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Path: informatik.tu-muenchen.de!fu-berlin.de!news.mathworks.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!the-tech!reuven From: Reuven M. Lerner <reuven@the-tech.mit.edu> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), part 4/4 Supersedes: <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-4_842468882@the-tech.mit.edu> Followup-To: gnu.emacs.help Date: 10 Oct 1996 20:18:01 GMT Organization: GNU Emacs FAQ Central Lines: 962 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: 18 Nov 1996 20:17:53 GMT Message-ID: <GNU-Emacs-FAQ-4_844978673@the-tech.mit.edu> Reply-To: reuven@netvision.net.il NNTP-Posting-Host: the-tech.mit.edu Summary: Questions and answers having to do with GNU Emacs Keywords: GNU Emacs editors questions Originator: reuven@the-tech Xref: informatik.tu-muenchen.de gnu.emacs.help:43504 comp.emacs:28839 comp.answers:21582 news.answers:83797 Archive-name: GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part4 ------------------------------------------------------------ If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x $" to get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $". To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a C-r if that doesn't work. Type RET to end the search. If you have w3-mode installed (see question 111), you can visit ftp and HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by placing the cursor on the URL and typing M-x w3-follow-url-at-point. The FAQ is posted in five parts; if you are missing a section or would prefer to read the FAQ in a single file, see question 22. ------------------------------------------------------------ Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs 103: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@uunet.uu.net> Latest version: 5.96 (beta) Anonymous FTP: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/mail/vm/vm-5.96beta.tar.gz Newsgroups and mailing lists: Informational newsgroup/mailing list: gnu.emacs.vm.info (newsgroup) info-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions) info-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions) Bug reports newsgroup/mailing list: gnu.emacs.vm.bug (newsgroup) bug-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions) bug-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions) 104: SuperCite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs Author: Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@cen.com> Latest version: 3.1 (comes with Emacs 19) Anonymous FTP: ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/sc3.1.tar.Z Mailing list: supercite-request@merlin.cnri.reston.va.us (for subscriptions) supercite@merlin.cnri.reston.va.us (for submissions) NOTE: Superyank is an old version of SuperCite. 105: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs Author: Dave Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> Latest version: 2.02e Anonymous FTP: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/calc-2.02e.tar.gz NOTE: Unlike Wolfram Research, Dave has never threatened to sue anyone for having a program with a similar command language to Calc. :-) 106: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs Since Emacs 19.29, the preferred vi emulation in Emacs is VIPER (M-x viper-mode RET), which comes with Emacs. It extends and supersedes VIP (including VIP 4.3) and provides vi emulation at several levels, from one that closely follows vi to one that departs from vi in several significant ways. For Emacs 19.28 and earlier, the following version of VIP is generally better than the one distributed with Emacs: Author: Aamod Sane <sane@cs.uiuc.edu> Latest version: 4.3 Anonymous FTP: ftp://cs.uiuc.edu/pub/vip4.3.tar.Z ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/modes/vip-mode.tar.Z 107: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities Authors: Kresten Krab Thorup <krab@iesd.auc.dk> and Per Abrahamsen <abraham@iesd.auc.dk> Latest version: 9.5a Anonymous FTP: ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/packages/auctex/auctex-9.5a.tar.gz Mailing list: auc-tex-request@iesd.auc.dk (for subscriptions) auc-tex@iesd.auc.dk (for submissions) auc-tex_mgr@iesd.auc.dk (auc-tex development team) World-Wide Web: http://www.iesd.auc.dk/~amanda/auctex/ 108: Hyperbole -- extensible hypertext management system within Emacs Author: Bob Weiner <rsw@cs.brown.edu> Latest version: 3.16 Anonymous FTP: ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/infodock/hyperbole-4.01.tar.gz Mailing lists: hyperbole-announce -- Hyperbole release announcements only. Subscriptions: To: hyperbole-request@cs.brown.edu Subject: Add <mailbox@domain.name> to hyperbole-announce hyperbole -- Hyperbole discussion. Subscriptions: To: hyperbole-request@cs.brown.edu Subject: Add <mailbox@domain.name> to hyperbole Submissions: hyperbole@cs.brown.edu NOTE: Any member of the hyperbole mailing list is automatically a member of the hyperbole-announce mailing list. NOTE: No .UUCP or ! addresses are allowed on these mailing lists. 