menu bar at the top of the frame makes shortcuts to several of the
commands available (@pxref{Pull-down Menus}).
@item
-If you are running XEmacs under a graphical windowing system, a
+Under a graphical windowing system, a
toolbar at the top of the frame, just under the menu bar if it exists,
provides ``one-touch'' shortcuts to several commands. (Not yet
documented.)
@item
-If you are running XEmacs under a graphical windowing system, a
+Under a graphical windowing system, a
gutter at the top (under the toolbar) and/or bottom of the frame
provides advanced GUI facilities like tab controls for rapid switching
among related windows and progress bars for time-consuming operations
@menu
* Point:: The place in the text where editing commands operate.
* Echo Area:: Short messages appear at the bottom of the frame.
-* Mode Line:: Interpreting the mode line.
+* Mode Line:: Interpreting the mode line.
+* GUI Components:: Menubar, toolbars, gutters.
* XEmacs under X:: Some information on using XEmacs under the X
Window System.
+* XEmacs under MS Windows:: Some information on using XEmacs under
+ Microsoft Windows.
@end menu
@node Point, Echo Area, Frame, Frame
typing @kbd{C-g}. @xref{Minibuffer}.
@end itemize
-@node Mode Line, XEmacs under X, Echo Area, Frame
+@node Mode Line, GUI Components, Echo Area, Frame
@comment node-name, next, previous, up
@section The Mode Line
@cindex mode line
default is @code{t}. For X frames, simply set the foreground and
background colors appropriately.
-@node XEmacs under X, , Mode Line, Frame
+@node GUI Components, XEmacs under X, Mode Line, Frame
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+@section GUI Components
+
+When executed in a graphical windowing environment such as the X Window
+System or Microsoft Windows, XEmacs displays several graphical user
+interface components such as scrollbars, menubars, toolbars, and
+gutters. By default there is a vertical scrollbar at the right of each
+frame, and at the top of the frame there is a menubar, a toolbar, and a
+gutter, in that order. Gutters can contain any of several widgets, but
+the default configuration puts a set of "notebook tabs" which you can
+use as a shortcut for selecting any of several related buffers in a
+given frame. Operating the GUI components is "obvious": click on the
+menubar to pull down a menu, on a button in the toolbar to invoke a
+function, and on a tab in the gutter to switch buffers.
+
+@menu
+* Menubar Basics:: How XEmacs uses the menubar.
+* Scrollbar Basics:: How XEmacs uses scrollbars.
+* Toolbar Basics:: How XEmacs uses toolbars.
+* Gutter Basics:: How XEmacs uses gutters.
+* Inhibiting:: What if you don't like GUI?
+* Customizing:: Position, orientation, and appearance of GUI objects.
+@end menu
+
+@node Menubar Basics, Scrollbar Basics, , GUI Components
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+@section The XEmacs Menubar
+
+The XEmacs menubar is intended to be conformant to the usual conventions
+for menubars, although conformance is not yet perfect. The menu at the
+extreme right is the @samp{Help} menu, which should always be
+available. It provides access to all the XEmacs help facilities
+available through @kbd{C-h}, as well as samples of various configuration
+files like @samp{~/.Xdefaults} and @samp{~/.emacs}. At the extreme left
+is the @samp{Files} menu, which provides the usual file reading,
+writing, and printing operations, as well as operations like revert
+buffer from most recent save. The next menu from the left is the
+@samp{Edit} menu, which provides the @samp{Undo} operation as well as
+cutting and pasting, searching, and keyboard macro definition and
+execution.
+
+@c #### w3.el and VM should get cross-references here.
+XEmacs provides a very dynamic environment, and the Lisp language makes
+for highly flexible applications. The menubar reflects this: many menus
+(eg, the @samp{Buffers} menu, @pxref{Buffers Menu}) contain items
+determined by the current state of XEmacs, and most major modes and many
+minor modes add items to menus and even whole menus to the menubar. In
+fact, some applications like w3.el and VM provide so many menus that
+they define a whole new menubar and add a button that allows convenient
+switching between the ``XEmacs menubar'' and the ``application
+menubar''. Such applications normally bind themselves to a particular
+frame, and this switching only takes place on frames where such an
+application is active (ie, the current window of the frame is displaying
+a buffer in the appropriate major mode).
+
+Other menus which are typically available are the @samp{Options},
+@samp{Tools}, @samp{Buffers}, @samp{Apps}, and @samp{Mule} menus. For
+detailed descriptions of these menus, @ref{Pull-down Menus}. (In 21.2
+XEmacsen, the @samp{Mule} menu will be moved under @samp{Options}.)
+
+@node Scrollbar Basics, Toolbar Basics, Menubar Basics, GUI Components
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+@section XEmacs Scrollbars
+
+XEmacs scrollbars provide the usual interface. Arrow buttons at either
+end allow for line by line scrolling, including autorepeat. Clicking in
+the scrollbar itself provides scrolling by windowsfull, depending on
+which side of the slider is clicked. The slider itself may be dragged
+for smooth scrolling.
+
+The position of the slider corresponds to the position of the window in
+the buffer. In particular, the length of the slider is proportional to
+the fraction of the buffer which appears in the window.
+
+The presence of the scrollbars is under control of the application or
+may be customized by the user. By default a vertical scrollbar is
+present in all windows (except the minibuffer), and there is no
+horizontal scrollbar.
