1 .TH SXEMACS 1 "2007-12-29"
4 sxemacs \- Emacs Redefined
8 .I command-line switches
17 compatible with and containing many improvements over
19 It was originally based on an early release of
23 The primary documentation of
28 which you can read on-line using Info, a subsystem of
30 Please look there for complete and up-to-date documentation.
31 Complete documentation on using Emacs Lisp is available on-line
33 .I SXEmacs Lisp Programmer's
35 Both manuals also can be printed out nicely using the
39 The user functionality of
41 encompasses everything other
43 editors do, and it is easily extensible since its
44 editing commands are written in Lisp.
47 has an extensive interactive help facility,
48 but the facility assumes that you know how to manipulate
51 CTRL-h enters the Help facility. Help Tutorial (CTRL-h t)
52 requests an interactive tutorial which can teach beginners the fundamentals
56 Help Apropos (CTRL-h a) helps you
57 find a command given its functionality, Help Key Binding (CTRL-h k)
58 describes a given key sequence's effect, and Help Function (CTRL-h f)
59 describes a given Lisp function specified by name. You can also
60 look up key sequences in the
61 .I SXEmacs Reference Manual
62 using Lookup Key Binding (CTRL-h CTRL-k),
63 and look up Lisp functions in the
64 .I SXEmacs Lisp Programmer's Manual
65 using Lookup Function (CTRL-h CTRL-f). All of these help functions,
66 and more, are available on the Help menu if you are using a window
70 has extensive GUI (graphical user interface) support when running under
71 a window system such as
73 including multiple frames (top-level windows), a menubar, a toolbar,
74 horizontal and vertical scrollbars, dialog boxes, and extensive mouse
78 has full support for multiple fonts and colors, variable-width fonts,
79 and variable-height lines, and allows for pixmaps to be inserted into
80 a buffer. (This is used in the W3 web-browsing package and in some
81 of the debugger and outlining interfaces, among other things.)
84 Undo can undo several steps of modification to your buffers, so it is
85 easy to recover from editing mistakes.
88 many special packages handle mail reading (VM, MH-E and RMail) and
89 sending (Mail), Usenet news reading and posting (Gnus), World Wide Web
90 browsing (W3), specialized modes for editing source code in all common
91 programming languages, syntax highlighting for many languages
92 (Font-Lock), compiling (Compile), running subshells within
94 windows (Shell), outline editing (Outline), running a Lisp read-eval-print
95 loop (Lisp-Interaction-Mode), and automated psychotherapy (Doctor).
97 There is an extensive reference manual, but users of other Emacsen
98 should have little trouble adapting even without a copy. Users new to
99 Emacs will be able to use basic features fairly rapidly by studying
100 the tutorial and using the self-documentation features.
104 SXEmacs accepts all standard X Toolkit command line options when run in
105 an X Windows environment. In addition, the following options are accepted
106 (when options imply a sequence of actions to perform, they are
107 performed in the order encountered):
112 as the terminal instead of using stdin/stdout. This implies
116 Edit in batch mode. The editor will send messages to stdout. You
122 options to specify files to execute and functions to call.
125 Inhibit the use of any window-system-specific display code: use the
129 Enter the debugger if an error occurs loading the init file.
132 Do not map the initial frame.
135 Do not load the site-specific init file (site-start.el).
137 .B \-q, \-no\-init\-file
138 Do not load an init file.
140 .B \-no-early-packages
141 Do not process the early packages.
144 Load no extra files at startup. Equivalent to the combination of
149 .B \-no-early-packages
152 .BI \-u " user, " \-user " user"
162 Go to the line specified by
164 (do not insert a space between the "+" sign and the number).
167 Print a help message and exit.
170 Print the version number and exit.
172 .BI \-f " function, " \-funcall " function"
173 Execute the lisp function
176 .BI \-l " file, " \-load " file"
177 Load the Lisp code in the file
181 Evaluate the Lisp form
184 .BI \-i " file, " \-insert " file"
187 into the current buffer.
195 .SM Using SXEmacs with X Windows
198 has been tailored to work well with the X window system.