109: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers Author: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@netscape.com> Latest released version: 1.51 Available from: http://home.netscape.com/people/jwz/bbdb/bbdb-1.51.tar.gz Mailing lists: info-bbdb-request@xemacs.org (for subscriptions) info-bbdb@xemacs.org (for submissions) bbdb-announce-request@xemacs.org (to be informed of new releases) World-Wide Web: http://home.netscape.com/people/jwz/bbdb/ 110: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs Author: Geoff Kuenning <geoff@itcorp.com> Latest released version: 3.1.20 Anonymous FTP: Master Sites: ftp://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/ispell/ispell-3.1.20.tar.gz Known Mirror Sites: ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/dicts/ispell/ ftp://ftp.nl.net/pub/textproc/ispell/ World-Wide Web: http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/ispell.html NOTE: * Do not ask Geoff to send you the latest version of Ispell. He does not have free e-mail. * This Ispell program is distinct from GNU Ispell 4.0. GNU Ispell 4.0 is no longer a supported product. 111: W3-mode -- A World-Wide Web browser inside of Emacs Author: Bill Perry <wmperry@spry.com> Latest version: 2.2.26 Anonymous FTP: ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/elisp/w3/w3.tar.gz Mailing lists: w3-announce-request@indiana.edu (to get announcements of new versions) w3-beta-request@indiana.edu (for beta-testers of new versions) w3-dev@indiana.edu (for developers of W3) 112: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes Author: Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu> Latest version: 1.21 Anonymous FTP: ftp://theory.lcs.mit.edu/pub/emacs/edb Newsgroups and mailing lists: edb-list-request@theory.lcs.mit.edu (for subscriptions) edb-list@theory.lcs.mit.edu (for submissions) 113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news Authors: Patrick J. LoPresti (patl@lcs.mit.edu) and Jin S. Choi (jin@atype.com) Latest version: 3.4 Anonymous FTP: ftp://cag.lcs.mit.edu/pub/patl/mailcrypt-3.4.tar.gz World-Wide Web: http://cag-www.lcs.mit.edu/mailcrypt/ 114: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files Author: Larry Wall <lwall@netlabs.com> Latest version: 2.1 Anonymous FTP: See question 91 Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems 115: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands? Keys can be bound to commands either interactively or in your .emacs file. To interactively bind keys for all modes, type M-x global-set-key RET KEY CMD RET To bind a key just in the current major mode, type M-x local-set-key RET KEY CMD RET See "Key Bindings" in the on-line manual for further details. To bind keys on starting Emacs or on starting any given mode, use the following "trick": First bind the key interactively, then immediately type "C-x ESC ESC C-a C-k C-g". Now, the command needed to bind the key is in the kill ring, and can be yanked into your .emacs file. If the key binding is global, no changes to the command are required. For example, (global-set-key (quote [f1]) (quote help-for-help)) can be placed directly into the .emacs file. If the key binding is local, the command is used in conjunction with the "add-hook" command. For example, in tex-mode, a local binding might be (add-hook 'tex-mode-hook (function (lambda () (local-set-key (quote [f1]) (quote help-for-help)))) NOTE: * Control characters in key sequences, in the form yanked from the kill ring are given in their graphic form -- i.e., CTRL is shown as `^', TAB as a set of spaces (usually 8), etc. You may want to convert these into their vector or string forms. * If a prefix key of the character sequence to be bound is already bound as a complete key, then you must unbind it before the new binding. For example, if "ESC {" is previously bound: (global-unset-key [?\e ?{]) ;; or (local-unset-key [?\e ?{]) * Aside from commands and "lambda lists," a vector or string also can be bound to a key and thus treated as a macro. For example: (global-set-key [f10] [?\C-x?\e?\e?\C-a?\C-k?\C-g]) ;; or (global-set-key [f10] "\C-x\e\e\C-a\C-k\C-g") 116: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"? Usually, one of two things has happened. In one case, the control character in the key sequence has been misspecified (e.g. "C-f" used instead of "\C-f" within a Lisp expression). In the other case, a "prefix key" in the keystroke sequence you were trying to bind was already bound as a "complete key." Historically, the "ESC [" prefix was usually the problem, in which case you should evaluate either of these forms before attempting to bind the key sequence: (global-unset-key [?\e ?[]) ;; or (global-unset-key "\e[") 117: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up? During startup, Emacs initializes itself according to a given code/file order. If some of the code executed in your .emacs file needs to be postponed until the initial terminal or window-system setup code has been executed but is not, then you will experience this problem (this code/file execution order is not enforced after startup). To postpone the execution of Emacs Lisp code until after terminal or window-system setup, treat the code as a "lambda list" and set the value of either the "term-setup-hook" or "window-setup-hook" variable to this "lambda function." For example, (setq term-setup-hook (function (lambda () (cond ((string-match "\\`vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") "")) ;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x: (global-set-key [do] 'execute-extended-command)) )))) For information on what Emacs does every time it is started, see the lisp/startup.el file. 118: How do I use function keys under X Windows? With Emacs 19, functions keys under X are bound like any other key. See question 115 for details. 