1 .TH XEMACS 1 "2000-09-20"
4 xemacs \- Emacs: The Next Generation
8 .I command-line switches
17 compatible with and containing many improvements over
20 written by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation. It was
21 originally based on an early release of
24 and has tracked subsequent releases of
26 as they have become available.
28 The primary documentation of
33 which you can read on-line using Info, a subsystem of
35 Please look there for complete and up-to-date documentation.
36 Complete documentation on using Emacs Lisp is available on-line
38 .I XEmacs Lisp Programmer's
40 Both manuals also can be printed out nicely using the
44 The user functionality of
46 encompasses everything other
48 editors do, and it is easily extensible since its
49 editing commands are written in Lisp.
52 has an extensive interactive help facility,
53 but the facility assumes that you know how to manipulate
56 CTRL-h enters the Help facility. Help Tutorial (CTRL-h t)
57 requests an interactive tutorial which can teach beginners the fundamentals
61 Help Apropos (CTRL-h a) helps you
62 find a command given its functionality, Help Key Binding (CTRL-h k)
63 describes a given key sequence's effect, and Help Function (CTRL-h f)
64 describes a given Lisp function specified by name. You can also
65 look up key sequences in the
66 .I XEmacs Reference Manual
67 using Lookup Key Binding (CTRL-h CTRL-k),
68 and look up Lisp functions in the
69 .I XEmacs Lisp Programmer's Manual
70 using Lookup Function (CTRL-h CTRL-f). All of these help functions,
71 and more, are available on the Help menu if you are using a window
75 has extensive GUI (graphical user interface) support when running under
76 a window system such as
78 including multiple frames (top-level windows), a menubar, a toolbar,
79 horizontal and vertical scrollbars, dialog boxes, and extensive mouse
83 has full support for multiple fonts and colors, variable-width fonts,
84 and variable-height lines, and allows for pixmaps to be inserted into
85 a buffer. (This is used in the W3 web-browsing package and in some
86 of the debugger and outlining interfaces, among other things.)
89 Undo can undo several steps of modification to your buffers, so it is
90 easy to recover from editing mistakes.
93 many special packages handle mail reading (VM, MH-E and RMail) and
94 sending (Mail), Usenet news reading and posting (GNUS), World Wide Web
95 browsing (W3), specialized modes for editing source code in all common
96 programming languages, syntax highlighting for many languages
97 (Font-Lock), compiling (Compile), running subshells within
99 windows (Shell), outline editing (Outline), running a Lisp read-eval-print
100 loop (Lisp-Interaction-Mode), and automated psychotherapy (Doctor).
102 There is an extensive reference manual, but users of other Emacsen
103 should have little trouble adapting even without a copy. Users new to
104 Emacs will be able to use basic features fairly rapidly by studying
105 the tutorial and using the self-documentation features.
109 XEmacs accepts all standard X Toolkit command line options when run in
110 an X Windows environment. In addition, the following options are accepted
111 (when options imply a sequence of actions to perform, they are
112 performed in the order encountered):
117 as the terminal instead of using stdin/stdout. This implies
121 Edit in batch mode. The editor will send messages to stdout. You
127 options to specify files to execute and functions to call.
130 Inhibit the use of any window-system-specific display code: use the
134 Enter the debugger if an error occurs loading the init file.
137 Do not map the initial frame.
140 Do not load the site-specific init file (site-start.el).
142 .B \-q, \-no\-init\-file
143 Do not load an init file.
145 .B \-no-early-packages
146 Do not process the early packages.
149 Load no extra files at startup. Equivalent to the combination of
154 .B \-no-early-packages
157 .BI \-u " user, " \-user " user"
167 Go to the line specified by
169 (do not insert a space between the "+" sign and the number).
172 Print a help message and exit.
175 Print the version number and exit.
177 .BI \-f " function, " \-funcall " function"
178 Execute the lisp function
181 .BI \-l " file, " \-load " file"
182 Load the Lisp code in the file
186 Evaluate the Lisp form
189 .BI \-i " file, " \-insert " file"
192 into the current buffer.