201 from under X windows, it will create its own X window to display in.
204 can be started with the following standard X options:
206 .BI \-visual " <visualname><bitdepth>"
207 Select the visual that SXEmacs will attempt to use.
209 should be one of the strings "StaticColor", "TrueColor", "GrayScale",
210 "PseudoColor" or "DirectColor", and
212 should be the number of bits per pixel (example, "-visual TrueColor24"
213 for a 24bit TrueColor visual) See
215 for more information.
218 Require SXEmacs to create and use a private colormap for display. This
219 will keep SXEmacs from taking colors from the default colormap and
220 keeping them from other clients, at the cost of causing annoying
221 flicker when the focus changes. Use this option only if your X server
222 does not support 24 bit visuals.
224 .BI \-geometry " ##x##+##+##"
225 Specify the geometry of the initial window. The ##'s represent a number;
226 the four numbers are width (characters), height (characters), X offset
227 (pixels), and Y offset (pixels), respectively. Partial specifications of
232 are also allowed. (The geometry
233 specification is in the standard X format; see
235 for more information.)
238 Specifies that the initial window should initially appear iconified.
241 Specifies the program name which should be used when looking up
242 defaults in the user's X resources.
244 .BI \-title " title, " \-T " title, " \-wn " title"
245 Specifies the title which should be assigned to the
249 .BI \-d " displayname, " \-display " displayname"
252 window on the display specified by
254 Must be the first option specified in the command line.
256 .BI \-font " font, " \-fn " font"
259 window's font to that specified by
261 You will find the various
264 .I /usr/X11/lib/X11/fonts
267 works with either fixed- or variable-width fonts, but will probably
268 look better with a fixed-width font.
270 .BI \-scrollbar\-width " pixels"
271 Specify the width of the vertical scrollbars.
273 .BI \-scrollbar\-height " pixels"
274 Specify the height of the horizontal scrollbars.
276 .BI \-bw " pixels, " \-borderwidth " pixels"
279 window's border width to the number of pixels specified by
281 Defaults to one pixel on each side of the window.
283 .BI \-ib " pixels, " \-internal\-border\-width " pixels"
284 Specify the width between a frame's border and its text, in pixels.
285 Defaults to one pixel on each side of the window.
287 .BI \-fg " color, " \-foreground " color"
288 Sets the color of the text.
291 .I /usr/X11/lib/X11/rgb.txt
295 .BI \-bg " color, " \-background " color"
296 Sets the color of the window's background.
298 .BI \-bd " color, " \-bordercolor " color"
299 Sets the color of the window's border.
302 Sets the color of the mouse pointer.
305 Sets the color of the text cursor.
308 Reverses the foreground and background colors (reverse video). Consider
309 explicitly setting the foreground and background colors instead of using
312 .BI \-xrm " argument"
313 This allows you to set an arbitrary resource on the command line.
315 should be a resource specification, as might be found in your
321 You can also set resources, i.e.
323 default values, for your
331 Use the following format:
337 Emacs*EmacsFrame.keyword:value
341 specifies the default value of
343 (Some resources need the former format; some the latter.)
345 You can also set resources for a particular frame by using the
348 Emacs*framename.keyword:value
352 is the resource name assigned to that particular frame.
353 (Certain packages, such as VM, give their frames unique resource
354 names, in this case "VM".)
357 lets you set default values for the following keywords:
359 .B default.attributeFont (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeFont)
360 Sets the window's text font.
362 .B default.attributeForeground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeForeground)
363 Sets the window's text color.
365 .B default.attributeBackground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeBackground)
366 Sets the window's background color.
368 .B \fIface\fB.attributeFont (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeFont)
371 which should be the name of a face. Common face names are
373 .in +\w'right-margin'u+12n
374 .ta \w'right-margin'u+4n
375 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
378 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
381 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
384 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
385 italic Italicized text.
387 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
388 bold-italic Bold and italicized text.
390 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
391 modeline Modeline text.
393 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
394 zmacs-region Text selected with the mouse.
