SPACING field of the long name is a fixed-width font.
Here's how to use the `xlsfonts' program to list all the fixed-width
fonts available on your system:
xlsfonts -fn '*x*' | egrep "^[0-9]+x[0-9]+"
xlsfonts -fn '*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-m*'
xlsfonts -fn '*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-c*'
To see what a particular font looks like, use the `xfd' command. For
example:
xfd -fn 6x13
displays the entire font `6x13'.
While running Emacs, you can set the font of the current frame
(*note Frame Parameters::) or for a specific kind of text (*note
Faces::).
File: emacs, Node: Colors X, Next: Window Size X, Prev: Font X, Up: Command Arguments
Window Color Options
====================
On a color display, you can specify which color to use for various
parts of the Emacs display. To find out what colors are available on
your system, type `M-x list-colors-display', or press `C-Mouse-2' and
select `Display Colors' from the pop-up menu. If you do not specify
colors, on windowed displays the default for the background is white
and the default for all other colors is black. On a monochrome
display, the foreground is black, the background is white, and the
border is gray if the display supports that. On terminals, the
background is usually black and the foreground is white.
Here is a list of the command-line options for specifying colors:
`-fg COLOR'
`--foreground-color=COLOR'
Specify the foreground color. COLOR should be a standard color
name, or a numeric specification of the color's red, green, and
blue components as in `#4682B4' or `RGB:46/82/B4'.
`-bg COLOR'
`--background-color=COLOR'
Specify the background color.
`-bd COLOR'
`--border-color=COLOR'
Specify the color of the border of the X window.
`-cr COLOR'
`--cursor-color=COLOR'
Specify the color of the Emacs cursor which indicates where point
is.
`-ms COLOR'
`--mouse-color=COLOR'
Specify the color for the mouse cursor when the mouse is in the
Emacs window.
`-r'
`-rv'
`--reverse-video'
Reverse video--swap the foreground and background colors.
For example, to use a coral mouse cursor and a slate blue text
cursor, enter:
emacs -ms coral -cr 'slate blue' &
You can reverse the foreground and background colors through the
`-rv' option or with the X resource `reverseVideo'.
The `-fg', `-bg', and `-rv' options function on text-only terminals
as well as on window systems.
File: emacs, Node: Window Size X, Next: Borders X, Prev: Colors X, Up: Command Arguments
Options for Window Geometry
===========================
The `--geometry' option controls the size and position of the
initial Emacs frame. Here is the format for specifying the window
geometry:
`-g WIDTHxHEIGHT[{+-}XOFFSET{+-}YOFFSET]]'
Specify window size WIDTH and HEIGHT (measured in character
columns and lines), and positions XOFFSET and YOFFSET (measured in
pixels).
`--geometry=WIDTHxHEIGHT[{+-}XOFFSET{+-}YOFFSET]]'
This is another way of writing the same thing.
`{+-}' means either a plus sign or a minus sign. A plus sign before
XOFFSET means it is the distance from the left side of the screen; a
minus sign means it counts from the right side. A plus sign before
YOFFSET means it is the distance from the top of the screen, and a
minus sign there indicates the distance from the bottom. The values
XOFFSET and YOFFSET may themselves be positive or negative, but that
doesn't change their meaning, only their direction.
Emacs uses the same units as `xterm' does to interpret the geometry.
The WIDTH and HEIGHT are measured in characters, so a large font
creates a larger frame than a small font. (If you specify a
proportional font, Emacs uses its maximum bounds width as the width
unit.) The XOFFSET and YOFFSET are measured in pixels.
Since the mode line and the echo area occupy the last 2 lines of the
frame, the height of the initial text window is 2 less than the height
specified in your geometry. In non-X-toolkit versions of Emacs, the
menu bar also takes one line of the specified number. But in the X
toolkit version, the menu bar is additional and does not count against
the specified height. The tool bar, if present, is also additional.
You do not have to specify all of the fields in the geometry
specification.
If you omit both XOFFSET and YOFFSET, the window manager decides
where to put the Emacs frame, possibly by letting you place it with the
mouse. For example, `164x55' specifies a window 164 columns wide,
enough for two ordinary width windows side by side, and 55 lines tall.