200 .SM Using XEmacs with X Windows
203 has been tailored to work well with the X window system.
206 from under X windows, it will create its own X window to display in.
209 can be started with the following standard X options:
211 .BI \-visual " <visualname><bitdepth>"
212 Select the visual that XEmacs will attempt to use.
214 should be one of the strings "StaticColor", "TrueColor", "GrayScale",
215 "PseudoColor" or "DirectColor", and
217 should be the number of bits per pixel (example, "-visual TrueColor24"
218 for a 24bit TrueColor visual) See
220 for more information.
223 Require XEmacs to create and use a private colormap for display. This
224 will keep XEmacs from taking colors from the default colormap and
225 keeping them from other clients, at the cost of causing annoying
226 flicker when the focus changes. Use this option only if your X server
227 does not support 24 bit visuals.
229 .BI \-geometry " ##x##+##+##"
230 Specify the geometry of the initial window. The ##'s represent a number;
231 the four numbers are width (characters), height (characters), X offset
232 (pixels), and Y offset (pixels), respectively. Partial specifications of
237 are also allowed. (The geometry
238 specification is in the standard X format; see
240 for more information.)
243 Specifies that the initial window should initially appear iconified.
246 Specifies the program name which should be used when looking up
247 defaults in the user's X resources.
249 .BI \-title " title, " \-T " title, " \-wn " title"
250 Specifies the title which should be assigned to the
254 .BI \-d " displayname, " \-display " displayname"
257 window on the display specified by
259 Must be the first option specified in the command line.
261 .BI \-font " font, " \-fn " font"
264 window's font to that specified by
266 You will find the various
269 .I /usr/lib/X11/fonts
272 works with either fixed- or variable-width fonts, but will probably
273 look better with a fixed-width font.
275 .BI \-scrollbar\-width " pixels"
276 Specify the width of the vertical scrollbars.
278 .BI \-scrollbar\-height " pixels"
279 Specify the height of the horizontal scrollbars.
281 .BI \-bw " pixels, " \-borderwidth " pixels"
284 window's border width to the number of pixels specified by
286 Defaults to one pixel on each side of the window.
288 .BI \-ib " pixels, " \-internal\-border\-width " pixels"
289 Specify the width between a frame's border and its text, in pixels.
290 Defaults to one pixel on each side of the window.
292 .BI \-fg " color, " \-foreground " color"
293 Sets the color of the text.
296 .I /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt
300 .BI \-bg " color, " \-background " color"
301 Sets the color of the window's background.
303 .BI \-bd " color, " \-bordercolor " color"
304 Sets the color of the window's border.
307 Sets the color of the mouse pointer.
310 Sets the color of the text cursor.
313 Reverses the foreground and background colors (reverse video). Consider
314 explicitly setting the foreground and background colors instead of using
317 .BI \-xrm " argument"
318 This allows you to set an arbitrary resource on the command line.
320 should be a resource specification, as might be found in your
326 You can also set resources, i.e.
328 default values, for your
336 Use the following format:
342 Emacs*EmacsFrame.keyword:value
346 specifies the default value of
348 (Some resources need the former format; some the latter.)
350 You can also set resources for a particular frame by using the
353 Emacs*framename.keyword:value
357 is the resource name assigned to that particular frame.
358 (Certain packages, such as VM, give their frames unique resource
359 names, in this case "VM".)
362 lets you set default values for the following keywords:
364 .B default.attributeFont (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeFont)
365 Sets the window's text font.
367 .B default.attributeForeground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeForeground)
368 Sets the window's text color.
370 .B default.attributeBackground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeBackground)
371 Sets the window's background color.
373 .B \fIface\fB.attributeFont (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeFont)
376 which should be the name of a face. Common face names are
378 .in +\w'right-margin'u+12n
379 .ta \w'right-margin'u+4n
380 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
383 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
386 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
389 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
390 italic Italicized text.