396 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
397 highlight Text highlighted when the mouse passes over.
399 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
400 left-margin Text in the left margin.
402 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
403 right-margin Text in the right margin.
405 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
406 isearch Text highlighted during incremental search.
408 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
409 info-node Text of Info menu items.
411 .ti -\w'right-margin'u+4n
412 info-xref Text of Info cross references.
414 .B \fIface\fB.attributeForeground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeForeground)
415 Sets the foreground color for
418 .B \fIface\fB.attributeBackground (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeBackground)
419 Sets the background color for
422 .B \fIface\fB.attributeBackgroundPixmap (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap)
423 Sets the background pixmap (stipple) for
426 .B \fIface\fB.attributeUnderline (\fPclass\fB Face.AttributeUnderline)
429 should be underlined.
431 .B reverseVideo (\fPclass\fB ReverseVideo)
434 the window will be displayed in reverse video. Consider
435 explicitly setting the foreground and background colors instead
436 of using this resource.
438 .B borderWidth (\fPclass\fB BorderWidth)
439 Sets the window's border width in pixels.
441 .B internalBorderWidth (\fPclass\fB InternalBorderWidth)
442 Sets the window's internal border width in pixels.
444 .B borderColor (\fPclass\fB BorderColor)
445 Sets the color of the window's border.
447 .B cursorColor (\fPclass\fB Foreground)
448 Sets the color of the window's text cursor.
450 .B pointerColor (\fPclass\fB Foreground)
451 Sets the color of the window's mouse cursor.
453 .B emacsVisual (\fPclass\fB EmacsVisual)
454 Sets the default visual
456 will try to use (as described above).
458 .B privateColormap (\fPclass\fB PrivateColormap)
461 will default to using a private colormap.
463 .B geometry (\fPclass\fB Geometry)
464 Sets the geometry of the
466 window (as described above).
468 .B iconic (\fPclass\fB Iconic)
471 window will initially appear as an icon.
473 .B menubar (\fPclass\fB Menubar)
476 window will have a menubar. Defaults to true.
478 .B initiallyUnmapped (\fPclass\fB InitiallyUnmapped)
481 will leave the initial frame unmapped when it starts up.
483 .B barCursor (\fPclass\fB BarCursor)
484 Whether the cursor should be a bar instead of the traditional box.
486 .B title (\fPclass\fB Title)
487 Sets the title of the
491 .B iconName (\fPclass\fB Title)
492 Sets the icon name for the
496 .B scrollBarWidth (\fPclass\fB ScrollBarWidth)
497 Sets the width of the vertical scrollbars, in pixels. A width of 0
498 means no vertical scrollbars.
500 .B scrollBarHeight (\fPclass\fB ScrollBarHeight)
501 Sets the height of the horizontal scrollbars, in pixels. A height of 0
502 means no horizontal scrollbars.
504 .B scrollBarPlacement (\fPclass\fB ScrollBarPlacement)
505 Sets the position of vertical and horizontal scrollbars. Should be one
506 of the strings "top-left", "bottom-left", "top-right", or "bottom-right".
507 The default is "bottom-right" for the Motif and Lucid scrollbars and
508 "bottom-left" for the Athena scrollbars.
510 .B topToolBarHeight (\fPclass\fB TopToolBarHeight)
511 Sets the height of the top toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no top toolbar.
513 .B bottomToolBarHeight (\fPclass\fB BottomToolBarHeight)
514 Sets the height of the bottom toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no
517 .B leftToolBarWidth (\fPclass\fB LeftToolBarWidth)
518 Sets the width of the left toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no left toolbar.
520 .B rightToolBarWidth (\fPclass\fB RightToolBarWidth)
521 Sets the width of the right toolbar, in pixels. 0 means no right toolbar.
523 .B topToolBarShadowColor (\fPclass\fB TopToolBarShadowColor)
524 Sets the color of the top shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
525 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the top of the frame.)
527 .B bottomToolBarShadowColor (\fPclass\fB BottomToolBarShadowColor)
528 Sets the color of the bottom shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
529 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the bottom of the frame.)