119: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys emit? Type "C-h c" then the function or arrow keys. The command will return either a function key symbol or character sequence (see the Emacs on-line documentation for an explanation). This works for other keys as well. 120: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs? Emacs is not written using the Xt library by default, so there are no "translations" to be set. (We aren't sure how to set such translations if you do build Emacs with Xt; please let us know if you've done this!) The only way to affect the behavior of keys within Emacs is through "xmodmap" (outside Emacs) or "define-key" (inside Emacs). The "define-key" command should be used in conjunction with the "function-key-map" map. For instance, (define-key function-key-map [M-tab] [?\M-\t]) defines the "M-TAB" key sequence. 121: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control? C-s and C-q are used in the XON/XOFF flow control protocol. This messes things up when you're using Emacs, because Emacs binds these keys to commands by default. Because Emacs won't honor them as flow control characters, too many of these characters are not passed on and overwhelm output buffers. Sometimes, intermediate software using XON/XOFF flow control will prevent Emacs from ever seeing C-s and C-q. Possible solutions: * Disable the use of C-s and C-q for flow control. You need to determine the cause of the flow control. * your terminal Your terminal may use XON/XOFF flow control to have time to display all the characters it receives. For example, VT series terminals do this. It may be possible to turn this off from a setup menu. For example, on a VT220 you may select "No XOFF" in the setup menu. This is also true for some terminal emulation programs on PCs. When you turn off flow control at the terminal, you will also need to turn it off at the other end, which might be at the computer you are logged in to or at some terminal server in between. If you turn off flow control, characters may be lost; using a printer connected to the terminal may fail. You may be able to get around this problem by modifying the "termcap" entry for your terminal to include extra NUL padding characters. * a modem If you are using a dialup connection, the modems may be using XON/XOFF flow control. It's not clear how to get around this. * a router or terminal server Some network box between the terminal and your computer may be using XON/XOFF flow control. It may be possible to make it use some other kind of flow control. You will probably have to ask your local network experts for help with this. * tty and/or pty devices If your connection to Emacs goes through multiple tty and/or pty devices, they may be using XON/XOFF flow control even when it is not necessary. Eirik Fuller <eirik@theory.tn.cornell.edu> writes: Some versions of "rlogin" (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow control characters to the remote system to which they connect. On such systems, Emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow control on the local system. Sometimes "rlogin -8" will avoid this problem. One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems, "stty start u stop u" will do this. Some versions of "tcsh" will prevent even this from working. One way around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell. Use "stty -ixon" instead of "stty start u stop u" on some systems. * Make Emacs speak the XON/XOFF flow control protocol. You can make Emacs treat C-s and C-q as flow control characters by evaluating the form (enable-flow-control) to unconditionally enable flow control or (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19") (using your terminal names instead of "vt100" or "h19") to enable selectively. These commands will automatically swap `C-s' and `C-q' to `C-\' and `C-^'. Variables can be used to change the default swap keys ("flow-control-c-s-replacement" and "flow-control-c-q-replacement"). If you are fixing this for yourself, simply put the form in your .emacs file. If you are fixing this for your entire site, the best place to put it is in the lisp/site-start.el file. Putting this form in lisp/default.el has the problem that if the user's .emacs file has an error, this will prevent lisp/default.el from being loaded and Emacs may be unusable for the user, even for correcting their .emacs file (unless they're smart enough to move it to another name). For further discussion of this issue, read the file PROBLEMS (in the top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs source). 