The default width for Emacs is 80 characters and the default height
is 40 lines. You can omit either the width or the height or both. If
you start the geometry with an integer, Emacs interprets it as the
width. If you start with an `x' followed by an integer, Emacs
interprets it as the height. Thus, `81' specifies just the width;
`x45' specifies just the height.
If you start with `+' or `-', that introduces an offset, which means
both sizes are omitted. Thus, `-3' specifies the XOFFSET only. (If
you give just one offset, it is always XOFFSET.) `+3-3' specifies both
the XOFFSET and the YOFFSET, placing the frame near the bottom left of
the screen.
You can specify a default for any or all of the fields in
`.Xdefaults' file, and then override selected fields with a
`--geometry' option.
File: emacs, Node: Borders X, Next: Title X, Prev: Window Size X, Up: Command Arguments
Internal and External Borders
=============================
An Emacs frame has an internal border and an external border. The
internal border is an extra strip of the background color around the
text portion of the frame. Emacs itself draws the internal border.
The external border is added by the window manager outside the frame;
depending on the window manager you use, it may contain various boxes
you can click on to move or iconify the window.
`-ib WIDTH'
`--internal-border=WIDTH'
Specify WIDTH as the width of the internal border, in pixels.
`-bw WIDTH'
`--border-width=WIDTH'
Specify WIDTH as the width of the main border, in pixels.
When you specify the size of the frame, that does not count the
borders. The frame's position is measured from the outside edge of the
external border.
Use the `-ib N' option to specify an internal border N pixels wide.
The default is 1. Use `-bw N' to specify the width of the external
border (though the window manager may not pay attention to what you
specify). The default width of the external border is 2.
File: emacs, Node: Title X, Next: Icons X, Prev: Borders X, Up: Command Arguments
Frame Titles
============
An Emacs frame may or may not have a specified title. The frame
title, if specified, appears in window decorations and icons as the
name of the frame. If an Emacs frame has no specified title, the
default title has the form `INVOCATION-NAME@MACHINE' (if there is only
one frame) or the selected window's buffer name (if there is more than
one frame).
You can specify a title for the initial Emacs frame with a command
line option:
`-title TITLE'
`--title=TITLE'
`-T TITLE'
Specify TITLE as the title for the initial Emacs frame.
The `--name' option (*note Resources X::) also specifies the title
for the initial Emacs frame.
File: emacs, Node: Icons X, Next: Resources X, Prev: Title X, Up: Command Arguments
Icons
=====
Most window managers allow the user to "iconify" a frame, removing
it from sight, and leaving a small, distinctive "icon" window in its
place. Clicking on the icon window makes the frame itself appear again.
If you have many clients running at once, you can avoid cluttering up
the screen by iconifying most of the clients.
`-i'
`--icon-type'
Use a picture of a gnu as the Emacs icon.
`-iconic'
`--iconic'
Start Emacs in iconified state.
The `-i' or `--icon-type' option tells Emacs to use an icon window
containing a picture of the GNU gnu. If omitted, Emacs lets the window
manager choose what sort of icon to use--usually just a small rectangle
containing the frame's title.
The `-iconic' option tells Emacs to begin running as an icon, rather
than showing a frame right away. In this situation, the icon is the
only indication that Emacs has started; the text frame doesn't appear
until you deiconify it.
File: emacs, Node: Resources X, Next: Lucid Resources, Prev: Icons X, Up: Command Arguments
X Resources
===========
Programs running under the X Window System organize their user
options under a hierarchy of classes and resources. You can specify
default values for these options in your X resources file, usually named
`~/.Xdefaults'.
Each line in the file specifies a value for one option or for a
collection of related options, for one program or for several programs
(optionally even for all programs).
MS-Windows systems don't support `~/.Xdefaults' files, but Emacs
compiled for Windows looks for X resources in the Windows Registry,
under the keys `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs' and
`HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs'.
Programs define named resources with particular meanings. They also
define how to group resources into named classes. For instance, in
Emacs, the `internalBorder' resource controls the width of the internal
border, and the `borderWidth' resource controls the width of the
external border. Both of these resources are part of the `BorderWidth'
class. Case distinctions are significant in these names.
