Книга: Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition

10.8 Making Emacs Work the Way You Think It Should

10.8 Making Emacs Work the Way You Think It Should

Emacs not only has per-user customizations; it can also have sitewide customizations. If Emacs isn't doing what you expect it to, you might want to try inhibiting any global customization file by starting Emacs with no customization.

You can do that by using one of these command-line options when you invoke Emacs.

• --no-init-file, -q load neither ~/.emacs nor default.el

• --no-site-file do not load site-start.el

If you normally start Emacs from an icon, it's helpful to learn how to start it from the command-line for cases like this. (You may also want to use the -debug option sometime to help you figure out what's wrong with your .emacs file if it is messed up following a change.) Chapter 13 describes how to start Emacs from the command-line for Mac OS X and Windows users.

You can also inhibit global initialization by creating a one-line .emacs file in your home directory. It should look exactly like this:

(setq inhibit-default-init t) ; no global initialization

Start Emacs again. This file prevents Emacs from reading its global initialization file.

There's still one awkward situation: what if you're sitting down at someone else's system? You start Emacs, and all of a sudden you're faced with someone else's "private" key bindings and features. Even in this situation, there's a solution:

• Try using the command emacs -q. The -q option tells Emacs not to read the user's .emacs file before starting. By doing this, you'll avoid the user's private customizations.

• Let's say that after this step, you still don't have your own customizations. If you want to make Emacs read your .emacs file, even when you're using someone else's account, give the command emacs -u yourname. For example: emacs -u deb starts Emacs with the user Deb's initialization file (/home/deb/.emacs).

The -u option may not work unless you're on a network where users have a shared home directory structure. It assumes either that you have the same home directory on every system, or that you have a different home directory on every system and an up-to-date .emacs file in all of your home directories.

If all that fails, fear not. You have more options. Let's take the worst case scenario: you're on someone else's system and you can't start Emacs from the command line. Go ahead and start Emacs. You can temporarily overwrite the other user's key bindings by loading up your own key bindings file in a buffer and running it with M-x eval-buffer.

You probably should make a separate file with key bindings and other variable options rather than using your .emacs file. That's because many times your .emacs file will have requests to load libraries that exist on a path that works only from your own system. If you find yourself jumping to a lot of different machines, it's worth the effort to create a portable "rebinding" file and put it somewhere accessible like a web page or a shared file server. Then you can evaluate it manually from your current Emacs.

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