122: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered out? To bind `C-s' and `C-q', use either "enable-flow-control" or "enable-flow-control-on". See question 121 for usage and implementation details. To bind other keys, use "keyboard-translate". See question 125 for usage details. To do this for an entire site, you should swap the keys in lisp/site-start.el. See question 121 for an explanation of why lisp/default.el should not be used. NOTE: * If you do this for an entire site, the users will be confused by the disparity between what the documentation says and how Emacs actually behaves. 123: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help? The "Backspace" key (on most keyboards) generates ASCII code 8. `C-h' sends the same code. In Emacs by default `C-h' invokes help-command. This is intended to be easy to remember since the first letter of "help" is `h'. The easiest solution to this problem is to use `C-h' (and Backspace) for help and DEL (the Delete key) for deleting the previous character. For many people this solution may be problematic: * They normally use Backspace outside of Emacs for deleting the previous character. This can be solved by making DEL the command for deleting the previous character outside of Emacs. On many Unix systems, this command will remap DEL: stty erase `^?' * The person may prefer using the Backspace key for deleting the previous character because it is more conveniently located on their keyboard or because they don't even have a separate Delete key. In this case, the Backspace key should be made to behave like Delete. There are several methods. * Some terminals (e.g., VT3## terminals) allow the character generated by the Backspace key to be changed from a setup menu. * You may be able to get a keyboard that is completely programmable. * Under X or on a dumb terminal, it is possible to swap the Backspace and Delete keys inside Emacs: (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?) See question 125 for further details of "keyboard-translate". * Another approach is to switch key bindings and put help on "C-x h" instead: (global-set-key [?\C-h] 'delete-backward-char) (global-set-key [?\C-x ?h] 'help-command) ;; overrides mark-whole-buffer Other popular key bindings for help are M-? and "C-x ?". NOTE: * Don't try to bind DEL to help-command, because there are many modes that have local bindings of DEL that will interfere. 124: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete? Good question! 125: How do I "swap" two keys? In Emacs 19, you can swap two keys (or key sequences) by using the "keyboard-translate" function. For example, to turn `C-h' into DEL and DEL to `C-h', use (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?) ; translate `C-h' to DEL (keyboard-translate ?\C-? ?\C-h) ; translate DEL to `C-h'. The first key sequence of the pair after the function identifies what is produced by the keyboard; the second, what is matched for in the keymaps. Keyboard translations are not the same as key bindings in keymaps. Emacs contains numerous keymaps that apply in different situations, but there is only one set of keyboard translations, and it applies to every character that Emacs reads from the terminal. Keyboard translations take place at the lowest level of input processing; the keys that are looked up in keymaps contain the characters that result from keyboard translation. Also see "Keyboard Translations" in the on-line manual. 126: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard? On terminals (but not under X), some common "aliases" are: C-2 or C-SPC for C-@ C-6 for C-^ C-7 or C-S-- for C-_ C-4 for C-\ C-5 for C-] C-/ for C-? Often other aliases exist; use the "C-h c" command and try `CTRL' with all of the digits on your keyboard to see what gets generated. You can also try the "C-h w" command if you know the name of the command. 127: What if I don't have a Meta key? Instead of typing "M-a", you can type "ESC a". In fact, Emacs converts M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway (depending on the value of meta-prefix-char). Note that you press "Meta" and `a' together, while you press `ESC', release it, and then press `a'. 128: What if I don't have an Escape key? Type `C-[' instead. This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape key would. `C-3' may also work on some terminal (but not under X). For many terminals (notably DEC terminals) `F11' generates ESC. If not, the following form can be used to bind it: (define-key function-key-map [f11] [?\e]) ; F11 is the documented ESC ; replacement on DEC terminals. 129: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key? On a dumb terminal such as a VT220, no. It is rumored that certain VT220 clones could have their Compose key configured this way. If you're using X, you might be able to do this with the "xmodmap" program. 130: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key? With Emacs 19 you can represent modified function keys in vector format by adding prefixes to the function key symbol. For example (from the on-line documentation): (global-set-key [?\C-x right] 'forward-page) where "?\C-x" is the Lisp character constant for the character "C-x". You can use the modifier keys Control, Meta, Hyper, Super, Alt, and Shift with function keys. To represent these modifiers, prepend the strings "C-", "M-", "H-", "s-", "A-", and "S-" to the symbol name. Here is how to make "Hyper-Meta-RIGHT" move forward a word: (global-set-key [H-M-right] 'forward-word) NOTE: * Not all modifiers are permitted in all situations. Hyper, Super, and Alt are available only under X (provided there are such keys). Non-ASCII keys and mouse events (e.g. "C-=" and "mouse-1") also fall under this category. See question 115 for general key binding instructions. 