In `~/.Xdefaults', you can specify a value for a single resource on
one line, like this:
emacs.borderWidth: 2
Or you can use a class name to specify the same value for all resources
in that class. Here's an example:
emacs.BorderWidth: 2
If you specify a value for a class, it becomes the default for all
resources in that class. You can specify values for individual
resources as well; these override the class value, for those particular
resources. Thus, this example specifies 2 as the default width for all
borders, but overrides this value with 4 for the external border:
emacs.BorderWidth: 2
emacs.borderWidth: 4
The order in which the lines appear in the file does not matter.
Also, command-line options always override the X resources file.
The string `emacs' in the examples above is also a resource name.
It actually represents the name of the executable file that you invoke
to run Emacs. If Emacs is installed under a different name, it looks
for resources under that name instead of `emacs'.
`-name NAME'
`--name=NAME'
Use NAME as the resource name (and the title) for the initial
Emacs frame. This option does not affect subsequent frames, but
Lisp programs can specify frame names when they create frames.
If you don't specify this option, the default is to use the Emacs
executable's name as the resource name.
`-xrm RESOURCE-VALUES'
`--xrm=RESOURCE-VALUES'
Specify X resource values for this Emacs job (see below).
For consistency, `-name' also specifies the name to use for other
resource values that do not belong to any particular frame.
The resources that name Emacs invocations also belong to a class; its
name is `Emacs'. If you write `Emacs' instead of `emacs', the resource
applies to all frames in all Emacs jobs, regardless of frame titles and
regardless of the name of the executable file. Here is an example:
Emacs.BorderWidth: 2
Emacs.borderWidth: 4
You can specify a string of additional resource values for Emacs to
use with the command line option `-xrm RESOURCES'. The text RESOURCES
should have the same format that you would use inside a file of X
resources. To include multiple resource specifications in RESOURCES,
put a newline between them, just as you would in a file. You can also
use `#include "FILENAME"' to include a file full of resource
specifications. Resource values specified with `-xrm' take precedence
over all other resource specifications.
The following table lists the resource names that designate options
for Emacs, each with the class that it belongs to:
`background' (class `Background')
Background color name.
`bitmapIcon' (class `BitmapIcon')
Use a bitmap icon (a picture of a gnu) if `on', let the window
manager choose an icon if `off'.
`borderColor' (class `BorderColor')
Color name for the external border.
`borderWidth' (class `BorderWidth')
Width in pixels of the external border.
`cursorColor' (class `Foreground')
Color name for text cursor (point).
`font' (class `Font')
Font name for text (or fontset name, *note Fontsets::).
`foreground' (class `Foreground')
Color name for text.
`geometry' (class `Geometry')
Window size and position. Be careful not to specify this resource
as `emacs*geometry', because that may affect individual menus as
well as the Emacs frame itself.
If this resource specifies a position, that position applies only
to the initial Emacs frame (or, in the case of a resource for a
specific frame name, only that frame). However, the size, if
specified here, applies to all frames.
`iconName' (class `Title')
Name to display in the icon.
`internalBorder' (class `BorderWidth')
Width in pixels of the internal border.
`lineSpacing' (class `LineSpacing')
Additional space ("leading") between lines, in pixels.
`menuBar' (class `MenuBar')
Give frames menu bars if `on'; don't have menu bars if `off'.
`toolBar' (class `ToolBar')
Number of lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
`auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-`nil', the tool bar's size will be
changed automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
`minibuffer' (class `Minibuffer')
If `none', don't make a minibuffer in this frame. It will use a
separate minibuffer frame instead.
`paneFont' (class `Font')
Font name for menu pane titles, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs.
`pointerColor' (class `Foreground')
Color of the mouse cursor.
`reverseVideo' (class `ReverseVideo')
Switch foreground and background default colors if `on', use
colors as specified if `off'.
`screenGamma' (class `ScreenGamma')
Gamma correction for colors, equivalent to the frame parameter
`screen-gamma'.
`selectionFont' (class `Font')
Font name for pop-up menu items, in non-toolkit versions of Emacs.
(For toolkit versions, see *Note Lucid Resources::, also see
*Note LessTif Resources::.)
`synchronous' (class `Synchronous')
Run Emacs in synchronous mode if `on'. Synchronous mode is useful
for debugging X problems.
`title' (class `Title')
Name to display in the title bar of the initial Emacs frame.
`verticalScrollBars' (class `ScrollBars')
Give frames scroll bars if `on'; don't have scroll bars if `off'.
