Mario Michael da Costa wrote:
> Charles Muller wrote:
>
>>I am trying to learn how to use the Emacs package that came with ML 8.1, but
>>the program runs as a tiny window in one corner of my screen, with
>>microscopic menu fonts. Is there a way to make this window larger, with
>>larger menu fonts?
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Charles Muller
>>
>>
> <asbestos suit on>
> Hello Charles,
> If you don't already know emacs, may i suggest you try vim, or gvim ?
> :o) it's much easier, and once you get used to it, you will find that
> it makes life very very easy. If you need any help with learning vim,
> i would be glad to help out. just mail me, and i'll reply first thing
> on monday morning when i get back to work, or i'm sure that there will
> be a lot of vimmers on this mailing list only too eager to help out.
>
> Thank You,
> Regards,
> mario
> <asbestos suit off>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
>
emacs has a file where a few items are stored called
/etc/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
The format of settings entered there is given by opening a terminal and
typing
man emacs
For your purposes, you want to check that the font line in the file is
something like
emacs*font:
-*-Fixed-Medium-R-*-*-*-130-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
only on one line in the file...
Then you can grab the lower right corner of the window and use it to
resize the window, or you can specify the geometry...
Once, on a lark, I decided to make emacs my desktop environemnt/window
manageR, so I set the app-defaults to -geometry 145x86 to fill the screen...
If you want the power of emacs without quite the overhead, there is jed
available for install. joe is also a nice editor which can be made a
micro-emacs.
BUT as the guy in the asbestos suit intimated--there is something of a
religious war on between vi and emacs. vi has its roots in old old
UNIX, where it was rightfully welcomed as the best thing _including_
sliced bread by the folks who had been chafing under the inquisitorial
torture of a program called ed. Emacs came somewhat later, largely the
brainchild of Richard Stallman, and the folks who decided they liked it.
My email signature at one time was:
"Daddy, why do we have to hide from the police."
"Because we use emacs, son. They use vi."
My own learning came on micros(8&16-bit) and my intro to vi was on SCO
Xenix, which impressed me at the time. (and I thought 1 Meg of memory
was a _LOT_, too). MINCE (Mince Is Not Complete Emacs) was available on
CP/M and DOS computers, and I did a lot of writing, in an area where we
were lucky to have power. With powerdowns frequent, it was a pain to
switch modes in vi to save everything every few minutes... Lessee
<escape> to get out of insert mode then :w<enter> then i to get back to
insert mode... With MINCE it was ctrl-x s or more likely nothing at all
since it autosaved to a scratch buffer frequently.
And then there was SCRIBBLE to accompany MINCE, but nothing to accompany
vi on the machines I had available (SCRIBBLE was a TeX-like thing for
formatting output), so I learned emacs and didn't continue using vi
beyond its basic editor functions and then not those if something more
convenient was available.
Now I use emacs as my IDE. The color-coded support in my languages of
choice and the autosaving are very important to me. I use vi when I am
doing rescue work (if it is available and joe or jed are not), and I use
LyX for documents, or occasionally Applixware or StarOffice if I have
to be Microsoft-readable.
Yes, you will find every editor has a following. PHPers sometimes like
vim, but often select Xemacs. Many web page folks think Nedit birth was
the point where the world began to run right.
Pick the one you want and learn it. Then join the fanatics who think
their editor is the greatest.
I don't happen to have a fully formed opinion, and I tend to use the
simple commands on lots of editors, and rarely have use for anything
more. I do tend to customize emacs to suit myself more than any other,
and I think I also like it because the screen is easy on my eyes, but I
can't claim to know even half its functions.
Civileme
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