131: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window? Try all of these methods before asking for further help: * You may have big problems using "mwm" as your window manager. {Does anyone know a good generic solution to allow the use of the Meta key in Emacs with mwm?} * For X11: Make sure it really is a Meta key. Use "xev" to find out what keysym your Meta key generates. It should be either Meta_L or Meta_R. If it isn't, use xmodmap to fix the situation. * Make sure the pty the xterm is using is passing 8 bit characters. "stty -a" (or "stty everything") should show "cs8" somewhere. If it shows "cs7" instead, use "stty cs8 -istrip" (or "stty pass8") to fix it. * If there is an rlogin connection between the xterm and the Emacs, the "-8" argument may need to be given to rlogin to make it pass all 8 bits of every character. * If the Emacs is running under Ultrix, it is reported that evaluating (set-input-mode t nil) helps. * If all else fails, you can make xterm generate "ESC W" when you type M-W, which is the same conversion Emacs would make if it got the M-W anyway. In X11R4, the following resource specification will do this: XTerm.VT100.EightBitInput: false (This changes the behavior of the insert-eight-bit action.) With older xterms, you can specify this behavior with a translation: XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \ Meta<KeyPress>: string(0x1b) insert() You might have to replace "Meta" with "Alt". 132: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0? This is a result of an internationalization extension in X11R4 and the fact that HP is now using this extension. Emacs assumes that XLookupString returns the same result regardless of the Meta key state which is no longer necessarily true. Until Emacs is fixed, the temporary kludge is to run this command after each time the X server is started but preferably before any xterm clients are: xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Mode_switch' NOTE: This will disable the use of the extra keysyms systemwide, which may be undesirable if you actually intend to use them. Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets 133: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters? Emacs 19 has built-in support for 8-bit characters. Here is an excerpt from the "European Display" page of the on-line manual: Some European languages use accented letters and other special symbols. The ISO 8859 Latin-1 character set defines character codes for many European languages in the range 160 to 255. Emacs can display those characters according to Latin-1, provided the terminal or font in use supports them. The "M-x standard-display-european" command toggles European character display mode. With a numeric argument, "M-x standard-display-european" enables European character display if and only if the argument is positive. Some operating systems let you specify the language you are using by setting a locale. Emacs handles one common special case of this: if your locale name for character types contains the string "8859-1" or "88591", Emacs automatically enables European character display mode when it starts up. 134: How do I input 8-bit characters? Again, from the "European Display" page of the on-line manual: If you enter non-ASCII ISO Latin-1 characters often, you might find ISO Accents mode convenient. When this minor mode is enabled, the characters ``', `'', `"', `^', `/' and `~' modify the following letter by adding the corresponding diacritical mark to it, if possible. To enable or disable ISO Accents mode, use the command "M-x iso-accents-mode". This command affects only the current buffer. To enter one of those six special characters, type the character, followed by a space. Some of those characters have a corresponding "dead key" accent character in the ISO Latin-1 character set; to enter that character, type the corresponding ASCII character twice. For example, `''' enters the Latin-1 character acute-accent (character code 0264). 135: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other character sets? MULE (MULtilingual Enhancement of Emacs) can handle many character sets at once, a feature that will eventually be merged into Emacs. MULE is available at ftp://sh.wide.ad.jp/JAPAN/mule/mule-19.33-gamma.taz 136: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets? Joel M. Hoffman <joel@exc.com> has written a Lisp package called hebrew.el that allows right-to-left editing of Hebrew. It reportedly works out of the box with Emacs 19, but requires patches for Emacs 18. Write to Joel if you want the patches or package. Hebrew.el requires a Hebrew screen font, but no other Hardware support. Joel has a screen font for PCs running MS-DOS and Linux. You might also try to query archie for files named with "hebrew"; several ftp sites in Israel may also have the necessary files. Mail and News 137: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups? If you read mail with Rmail or news with Gnus, set the variable mail-yank-prefix. For VM, set vm-included-text-prefix. For mh-e, set mh-ins-buf-prefix. For fancier control of citations, use SuperCite. See question 104. To prevent Emacs from including various headers of the replied-to message, set the value of mail-yank-ignored-headers to an appropriate regexp. 