Here are resources for controlling the appearance of particular faces
(*note Faces::):
`FACE.attributeFont'
Font for face FACE.
`FACE.attributeForeground'
Foreground color for face FACE.
`FACE.attributeBackground'
Background color for face FACE.
`FACE.attributeUnderline'
Underline flag for face FACE. Use `on' or `true' for yes.
`FACE.attributeFamily'
Font family for face FACE.
`FACE.attributeWidth'
Relative proportional width of the font to use for face FACE. It
should be one of `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
`condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded',
`expanded', `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
`FACE.attributeHeight'
Height of the font to use for face FACE: either an integer
specifying the height in units of 1/10pt, or a floating point
number that specifies a scale factor to scale the underlying face's
default font, or a function to be called with the default height
which will return a new height.
`FACE.attributeWeight'
A weight to use for the face FACE. It must be one of
`ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
`semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
`FACE.attributeSlant'
The slant to use for the font of face FACE. It must be one of
`italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
`reverse-oblique'.
`FACE.attributeStrikeThrough'
Whether the face FACE should be drawn with a line striking through
the characters.
`FACE.attributeOverline'
Whether the characters in the face FACE should be overlined.
`FACE.attributeBox'
Whether to draw a box around the characters in face FACE.
`FACE.attributeInverse'
Whether to display the characters in face FACE in inverse video.
`FACE.attributeStipple'
The name of a pixmap data file to use for the stipple pattern, or
`false' to not use stipple for the face FACE.
`FACE.attributeBackgroundPixmap'
The background pixmap for the face FACE. Should be a name of a
pixmap file or `false'.
`FACE.attributeBold'
Whether to draw the characters in the face FACE as bold.
`FACE.attributeItalic'
Whether to draw the characters in the face FACE as italic.
File: emacs, Node: Lucid Resources, Next: LessTif Resources, Prev: Resources X, Up: Command Arguments
Lucid Menu X Resources
======================
If the Emacs installed at your site was built to use the X toolkit
with the Lucid menu widgets, then the menu bar is a separate widget and
has its own resources. The resource names contain `pane.menubar'
(following, as always, the name of the Emacs invocation, or `Emacs',
which stands for all Emacs invocations). Specify them like this:
Emacs.pane.menubar.RESOURCE: VALUE
For example, to specify the font `8x16' for the menu-bar items, write
this:
Emacs.pane.menubar.font: 8x16
Resources for _non-menubar_ toolkit pop-up menus have `menu*', in like
fashion. For example, to specify the font `8x16' for the pop-up menu
items, write this:
Emacs.menu*.font: 8x16
For dialog boxes, use `dialog' instead of `menu':
Emacs.dialog*.font: 8x16
Experience shows that on some systems you may need to add `shell.'
before the `pane.menubar' or `menu*'. On some other systems, you must
not add `shell.'.
Here is a list of the specific resources for menu bars and pop-up
menus:
`font'
Font for menu item text.
`foreground'
Color of the foreground.
`background'
Color of the background.
`buttonForeground'
In the menu bar, the color of the foreground for a selected item.
`horizontalSpacing'
Horizontal spacing in pixels between items. Default is 3.
`verticalSpacing'
Vertical spacing in pixels between items. Default is 1.
`arrowSpacing'
Horizontal spacing between the arrow (which indicates a submenu)
and the associated text. Default is 10.
`shadowThickness'
Thickness of shadow line around the widget.
`margin'
The margin of the menu bar, in characters. The default of 4 makes
the menu bar appear like the LessTif/Motif one.
File: emacs, Node: LessTif Resources, Prev: Lucid Resources, Up: Command Arguments
LessTif Menu X Resources
========================
If the Emacs installed at your site was built to use the X toolkit
with the LessTif or Motif widgets, then the menu bar, the dialog boxes,
the pop-up menus, and the file-selection box are separate widgets and
have their own resources.
The resource names for the menu bar contain `pane.menubar'
(following, as always, the name of the Emacs invocation, or `Emacs',
which stands for all Emacs invocations). Specify them like this:
Emacs.pane.menubar.SUBWIDGET.RESOURCE: VALUE
Each individual string in the menu bar is a subwidget; the
subwidget's name is the same as the menu item string. For example, the
word `File' in the menu bar is part of a subwidget named
`emacs.pane.menubar.File'. Most likely, you want to specify the same
resources for the whole menu bar. To do this, use `*' instead of a
specific subwidget name. For example, to specify the font `8x16' for
the menu-bar items, write this:
Emacs.pane.menubar.*.fontList: 8x16
This also specifies the resource value for submenus.