+
+@node Toolbar Basics, Gutter Basics, Scrollbar Basics, GUI Components
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+@section XEmacs Toolbars
+
+XEmacs has a default toolbar which provides shortcuts for some of the
+commonly used operations (such as opening files) and applications (such
+as the Info manual reader). Operations which require arguments will pop
+up dialogs to get them.
+
+The position of the default toolbar can be customized. Also, several
+toolbars may be present simultaneously (in different positions). VM,
+for example, provides an application toolbar which shortcuts for
+mail-specific operations like sending, saving, and deleting messages.
+
+@node Gutter Basics, Inhibiting, Toolbar Basics, GUI Components
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+@section XEmacs Gutters
+
+Gutters are the most flexible of the GUI components described in this
+section. In theory, the other GUI components could be implemented by
+customizing a gutter, but in practice the other components were
+introduced earlier and have their own special implementations. Gutters
+tend to be more transient than the other components. Buffer tabs, for
+example, change every time the selected buffer in the frame changes.
+And for progress gauges a gutter to contain the gauge is typically
+created on the fly when needed, then destroyed when the operation whose
+staus is being displayed is completed.
+
+Buffer tabs, having somewhat complex behavior, deserve a closer look.
+By default, a row of buffer tabs is displayed at the top of every frame.
+(The tabs could be placed in the bottom gutter, but would be oriented
+the same way and look rather odd. The horizontal orientation makes
+putting them in a side gutter utterly impractical.) The buffer
+displayed in the current window of a frame can be changed to a specific
+buffer by clicking [mouse-1] on the corresponding tab in the gutter.
+
+Each tab contains the name of its buffer. The tab for the current
+buffer in each frame is displayed in raised relief. The list of buffers
+chosen for display in the buffer tab row is derived by filtering the
+buffer list (like the @code{Buffers} menu). The list starts out with
+all existing buffers, with more recently selected buffers coming earlier
+in the list.
+
+Then "uninteresting" buffers, like internal XEmacs buffers, the
+@code{*Message Log*} buffer, and so on are deleted from the list. Next,
+the frame's selected buffer is determined. Buffers with a different
+major mode from the selected buffer are removed from the list. Finally,
+if the list is too long, the least recently used buffers are deleted
+from the list. By default up to 6 most recently used buffers with the
+same mode are displayed on tabs in the gutter.
+
+@node Inhibiting, Customizing, Gutter Basics, GUI Components
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+@section Inhibiting Display of GUI Components
+
+Use of GUI facilities is a personal thing. Almost everyone agrees that
+drawing via keyboard-based "turtle graphics" is acceptable to hardly
+anyone if a mouse is available, but conversely emulating a keyboard with
+a screenful of buttons is a painful experience. But between those
+extremes the complete novice will require a fair amount of time before
+toolbars and menus become dispensable, but many an "Ancien Haquer" sees
+them as a complete waste of precious frame space that could be filled
+with text.
+
+Display of all of the GUI components created by XEmacs can be inhibited
+through the use of Customize. Customize can be accessed through
+@samp{Options | Customize} in the menu bar, or via @kbd{M-x customize}.
+Then navigate through the Customize tree to @samp{Emacs | Environment}.
+Scrollbar and toolbar visibility is controlled via the @samp{Display}
+group, options @samp{Scrollbars visible} and @samp{Toolbar visible}
+respectively. Gutter visibility is controlled by group @samp{Gutter},
+option @samp{Visible}.
+
+Or they can be controlled directly by @kbd{M-x customize-variable}, by
+changing the values of the variables @code{menubar-visible-p},
+@code{scrollbars-visible-p}, @code{toolbar-visible-p}, or
+@code{gutter-buffers-tab-visible-p} respectively. (The strange form of
+the last variable is due to the fact that gutters are often used to
+display transient widgets like progress gauges, which you probably don't
+want to inhibit. It is more likely that you want to inhibit the default
+display of the buffers tab widget, which is what that variable controls.
+This interface is subject to change depending on developer experience
+and user feedback.)
+
+Control of frame configuration can controlled automatically according to
+various parameters such as buffer or frame because these are
+@dfn{specifiers} @ref{Specifiers, , , lispref}. Using these features
+requires programming in Lisp; Customize is not yet that sophisticated.
+Also, components that appear in various positions and orientations can
+have display suppressed according to position. @kbd{C-h a visible-p}
+gives a list of variables which can be customized. E.g., to control the
+visibility of specifically the left-side toolbar only, customize
+@code{left-toolbar-visible-p}.
+
+@node Customizing, , Inhibiting, GUI Components
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+@section Changing the Position, Orientation, and Appearance of GUI Components
+
+ #### Not documented yet.
+
+@node XEmacs under X, XEmacs under MS Windows, GUI Components, Frame
@section Using XEmacs Under the X Window System
@comment node-name, next, previous, up
title; the name is used for resource lookup, among other things, and the
title is simply what appears above the window.)
@end itemize
+
+@node XEmacs under MS Windows, , XEmacs under X, Frame
+@section Using XEmacs Under Microsoft Windows
+@comment node-name, next, previous, up
+
+Use of XEmacs under MS Windows is not separately documented here, but
+most operations available under the X Window System are also available
+with MS Windows.
+
+Where possible, native MS Windows GUI components and capabilities are
+used in XEmacs.
+
projects / chise / xemacs-chise.git.1 / blobdiff