138: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail? You can either mail yourself a copy by including a "BCC:" header in the mail message, or store a copy of the message directly to a file by including an "FCC:" header. If you use standard mail, you can automatically create a "BCC:" to yourself by putting (setq mail-self-blind t) in your .emacs file. You can automatically include an "FCC:" field by putting something like the following in your .emacs file: (setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing")) The output file will be in Unix mail format, which can be read directly by VM, but not always by Rmail. See question 140. If you use mh-e, add an "FCC:" or "BCC:" field to your components file. It does not work to put "set record filename" in the .mailrc file. 139: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail? * You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer with commas. This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses like this one: To: Willy Smith <wks@xpnsv.lwyrs.com> However, you do not need to -- and probably should not, unless your system's version of /usr/ucb/mail (aka mailx) supports RFC822 -- separate addresses with commas in your ~/.mailrc file. * Emacs normally only reads the ".mailrc" file once per session, when you start to compose your first mail message. If you edit .mailrc, you can type "M-x rebuild-mail-abbrevs RET" to make Emacs reread your ~/.mailrc file. * If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you type them in. To enable this feature, execute the following: (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup) Note that the aliases are expanded automatically only after you type RET or a punctuation character (e.g. `,'). You can force their expansion by moving point to the end of the alias and typing "C-x a e" (M-x expand-abbrev). 140: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message? A file created through the FCC: field in a message is in Unix mail format, not the format that Rmail uses (BABYL format). Rmail will try to convert a Unix mail file into BABYL format on input, but sometimes it makes errors. For guaranteed safety, you can make the saved-messages file be an inbox for your Rmail file by using the function set-rmail-inbox-list. 141: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder? In Rmail, type "C-c C-s C-h" to get a list of sorting functions and their key bindings. 142: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail? This is the behavior of the "movemail" program which Rmail uses. This indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files. RMS writes: Certain systems require lock files to interlock access to mail files. On these systems, movemail must write lock files, or you risk losing mail. You simply must arrange to let movemail write them. Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access. On these systems, you should configure movemail to use flock. 143: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format? If you have just done rmail-input on a file and you don't want to save it in Rmail's format (called BABYL), just kill the buffer (with C-x k). If you typed M-x rmail and it read some messages out of your inbox and you want to put them in a Unix mail file, use C-o on each message. If you want to convert an existing file from BABYL format to Unix mail format, use the command M-x unrmail: it will prompt you for the input and output file names. 144: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME? Look at the Emacs MIME FAQ, maintained by MacDonald Hall Jackson <trey@cs.berkeley.edu> at http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~trey/emacs/mime.html 145: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader? To start Emacs in Gnus: emacs -f gnus in Rmail: emacs -f rmail A more convenient way to start with Gnus: alias gnus 'emacs -f gnus' gnus It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader from your .emacs file. This would cause problems if you needed to run two copies of Emacs at one time. Also, this would make it difficult for you to start Emacs quickly when you needed to. 146: How do I read news under Emacs? Use M-x gnus. It is documented in Info (see question 14). 147: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP? There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before blocking waiting for more input which never comes. NNTP version 1.5.11 claims to fix this. You can work around the bug inside Emacs like this: (setq nntp-maximum-request 1) You can find out what version of NNTP your news server is running by telnetting to the NNTP port (usually 119) on the news server machine (i.e., "telnet server-machine 119"). The server should give its version number in the welcome message. Type "quit" to get out. Also see question 74 in this FAQ for some additional ideas. 