392 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
393 bold-italic Bold and italicized text.
395 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
396 modeline Modeline text.
398 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
399 zmacs-region Text selected with the mouse.
401 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
402 highlight Text highlighted when the mouse passes over.
404 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
405 left-margin Text in the left margin.
407 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
408 right-margin Text in the right margin.
410 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
411 isearch Text highlighted during incremental search.
413 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
414 info-node Text of Info menu items.
416 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
417 info-xref Text of Info cross references.
419 .B \fIface\fB.attributeForeground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeForeground)
420 Sets the foreground color for
423 .B \fIface\fB.attributeBackground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeBackground)
424 Sets the background color for
427 .B \fIface\fB.attributeBackgroundPixmap (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap)
428 Sets the background pixmap (stipple) for
431 .B \fIface\fB.attributeUnderline (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeUnderline)
434 should be underlined.
436 .B reverseVideo (\fPclass\fB ReverseVideo)
439 the window will be displayed in reverse video. Consider
440 explicitly setting the foreground and background colors instead
441 of using this resource.
443 .B borderWidth (\fPclass\fB BorderWidth)
444 Sets the window's border width in pixels.
446 .B internalBorderWidth (\fPclass\fB InternalBorderWidth)
447 Sets the window's internal border width in pixels.
449 .B borderColor (\fPclass\fB BorderColor)
450 Sets the color of the window's border.
452 .B cursorColor (\fPclass\fB Foreground)
453 Sets the color of the window's text cursor.
455 .B pointerColor (\fPclass\fB Foreground)
456 Sets the color of the window's mouse cursor.
458 .B emacsVisual (\fPclass\fB EmacsVisual)
459 Sets the default visual
461 will try to use (as described above).
463 .B privateColormap (\fPclass\fB PrivateColormap)
466 will default to using a private colormap.
468 .B geometry (\fPclass\fB Geometry)
469 Sets the geometry of the
471 window (as described above).
473 .B iconic (\fPclass\fB Iconic)
476 window will initially appear as an icon.
478 .B menubar (\fPclass\fB Menubar)
481 window will have a menubar. Defaults to true.
483 .B initiallyUnmapped (\fPclass\fB InitiallyUnmapped)
486 will leave the initial frame unmapped when it starts up.
488 .B barCursor (\fPclass\fB BarCursor)
489 Whether the cursor should be a bar instead of the traditional box.
491 .B title (\fPclass\fB Title)
492 Sets the title of the
496 .B iconName (\fPclass\fB Title)
497 Sets the icon name for the
501 .B scrollBarWidth (\fPclass\fB ScrollBarWidth)
502 Sets the width of the vertical scrollbars, in pixels. A width of 0
503 means no vertical scrollbars.
505 .B scrollBarHeight (\fPclass\fB ScrollBarHeight)
506 Sets the height of the horizontal scrollbars, in pixels. A height of 0
507 means no horizontal scrollbars.
509 .B scrollBarPlacement (\fPclass\fB ScrollBarPlacement)
510 Sets the position of vertical and horizontal scrollbars. Should be one
511 of the strings "top-left", "bottom-left", "top-right", or "bottom-right".
512 The default is "bottom-right" for the Motif and Lucid scrollbars and
513 "bottom-left" for the Athena scrollbars.
515 .B topToolBarHeight (\fPclass\fB TopToolBarHeight)
516 Sets the height of the top toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no top toolbar.
518 .B bottomToolBarHeight (\fPclass\fB BottomToolBarHeight)
519 Sets the height of the bottom toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no
522 .B leftToolBarWidth (\fPclass\fB LeftToolBarWidth)
523 Sets the width of the left toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no left toolbar.
525 .B rightToolBarWidth (\fPclass\fB RightToolBarWidth)
526 Sets the width of the right toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no right toolbar.
528 .B topToolBarShadowColor (\fPclass\fB TopToolBarShadowColor)
529 Sets the color of the top shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
530 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the top of the frame.)
