Emacs stuff

[Tkil]

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>>>>> "Anthony" == Anthony Kilna <anthony at zoovy.com> writes:

Anthony> I forget the name of the emacs guru present at the meeting on
Anthony> Wednesday, 

Hm.  I'm not sure I qualify as an emacs "guru", but it was probably
me.

Anthony> I'm still interested in any links to (or commands I can run)
Anthony> to get more info on how to use emacs in general (with an
Anthony> emphasis on cheat-sheets and mnemonics)

There's always the tutorial, which is a big help (C-h t).  There's the
info file(s), available under C-h i.  As for "cheat sheet", I would
imagine that there's an O'Reilly book with a tear-out quick ref
sheet.  There' probably also some quick-reference sheets just lying
around on the web.

(Finally, for those who just want a dump of all commands that are
readily available, you can do "C-h b" to describe all the "bindings"
currently in effect.  You can also use "apropos" to look up commands
on name...)

Anthony> and specifically how to specify new syntax highlighting.

If you rummage around in:

   http://slinky.scrye.com/~tkil/elisp/

You can take a look at two different files that implement syntax
highlighting with varying degrees of grace and success:

   irchat-fontlock.el
   mysql-fontlock.el

Those should be enough to get you started.  As I mentioned at the
meeting, you can also get lots of information from the built-in
documentation on "font-lock-keywords", available by typing:

   C-h v font-lock-keywords

in your default configuration.  (If you have backspace issues with
control+h, you can also do:

   ESC x describe-variable RET font-lock-keywords RET

I mostly use this in cperl-mode, where Ilya "helpfully" overrode
standard bindings.  Sigh.)

Anthony> Also, I'm interested in changing some behaviors that I find
Anthony> frustrating (line wrapping with the \ at the end, for
Anthony> instance,

Which issue are you referring to?  When you're typing new text, if it
doesn't wrap, you need to turn on "auto-fill-mode".  When you're
viewing existing text (e.g., a nice wide log file output), you can
have emacs either wrap the text (the default), or have it "truncate"
the lines (by setting the variable "truncate-lines" to "t").  If you
get the horizontal scroll bar, that's great; otherwise, you need to
use "C-x >" and "C-x <" to move left or right.

Anthony> the tendency for it to use spaces instead of tabs for
Anthony> indenting

Take a look at the variable "indent-tabs-mode":

| `indent-tabs-mode' is a built-in boolean variable.
| 
| Value: nil
| 
| This value is specific to the current buffer.
| 
| Documentation:
| *Indentation can insert tabs if this is non-nil.
| Setting this variable automatically makes it local to the current buffer.

That last blurb at the bottom means that, if you want to use tabs
whenever possible, you have to do something a bit fancy in your
.emacs:

   (setq-default indent-tabs-mode t)

(Normally, you can just use "setq"; since that makes the value change
only in that buffer, it means that your .emacs buffer has that change,
but everywhere else that variable is still "nil".)

t.
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