531 .B topToolBarShadowPixmap (\fPclass\fB TopToolBarShadowPixmap)
532 Sets the pixmap of the top shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
533 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the top of the frame.) If set, this
534 resource overrides the corresponding color resource.
536 .B bottomToolBarShadowPixmap (\fPclass\fB BottomToolBarShadowPixmap)
537 Sets the pixmap of the bottom shadows for the toolbars. (For all toolbars,
538 \fBnot\fR just the toolbar at the bottom of the frame.) If set, this
539 resource overrides the corresponding color resource.
541 .B toolBarShadowThickness (\fPclass\fB ToolBarShadowThickness)
542 Thickness of the shadows around the toolbars, in pixels.
544 .B visualBell (\fPclass\fB VisualBell)
545 Whether SXEmacs should flash the screen rather than making an audible beep.
547 .B bellVolume (\fPclass\fB BellVolume)
548 Volume of the audible beep. Range is 0 through 100.
550 .B useBackingStore (\fPclass\fB UseBackingStore)
553 should set the backing-store attribute of the
555 windows it creates. This increases the memory usage of the
557 server but decreases the amount of
559 traffic necessary to update the screen, and is useful when the
562 server goes over a low-bandwidth line such as a modem connection.
564 .B textPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
565 The cursor to use when the mouse is over text.
567 .B selectionPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
568 The cursor to use when the mouse is over a mouse-highlighted
571 .B spacePointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
572 The cursor to use when the mouse is over a blank space in a buffer (that
573 is, after the end of a line or after the end-of-file).
575 .B modeLinePointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
576 The cursor to use when the mouse is over a mode line.
578 .B gcPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
579 The cursor to display when a garbage-collection is in progress.
581 .B scrollbarPointer (\fPclass\fB Cursor)
582 The cursor to use when the mouse is over the scrollbar.
584 .B pointerColor (\fPclass\fB Foreground)
585 The foreground color of the mouse cursor.
587 .B pointerBackground (\fPclass\fB Background)
588 The background color of the mouse cursor.
592 The following lists the mouse button bindings for the
596 .in +\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
597 .ta \w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
598 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
599 MOUSE BUTTON FUNCTION
601 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
602 left Set point or make a text selection.
604 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
607 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
608 right Pop up a menu of options.
610 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
611 SHIFT-left Extend a selection.
613 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
614 CTRL-left Make a selection and insert it at point.
616 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
617 CTRL-middle Set point and move selected text there.
619 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
620 CTRL-SHIFT-left Make a selection, delete it, and insert it at point.
622 .ti -\w'CTRL-SHIFT-middle'u+4n
623 META-left Make a rectangular selection.
625 Lisp code is read at startup from the user's init file,
626 \fB$HOME/.sxemacs/init.el\fP.
628 /usr/local/share/info - files for the Info documentation browser
631 to refer to. The complete text of the
632 .I SXEmacs Reference Manual
634 .I SXEmacs Lisp Programmer's Manual
635 is included in a convenient tree structured form.
637 $PREFIX/share/sxemacs-$VERSION/lisp/* - Lisp source files and compiled files
638 that define most editing commands.
640 $PREFIX/share/sxemacs-$VERSION/etc - some files of information, pixmap
641 files, other data files used by certain packages, etc.
643 $PREFIX/lib/sxemacs-$VERSION/$CONFIGURATION - various programs that are used
646 $PREFIX/lib/sxemacs-$VERSION/$CONFIGURATION/DOC -
647 contains the documentation strings for the Lisp primitives and
648 preloaded Lisp functions of \fISXEmacs\fP.
649 They are stored here to reduce the size of \fISXEmacs\fP proper.
651 \fISXEmacs\fP can use the \fIXEmacs\fP package infrastructure and it
652 searches for packages in these places by default...