532 .B bottomToolBarShadowColor (\fPclass\fB BottomToolBarShadowColor)
533 Sets the color of the bottom shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
534 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the bottom of the frame.)
536 .B topToolBarShadowPixmap (\fPclass\fB TopToolBarShadowPixmap)
537 Sets the pixmap of the top shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
538 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the top of the frame.) If set, this
539 resource overrides the corresponding color resource.
541 .B bottomToolBarShadowPixmap (\fPclass\fB BottomToolBarShadowPixmap)
542 Sets the pixmap of the bottom shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
543 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the bottom of the frame.) If set, this
544 resource overrides the corresponding color resource.
546 .B toolBarShadowThickness (\fPclass\fB ToolBarShadowThickness)
547 Thickness of the shadows around the toolbars, in pixels.
549 .B visualBell (\fPclass\fB VisualBell)
550 Whether XEmacs should flash the screen rather than making an audible beep.
552 .B bellVolume (\fPclass\fB BellVolume)
553 Volume of the audible beep. Range is 0 through 100.
555 .B useBackingStore (\fPclass\fB UseBackingStore)
558 should set the backing-store attribute of the
560 windows it creates. This increases the memory usage of the
562 server but decreases the amount of
564 traffic necessary to update the screen, and is useful when the
567 server goes over a low-bandwidth line such as a modem connection.
569 .B textPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
570 The cursor to use when the mouse is over text.
572 .B selectionPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
573 The cursor to use when the mouse is over a mouse-highlighted
576 .B spacePointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
577 The cursor to use when the mouse is over a blank space in a buffer (that
578 is, after the end of a line or after the end-of-file).
580 .B modeLinePointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
581 The cursor to use when the mouse is over a mode line.
583 .B gcPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
584 The cursor to display when a garbage-collection is in progress.
586 .B scrollbarPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
587 The cursor to use when the mouse is over the scrollbar.
589 .B pointerColor (\fPclass\fB Foreground)
590 The foreground color of the mouse cursor.
592 .B pointerBackground (\fPclass\fB Background)
593 The background color of the mouse cursor.
597 The following lists the mouse button bindings for the
601 .in +\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
602 .ta \w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
603 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
604 MOUSE BUTTON FUNCTION
606 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
607 left Set point or make a text selection.
609 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
612 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
613 right Pop up a menu of options.
615 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
616 SHIFT-left Extend a selection.
618 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
619 CTRL-left Make a selection and insert it at point.
621 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
622 CTRL-middle Set point and move selected text there.
624 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
625 CTRL-SHIFT-left Make a selection, delete it, and insert it at point.
627 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
628 META-left Make a rectangular selection.
630 Lisp code is read at startup from the user's init file,
633 /usr/local/info - files for the Info documentation browser
636 to refer to. The complete text of the
637 .I XEmacs Reference Manual
639 .I XEmacs Lisp Programmer's Manual
640 is included in a convenient tree structured form.
642 /usr/local/lib/xemacs-$VERSION/info - the Info files may be here instead.
644 /usr/local/lib/xemacs-$VERSION/lisp/* - Lisp source files and compiled files
645 that define most editing commands. The files are contained in subdirectories,
646 categorized by function or individual package. Some are preloaded;
647 others are autoloaded from these directories when used.
649 /usr/local/lib/xemacs-$VERSION/etc - some files of information, pixmap
650 files, other data files used by certain packages, etc.
652 /usr/local/lib/xemacs-$VERSION/$CONFIGURATION - various programs that are used
655 /usr/local/lib/xemacs-$VERSION/$CONFIGURATION/DOC -
656 contains the documentation strings for the Lisp primitives and
657 preloaded Lisp functions of \fIXEmacs\fP.
658 They are stored here to reduce the size of \fIXEmacs\fP proper.
660 /usr/local/lib/xemacs/site-lisp - locally-provided Lisp files.