Each item in a submenu in the menu bar also has its own name for X
resources; for example, the `File' submenu has an item named `Save
(current buffer)'. A resource specification for a submenu item looks
like this:
Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.MENU.ITEM.RESOURCE: VALUE
For example, here's how to specify the font for the `Save (current
buffer)' item:
Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.File.Save (current buffer).fontList: 8x16
For an item in a second-level submenu, such as `Complete Word' under
`Spell Checking' under `Tools', the resource fits this template:
Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.popup_*.MENU.RESOURCE: VALUE
For example,
Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.popup_*.Spell Checking.Complete Word: VALUE
(This should be one long line.)
It's impossible to specify a resource for all the menu-bar items
without also specifying it for the submenus as well. So if you want the
submenu items to look different from the menu bar itself, you must ask
for that in two steps. First, specify the resource for all of them;
then, override the value for submenus alone. Here is an example:
Emacs.pane.menubar.*.fontList: 8x16
Emacs.pane.menubar.popup_*.fontList: 8x16
For LessTif pop-up menus, use `menu*' instead of `pane.menubar'. For
example, to specify the font `8x16' for the pop-up menu items, write
this:
Emacs.menu*.fontList: 8x16
For LessTif dialog boxes, use `dialog' instead of `menu':
Emacs.dialog*.fontList: 8x16
Emacs.dialog*.foreground: hotpink
To specify resources for the LessTif file-selection box, use `fsb*',
like this:
Emacs.fsb*.fontList: 8x16
Here is a list of the specific resources for LessTif menu bars and
pop-up menus:
`armColor'
The color to show in an armed button.
`fontList'
The font to use.
`marginBottom'
`marginHeight'
`marginLeft'
`marginRight'
`marginTop'
`marginWidth'
Amount of space to leave around the item, within the border.
`borderWidth'
The width of the border around the menu item, on all sides.
`shadowThickness'
The width of the border shadow.
`bottomShadowColor'
The color for the border shadow, on the bottom and the right.
`topShadowColor'
The color for the border shadow, on the top and the left.
File: emacs, Node: Antinews, Next: Mac OS, Prev: Command Arguments, Up: Top
Emacs 20 Antinews
*****************
For those users who live backwards in time, here is information about
downgrading to Emacs version 20. We hope you will enjoy the greater
simplicity that results from the absence of many Emacs 21 features.
* The display engine has been greatly simplified by eliminating
support for variable-size characters and other non-text display
features. This avoids the complexity of display layout in Emacs
21. To wit:
- Variable-size characters are not supported in Emacs 20. You
cannot use fonts which contain oversized characters, and
using italic fonts can result in illegible display. However,
text which uses variable-size fonts is unreadable anyway.
With all characters in a frame laid out on a regular grid,
each character having the same height and width, text is much
easier to read.
- Emacs does not display images, or play sounds. It just
displays text, as you would expect from a *text* editor.
- Specification of the font for a face now uses an XLFD font
name, for compatibility with other X applications. This
means that font attributes cannot be merged when combining
faces; however, experience shows that mergers are bad
economics. Face inheritance has also been removed, so no one
can accumulate "too much face."
- Several face appearance attributes, including 3D,
strike-through, and overline, have been eliminated.
- Emacs now provides its own "lean and mean" scroll bars
instead of using those from the X toolkit. Toggle buttons
and radio buttons in menus now look just like any other menu
item, which simplifies them, and prevents them from standing
out and distracting your attention from the other menu items.
- There are no toolbars and no tooltips; in particular, GUD
mode cannot display variable values in a tooltip when you
click on that variable's name. Instead, Emacs 20 provides a
direct interface to the debugger, so that you can type
appropriate debugger commands, such as `display foo' and
`print bar'. As these commands use explicit words, their
meaning is more self-evident.
- Colors are not available on text-only terminals. If you
_must_ have colors, but cannot afford to run X, you can now
use the MS-DOG version of Emacs inside a DOS emulator.