654 $HOME/.sxemacs/site-packages
655 $HOME/.sxemacs/xemacs-packages
656 $HOME/.sxemacs/mule-packages
657 $HOME/.sxemacs/sxemacs-packages
659 $PREFIX/share/sxemacs/site-packages
660 $PREFIX/share/sxemacs/xemacs-packages
661 $PREFIX/share/sxemacs/mule-packages
662 $PREFIX/share/sxemacs/sxemacs-packages
667 There is a issue tracker at http://issues.sxemacs.org/, for reporting
669 bugs. But before reporting something
670 as a bug, please try to be sure that it really is a bug, not a
671 misunderstanding or a deliberate feature. We ask you to read the section
672 ``Reporting SXEmacs Bugs'' near the end of the reference manual (or Info
673 system) for hints on how and when to report bugs. Also, include the version
676 you are running and the system you are running it on
677 in \fIevery\fR bug report that you send in. Finally, the more you can
678 isolate the cause of a bug and the conditions it happens under, the more
679 likely it is to be fixed, so please take the time to do so.
681 For more information about SXEmacs mailing lists, see the
682 file $PREFIX/share/sxemacs-$VERSION/etc/MAILINGLISTS.
686 is free; anyone may redistribute copies of
689 anyone under the terms stated in the
691 General Public License,
692 a copy of which accompanies each copy of
695 appears in the reference manual.
699 may sometimes be received packaged with distributions of Unix systems,
700 but it is never included in the scope of any license covering those
701 systems. Such inclusion violates the terms on which distribution
702 is permitted. In fact, the primary purpose of the General Public
703 License is to prohibit anyone from attaching any other restrictions
707 X(1), xlsfonts(1), xterm(1), xrdb(1), emacs(1), vi(1)
712 Steve Youngs <steve@sxemacs.org>,
716 Sebastian Freundt <hroptatyr@sxemacs.org>,
717 Nelson Ferreira <njsf@sxemacs.org>,
718 Evgeny Zajcev <lg@sxemacs.org>,
719 Erik Arneson <erik@sxemacs.org>,
720 Hynek Schlawack <hynek@sxemacs.org>.
721 It was based on an earlier version of
725 Steve Baur <steve@xemacs.org>,
726 Martin Buchholz <martin@xemacs.org>,
727 Richard Mlynarik <mly@adoc.xerox.com>,
728 Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>,
729 Chuck Thompson <cthomp@xemacs.org>,
730 Ben Wing <ben@xemacs.org>,
731 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>,
733 It was based on an early version of
736 written by Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> of the Free Software
737 Foundation, and has tracked subsequent releases of
739 as they have become available. It was originally written by Lucid, Inc.
740 (now defunct) and was called
744 Chuck Thompson wrote the
746 redisplay engine, maintains the
748 FTP and WWW sites, and has put out all releases of
750 since 19.11 (the first release called
752 Ben Wing wrote the Asian-language support, the on-line documentation
753 (including this man page and much of the FAQ), the external widget code,
754 and retooled or rewrote most of the basic, low-level
756 subsystems. Jamie Zawinski put out all releases of
759 from the first (19.0) through the last (19.10), and was the primary
760 code contributor for all of these releases. Richard Mlynarik rewrote
763 Lisp-object allocation system, improved the keymap and minibuffer code,
764 and did the initial synching of
770 Many others have also contributed significantly. For more detailed
771 information, including a long history of \fISXEmacs\fP from multiple
772 viewpoints and pretty pictures and bios of the major \fISXEmacs\fP
773 contributors, see the
774 .I SXEmacs About Page
775 (the About SXEmacs option on the Help menu).
777 For more information about \fISXEmacs\fP, see the
778 .I SXEmacs About Page
780 look in the file $PREFIX/share/sxemacs-$VERSION/etc/NEWS,
781 or point your Web browser at
783 http://www.sxemacs.org/
785 for up-to-the-minute information about \fISXEmacs\fP.
789 FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) can be found at the Web site just listed.
790 A possibly out-of-date version is also accessible through the Info system
791 inside of \fISXEmacs\fP.
793 The latest version of \fISXEmacs\fP can be downloaded using anonymous
796 ftp://ftp.sxemacs.org/pub/sxemacs/