148: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g., ClariNews)? Underlining appears like this: _^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg Per Abrahamsen <amanda@iesd.auc.dk> suggests using the following code, which uses the underline face to turn such text into true underlining: (defun gnus-article-prepare-overstrike () ;; Prepare article for overstrike commands. (save-excursion (set-buffer gnus-article-buffer) (let ((buffer-read-only nil)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "\b" nil t) (let ((next (following-char)) (previous (char-after (- (point) 2)))) (cond ((eq next previous) (delete-region (- (point) 2) (point)) (put-text-property (point) (1+ (point)) 'face 'bold)) ((eq next ?_) (delete-region (1- (point)) (1+ (point))) (put-text-property (1- (point)) (point) 'face 'underline)) ((eq previous ?_) (delete-region (- (point) 2) (point)) (put-text-property (point) (1+ (point)) 'face 'underline)))))))) (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-overstrike) If you prefer to do away with underlining altogether, you can destructively remove it with M-x ununderline-region; do this automatically via (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook '(lambda () (ununderline-region (point-min) (point-max)))) 149: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus? Use gnus-uu. Type C-c C-v C-h in the Gnus summary buffer to see a list of available commands. 150: How do I make Gnus start up faster? From the Gnus FAQ (see question 156): Pranav Kumar Tiwari <pktiwari@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: I posted the same query recently and I got an answer to it. I am going to repeat the answer. What you need is a newer version of gnus, version 5.0.4+. I am using 5.0.12 and it works fine with me with the following settings: (setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil gnus-read-active-file 'some gnus-nov-is-evil nil gnus-select-method '(nntp gnus-nntp-server)) 151: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus? In the "*Newsgroup*" buffer, type the following magical incantation: M-< C-x ( c y C-x ) M-0 C-x e Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of the "*Newsgroup" buffer. 152: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control headers? Gnus will complain that the "Newsgroups:", "Keywords:", and "Control:" headers are "Unknown header" fields. For the "Newsgroups:" header, there is an easy workaround: kill on the "Xref" header instead, which will be present on any cross-posted article (as long as your site carries the cross-post group). If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like this: (gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\$bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\$") 153: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections? Set nntp-debug-read to nil. 154: Why is catch up slow in Gnus? Because Gnus is marking crosspostings read. You can control this with the variable gnus-use-cross-reference. 155: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting? David Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net> explains: The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News. NNTP POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang around and give its exit status so it knows whether the post was successful. (That wait will on some systems not return the exit status of the waited for job is a different sort of problem.) It ends up taking a long time because inews is calling relaynews, which often waits for another relaynews to free the lock on the news system so it can file the article. My preferred solution is to change inews to not call relaynews, but rather use newsspool. This loses some error-catching functionality, but is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors on its own. The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should look better to most folks as that update propagates around. 156: Where can I find out more about Gnus? Look for the Gnus FAQ, available at http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-faq.html ------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 Reuven M. Lerner Copyright 1992, 1993 Steven Byrnes Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992 Joseph Brian Wells This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers ("FAQ") may be translated into other languages, transformed into other formats (e.g. Texinfo, Info, WWW, WAIS), and updated with new information. The same conditions apply to any derivative of the FAQ as apply to the FAQ itself. Every copy of the FAQ must include this notice or an approved translation, information on who is currently maintaining the FAQ and how to contact them (including their e-mail address), and information on where the latest version of the FAQ is archived (including FTP information). The FAQ may be copied and redistributed under these conditions, except that the FAQ may not be embedded in a larger literary work unless that work itself allows free copying and redistribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ People who helped with this version of the FAQ: Ethan Bradford <ethanb@u.washington.edu>, William G. Dubuque <wgd@martigny.ai.mit.edu>, Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu>, and Denby Wong <3dw16@qlink.QueensU.CA>.