GNU Emacs is the most popular and widespread of the Emacs family of editors. It is also the most powerful and flexible. Unlike all other text editors, GNU Emacs is a complete working environment—you can stay within Emacs all day without leaving.
, 3rd Edition tells readers how to get started with the GNU Emacs editor. It is a thorough guide that will also "grow" with you: as you become more proficient, this book will help you learn how to use Emacs more effectively. It takes you from basic Emacs usage (simple text editing) to moderately complicated customization and programming.The third edition of
describes Emacs 21.3 from the ground up, including new user interface features such as an icon-based toolbar and an interactive interface to Emacs customization. A new chapter details how to install and run Emacs on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, including tips for using Emacs effectively on those platforms.
, third edition, covers:
Learning GNU Emacs
Learning GNU Emacs
Learning GNU Emacs
• How to edit files with Emacs
• Using the operating system shell through Emacs
• How to use multiple buffers, windows, and frames
• Customizing Emacs interactively and through startup files
• Writing macros to circumvent repetitious tasks
• Emacs as a programming environment for Java, C++, and Perl, among others
• Using Emacs as an integrated development environment (IDE)
• Integrating Emacs with CVS, Subversion and other change control systems for projects with multiple developers
• Writing HTML, XHTML, and XML with Emacs
• The basics of Emacs Lisp
The book is aimed at new Emacs users, whether or not they are programmers. Also useful for readers switching from other Emacs implementations to GNU Emacs.
Preface
Emacs is the most powerful text editor available today. Unlike most other editors (in particular, unlike the standard Unix editor, vi), Emacs is a complete working environment. No matter what you do, you can start Emacs in the morning, work all day and all night, and never leave it: you can use it to edit, rename, delete, and organize files; to compile programs; to run shell commands; and so on. Before windowing systems like X and Microsoft Windows became popular, Emacs often served as a complete windowing system of its own. All you needed was a terminal, and you could live within Emacs forever. Emacs is also infinitely flexible; you can write your own commands, change the keys that are associated with commands, and (if you are willing to take the time) do just about anything you want.