- The mode line is not mouse-sensitive, since it is meant only
to display information. Use keyboard commands to switch
between buffers, toggle read-only and modified status, switch
minor modes on and off, etc.
- The support for "wheeled" mice under X has been removed,
because of their slow scroll rate, and because you will find
fewer and fewer of these mice as you go back in time.
Instead Emacs 20 provides the `C-v' and `M-v' keys for
scrolling. (You can also use the scroll bar, but be advised
that it, too, may be absent in yet earlier Emacs versions.)
- Busy-cursor display is gone, as it was found to be too hard
to draw on displays whose resolution is getting lower and
lower. This means that you get the standard kind of cursor
blinking that your terminal provides.
- Some aspects of Emacs appearance, such as the colors of the
scroll bar and the menus, can only be controlled via X
resources. Since colors aren't supported except on X, it
doesn't make any sense to do this in any way but the X way.
For those users who aren't privy to X arcana, we've provided
good default colors that should make everybody happy.
- Emacs 20 adds new lines to the buffer when you move down from
the last line with `C-n' or a down-arrow.
- The variable `show-trailing-whitespace' has no special
meaning, so trailing whitespace on a line is now always
displayed correctly: as empty space. To see if a line ends
with spaces or tabs, type `C-e' on that line. Likewise,
empty lines at the end of the buffer are not marked in any
way; use `M->' to see where the end of the buffer is.
- The spacing between text lines on the display now always
follows the font design and the rules of your window manager.
This provides for predictable appearance of the displayed
text.
* Emacs 20 has simpler support for multi-lingual editing. While not
as radical a simplification as Emacs 19 will be, it goes a long
way toward eliminating some of the annoying features:
- Translations of the Emacs reference cards to other languages
are no longer part of the distribution, because in the past
we expect computer users to speak English.
- To avoid extra confusion, many language environments have been
eliminated. For example, `Polish' and `Celtic' (Latin-8)
environments are not supported. The Latin-9 environment is
gone, too, because you won't need the Euro sign in the past.
- Emacs 20 always asks you which coding system to use when
saving a buffer, unless it can use the same one that it used
to read the buffer. It does not try to see if the preferred
coding system is suitable.
- Commands which provide detailed information about character
sets and coding systems, such as `list-charset-chars',
`describe-character-set', and the `C-u C-x =' key-sequence,
no longer exist. The less said about non-ASCII characters,
the better.
- The terminal coding system cannot be set to something
CCL-based, so keyboards which produce `KOI8' and DOS/Windows
codepage codes cannot be supported directly. Instead, you
should use one of the input methods provided in the Leim
package.
* As you move back through time, some systems will become
unimportant or enter the vaporware phase, so Emacs 20 does not
support them:
- Emacs 20 cannot be built on GNU/Linux systems running on IA64
machines, and you cannot build a 64-bit Emacs on Solaris or
Irix even though there are still 64-bit versions of those
OSes.
- LynxOS is also not supported, and neither is the Macintosh,
though they still exist.
* The arrangement of menu bar items differs from most other GUI
programs. We think that uniformity of look-and-feel is boring,
and that Emacs' unique features require its unique menu-bar
configuration.
* You cannot save the options that you set from the `Options'
menu-bar menu; instead, you need to set all the options again each
time you start a new session. However, if you follow the
recommended practice and keep a single Emacs session running until
you log out, you won't have to set the options very often.
* Emacs 20 does not pop up a buffer with error messages when an
error is signaled during loading of the user's init file.
Instead, it simply announces the fact that an error happened. To
know where in the init file that was, insert `(message "foo")'
lines judiciously into the file and look for those messages in the
`*Messages*' buffer.
* Some commands no longer treat Transient Mark mode specially. For
example, `ispell' doesn't spell-check the region when Transient
Mark mode is in effect and the mark is active; instead, it checks
the current buffer. (Transient Mark mode is alien to the spirit
of Emacs, so we are planning to remove it altogether in an earlier
version.)
* `C-Down-Mouse-3' does not show what would be in the menu bar when
the menu bar is not displayed.
* For uniformity, the <delete> function key in Emacs 20 works
exactly like the <DEL> key, on both text-only terminals and window
systems--it always deletes backward. This eliminates the
inconsistency of Emacs 21, where the key labeled <delete> deletes
forward when you are using a window system, and backward on a
text-only terminals.
