emacs tutorial

Home : Emacs tips : Tutorial outline

Outline of an emacs tutorial presented 4-Oct-99 at the October 1999 ArsDigita web developers' bootcamp by Bob Rogers.

[Developed in collaboration with Farshad Nayeri, who gave an emacs tutorial at the previous bootcamp.]

Getting started

• starting and exiting emacs (C-x C-c)
• window layout (windows, mode line, minibuffer, scroll bars)
• control and meta modify command characters
  • Keyboard control shift is abbreviated "C-"; e.g. "C-x"
  • "Alt" keys (diamond keys on either side of space bar on Sparcs) are abbreviated "M-" (pronounced "meta"), e.g. "M-x"
  • "M-" can also be typed with the ESC or "escape" key.
• most common commands are invoked by single keystrokes
• standard prefixes are used to cram in more commands:
  • C-x is usually for "big" commands -- file, buffer, window manipulation
  • C-c is usually for language-specific commands
  • C-h is for help commands
  • M-x invokes commands by name
• getting unstuck (C-g, ESC ESC ESC, C-z lossage)
• reading and writing files (C-x C-f, C-x C-s, C-x C-w, typing file names with completion in the minibuffer)
• basic cursor motion:
  • line (C-n, C-p, C-a, C-e)
  • character (C-f, C-b)
  • word (M-f, M-b)
  • buffer (M->, M-<)
  See the cheat sheet for more.
• point and mark, cut and copy (C-@, C-w, M-w)
• inserting and deleting text (DEL, C-d, C-k, etc.)
• infinite undo/redo (C-x u or C-_; it's the same command)
• "yanking" (pasting) killed text (C-y, M-y)
• scrolling (C-v, M-v, C-l)
• mouse marking, scrolling (C-w)
• searching, text replace (C-s, C-r, M-x replace-string, M-x query-replace)
• more cursor motion (M-a, M-e for sentences, M-{, M-} for paragraphs)

Getting around

• multiple buffers (C-x b, C-x k, C-x C-b, C-x s)
• multiple windows (C-x 1, C-x 2, C-x o, C-M-v)
• getting help
  • C-h a lists matching functions and brief documentation
  • C-h l is "describe lossage" -- lists the last 100 keystrokes
  • C-h k
  • C-h m documents buffer modes
• mode line, major modes, minor modes (e.g. auto fill)
• shell-mode (M-x shell, M-p; see also the Running a shell within emacs tips)
• tcl-mode intro (see also the Editing Tcl source code tips)
• info and the online emacs manual (C-h i)
• crash recovery (M-x recover-file, M-x recover-session)

More advanced commands

• indentation (TAB in language modes, C-x C-i)
• expression commands (C-M-f, C-M-b, C-M-k, C-M-q, etc)
• C-x ESC ESC (M-x repeat-complex-command)
• finding source code definitions (M-., M-x visit-tags-table, etags program)
• dired (C-x d) and dired mode
• keyboard macros (C-x (, C-x ))
• mark ring (C-x C-x, C-@, C-SPC)
• C-x m (mail)

More advanced concepts and tools

• regexp searching (C-M-s, C-M-r, emacs regexps)
• "grepping" (M-x grep, C-x `)
• compiling (M-x compile, C-x `)
• frames (C-x 5 prefix)
• rectangle commands (C-x r prefix)
• ange-ftp (Internet file access)
• VC support
• leim
• mail-reading programs (several are available)