663 There is a newsgroup, comp.emacs.xemacs, for reporting
665 bugs and fixes and requesting help. But before reporting something
666 as a bug, please try to be sure that it really is a bug, not a
667 misunderstanding or a deliberate feature. We ask you to read the section
668 ``Reporting XEmacs Bugs'' near the end of the reference manual (or Info
669 system) for hints on how and when to report bugs. Also, include the version
672 you are running and the system you are running it on
673 in \fIevery\fR bug report that you send in. Finally, the more you can
674 isolate the cause of a bug and the conditions it happens under, the more
675 likely it is to be fixed, so please take the time to do so.
677 The newsgroup is bidirectionally gatewayed to and from the mailing list
678 xemacs@xemacs.org. You can read the list instead of the newsgroup if
679 you do not have convenient Usenet news access. To request to be added
680 to the mailing list, send mail to xemacs-request@xemacs.org. (Do not
681 send mail to the list itself.)
685 maintainers read the newsgroup regularly and will attempt to
686 fix bugs reported in a timely fashion. However, not every message will
687 get a response from one of the maintainers. Note that there are many
688 people other than the maintainers who read the newsgroup, and will usually
689 be of assistance in helping with any problems encountered.
691 If you need more personal assistance than can be provided by the
692 newsgroup, look in the SERVICE file (see above) for a list of people
695 For more information about XEmacs mailing lists, see the
696 file /usr/local/lib/xemacs-$VERSION/etc/MAILINGLISTS.
700 is free; anyone may redistribute copies of
703 anyone under the terms stated in the
705 General Public License,
706 a copy of which accompanies each copy of
709 appears in the reference manual.
713 may sometimes be received packaged with distributions of Unix systems,
714 but it is never included in the scope of any license covering those
715 systems. Such inclusion violates the terms on which distribution
716 is permitted. In fact, the primary purpose of the General Public
717 License is to prohibit anyone from attaching any other restrictions
721 X(1), xlsfonts(1), xterm(1), xrdb(1), emacs(1), vi(1)
726 Steve Baur <steve@xemacs.org>,
727 Martin Buchholz <martin@xemacs.org>,
728 Richard Mlynarik <mly@adoc.xerox.com>,
729 Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>,
730 Chuck Thompson <cthomp@xemacs.org>,
731 Ben Wing <ben@xemacs.org>,
732 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>,
734 It was based on an early version of
737 written by Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> of the Free Software
738 Foundation, and has tracked subsequent releases of
740 as they have become available. It was originally written by Lucid, Inc.
741 (now defunct) and was called
745 Chuck Thompson wrote the
747 redisplay engine, maintains the
749 FTP and WWW sites, and has put out all releases of
751 since 19.11 (the first release called
753 Ben Wing wrote the Asian-language support, the on-line documentation
754 (including this man page and much of the FAQ), the external widget code,
755 and retooled or rewrote most of the basic, low-level
757 subsystems. Jamie Zawinski put out all releases of
760 from the first (19.0) through the last (19.10), and was the primary
761 code contributor for all of these releases. Richard Mlynarik rewrote
764 Lisp-object allocation system, improved the keymap and minibuffer code,
765 and did the initial synching of
771 Many others have also contributed significantly. For more detailed
772 information, including a long history of \fIXEmacs\fP from multiple
773 viewpoints and pretty pictures and bios of the major \fIXEmacs\fP
774 contributors, see the
776 (the About XEmacs option on the Help menu).
778 For more information about \fIXEmacs\fP, see the
781 look in the file /usr/local/lib/xemacs-$VERSION/etc/NEWS,
782 or point your Web browser at
784 http://www.xemacs.org/
786 for up-to-the-minute information about \fIXEmacs\fP.
790 FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) can be found at the Web site just listed.
791 A possibly out-of-date version is also accessible through the Info system
792 inside of \fIXEmacs\fP.
794 The latest version of \fIXEmacs\fP can be downloaded using anonymous
797 ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/
799 or from a mirror site near you. Mirror sites are listed in the file
800 etc/FTP in the XEmacs distribution or see the Web site for an up-to-date
801 list of mirror sites.