* The ability to place backup files in special subdirectories
(controlled by `backup-directory-alist') has been eliminated.
This makes finding your backup files much easier: they are always
in the same directory as the original files.
* Emacs no longer refuses to load Lisp files compiled by incompatible
versions of Emacs, which may contain invalid byte-code. Instead,
Emacs now dumps core when it encounters such byte-code. However,
this is a rare occurrence, and it won't happen at all when all
Emacs versions merge together, in the distant past.
* The `C-x 5 1' command has been eliminated. If you want to delete
all the frames but the current one, delete them one by one instead.
* CC Mode now enforces identical values for some customizable
options, such as indentation style, for better consistency. In
particular, if you select an indentation style for Java, the same
style is used for C and C++ buffers as well.
* Isearch does not highlight other possible matches; it shows only
the current match, to avoid distracting your attention. `Mouse-2'
in the echo area during incremental search now signals an error,
instead of inserting the current selection into the search string.
But you can accomplish more or less the same job by typing `M-y'.
* The ability to specify a port number when editing remote files with
`ange-ftp' was removed. Instead, Emacs 20 provides undocumented
features in the function `ange-ftp-normal-login' (`Use the source,
Luke!') to specify the port.
* Emacs 20 does not check for changing time stamps of remote files,
since the old FTP programs you will encounter in the past could
not provide the time stamp anyway. Windows-style FTP clients
which output the `^M' character at the end of each line get
special handling from `ange-ftp' in Emacs 20, with unexpected
results that should make your life more interesting.
* Many complicated display features, including highlighting of
mouse-sensitive text regions and popping up help strings for menu
items, don't work in the MS-DOS version. Spelling doesn't work on
MS-DOS, and Eshell doesn't exist, so there's no workable
shell-mode, either. This fits the spirit of MS-DOS, which
resembles a dumb character terminal.
* The `woman' package has been removed, so Emacs users on non-Posix
systems will need _a real man_ to read manual pages. (Users who
are not macho can read the Info documentation instead.)
* `recentf' has been removed, because we figure that you can remember
the names of the files you edit frequently. With decreasing disk
size, you should have fewer files anyway, so you won't notice the
absence of this feature.
* The `field' property does not exist in Emacs 20, so various
packages that run subsidiary programs in Emacs buffers cannot in
general distinguish which text was user input and which was output
from the subprocess. If you need to try to do this nonetheless,
Emacs 20 provides a variable `comint-prompt-regexp', which lets
you try to distinguish input by recognizing prompt strings.
* We have eliminated the special major modes for Delphi sources,
PostScript files, context diffs, and `TODO' files. Use Fundamental
Mode instead.
* Many additional packages that unnecessarily complicate your life in
Emacs 21 are absent in Emacs 20. You cannot browse C++ classes
with Ebrowse, access SQL data bases, access LDAP and other
directory servers, or mix shell commands and Lisp functions using
Eshell.
* To keep up with decreasing computer memory capacity and disk
space, many other functions and files have been eliminated in
Emacs 20.
File: emacs, Node: Mac OS, Next: MS-DOS, Prev: Antinews, Up: Top
Emacs and the Mac OS
********************
Emacs built on the Mac OS supports many of its major features:
multiple frames, colors, scroll bars, menu bars, use of the mouse,
fontsets, international characters, input methods, coding systems, and
synchronous subprocesses (`call-process'). Much of this works in the
same way as on other platforms and is therefore documented in the rest
of this manual. This section describes the peculiarities of using
Emacs under the Mac OS.
The following features of Emacs are not yet supported on the Mac:
unexec (`dump-emacs'), asynchronous subprocesses (`start-process'), and
networking (`open-network-stream'). As a result, packages such as
Gnus, GUD, and Comint do not work.
Since external programs to handle commands such as `print-buffer'
and `diff' are not available on the Mac OS, they are not supported in
the Mac OS version.
* Menu:
* Input: Mac Input. Keyboard input on the Mac.
* Intl: Mac International. International character sets on the Mac.
* Env: Mac Environment Variables. Setting environment variables for Emacs.
* Directories: Mac Directories. Volumes and directories on the Mac.
* Font: Mac Font Specs. Specifying fonts on the Mac.
* Functions: Mac Functions. Mac-specific Lisp functions.