[OT] Reading Emacs Tutorials
Byung-Hee HWANG
time on anchor to chair. Is there somebody like me? If so, how do you
become to the power user on Emacs? Without reading Emacs tutorials or
Emacs howto.
Nevetheless, i cannot give up Emacs study. Really i like Emacs for
now. Can you please help me about that? Without fall behind, i wish to
stand up line of power users after about 3 months. Please comments!
This post sent be after read the article of Xah [1]:
[1] http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_vs_xemacs.html
--
Byung-Hee HWANG, KNU
∑ WWW: http://izb.knu.ac.kr/~bh/
Peter Dyballa
Am 14.03.2009 um 04:18 schrieb Byung-Hee HWANG:
> If so, how do you become to the power user on Emacs?
By reading the postings to this list and trying to find a solution to
reported problems. (Though not always sending them ...)
--
Greetings
Pete
No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind.
– First Law of Bicycling
Byung-Hee HWANG
> Because naturally i'm not patient, i cannot read the tutorials for long
> time on anchor to chair. Is there somebody like me? If so, how do you
> become to the power user on Emacs? Without reading Emacs tutorials or
> Emacs howto.
>
> Nevetheless, i cannot give up Emacs study. Really i like Emacs for
> now. Can you please help me about that? Without fall behind, i wish to
> stand up line of power users after about 3 months. Please comments!
>
> This post sent be after read the article of Xah [1]:
> [1] http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_vs_xemacs.html
While i read for the replys, i realized that before post is somewhat
stupid and dangerous for us because my minds from the message stands for
only my private greed by Emacs study without public good. I'll take of
myself.
At this time, actually, i prefer "Silence is gold" ;;
Ronnie Collinson
Lennart Borgman
Might be a good idea. I wonder what the best way to find them is. On
EmacsWiki there are a lot of users that links to their blogs. Maybe
that is a good way?
Byung-Hee HWANG
As you commented above, i'll do best study for me and emacs
family within that ways. Thank you for kind and valuable replies,
indeed..;;
Tassilo Horn
Hi Lennart,
>> My further recommendiation would be to look at quite a few emacs
>> related blogs, they often have little tid-bits which ussually quite
>> short.
>
> Might be a good idea. I wonder what the best way to find them is. On
> EmacsWiki there are a lot of users that links to their blogs. Maybe
> that is a good way?
There's planet.emacsen.org with aggregates emacs related blogs.
Bye,
Tassilo
Giorgos Keramidas
> Because naturally i'm not patient, i cannot read the tutorials for
> long time on anchor to chair. Is there somebody like me? If so, how do
> you become to the power user on Emacs? Without reading Emacs tutorials
> or Emacs howto.
>
> Nevetheless, i cannot give up Emacs study. Really i like Emacs for
> now. Can you please help me about that? Without fall behind, i wish to
> stand up line of power users after about 3 months. Please comments!
I just took my own pace and rhythm. Emacs is a huge program, so it is
pretty normal to feel overwhelmed by its size and complexity. I think
it is safe to assume that nobody can learn _everything_ about Emacs in
less than 3 months, but do not let this deter you from trying to use
Emacs and learn more about it.
You can start with small editing tasks, i.e. by setting Emacs as your
editor for email messages. I initially had my Emacs configured as the
editor for mutt(1). Starting a new Emacs instance for every email
message seemed a bit slowish, but it also provided me with a safe-belt:
when I did something stupid inside Emacs, I could save the message or
kill the buffer, and restart the email editor. This way I wouldn't feel
afraid to try new things and commands.
Using Emacs for editing my email messages was a pretty big step, because
I usually post 10-50 new messages every day and I spend a fair amount of
time inside my mail reader. But `forcing' myself to use Emacs for this
sort of work made me realize that I needed to learn more things about
the editor, to become more effective in my email editing tasks. So I
did.
Every time I learned of a new Emacs trick, I tried to apply it to my
everyday email editing sessions. I didn't read the _entire_ Emacs
tutorial in one day. I didn't read the entire manual in one day either.
But I did read parts of the tutorial and the manual very often. I spent
small chunks of time, and let them accumulate over time to what must be
now several hundred of hours of manual reading.
The important thing to realize is that you don't have to read the
*entire* manual in one go. Learn how to look things up in the index of
the manual, become acquainted with `info-mode' and how to navigate the
manual by using keys you are familiar with, and let experience build up
over time.
HTH,
Giorgos
Byung-Hee HWANG
Giorgos, i saw you at FreeBSD Project's mailing lists, nice to meet you!
Carefully i read your message from mail header (by t) to last
signature. Really you would be my role model as an Emacs user. Because i
like your posting style (bottom posting) and i like your posting route
(via newsgroup) and you are using BSD-like UNIX which is my favorite OS
currently.
Your words give me some courage i can study Emacs over a boundary of
time continually. After read your message, i decided to start Emacs
study from handling Gnus itself. Thank you so much, indeed.
Sincerely,
prad
Giorgos Keramidas <kera...@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
> Using Emacs for editing my email messages was a pretty big step
>
hi giorgos!
nice to see you on this list too!
i tried using emacs for my email messages too, but found things slow
and awkward compared to sylpheed, but i think i'll give it another try
after reading what you wrote. there are certain undeniable advantages
to being able to to so many tasks from just one program!!
i've found the big think to learning emacs is utilization. if you keep
doing things with it, the stuff becomes second nature. therefore, i
found it best to learn specific things to do specific things and keep
practising those tasks. every couple of weeks you can add on something
new to learn and gradually you'll acquire a fairly large repertoire.
emacs is like life. you don't do it all at once, but you become
familiar and skilled with doing certain things at certain times when
you need to.
--
In friendship,
prad
... with you on your journey
Towards Freedom
http://www.towardsfreedom.com (website)
Information, Inspiration, Imagination - truly a site for soaring I's
Giorgos Keramidas
> Giorgos, i saw you at FreeBSD Project's mailing lists, nice to meet
> you! Carefully i read your message from mail header (by t) to last
> signature.
Hey, this is wonderful. So you are not only a fellow Emacs user, but
also a BSD fan too. That's so nice ;)
> Thank you so much, indeed.
You are welcome!
Cheers,
Giorgos
Giorgos Keramidas
> On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:32:24 +0200
> Giorgos Keramidas <kera...@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
>> Using Emacs for editing my email messages was a pretty big step
> hi giorgos!
> nice to see you on this list too!
I must be getting really old. I see familiar names all over the place!
Nice to see you here too :)
I am using the newsgroup instead of the mailing list, but having a
bidirectional gateway helps a lot.
Lennart Borgman
> Lennart Borgman <lennart...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 10:21 PM, Ronnie Collinson
>> <notth...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Contribution and communication is always important for any community based
>>> related blogs, they often have little tid-bits which ussually quite short.
>>
>> Might be a good idea. I wonder what the best way to find them is. On
>> EmacsWiki there are a lot of users that links to their blogs. Maybe
>> that is a good way?
>
> family within that ways. Thank you for kind and valuable replies,
> indeed..;;
One thing I forgot to mention is that learning Emacs on ms windows is
a bit more difficult because you might not have the external programs
needed for useful commands like rgrep etc. I have packed together a
distribution that includes those programs, see
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsW32
So if anyone reading this is using ms windows this might be a good way
to learn about Emacs. This might be a first step on the road to
GNU/Linux ...
prad
Giorgos Keramidas <kera...@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
> I am using the newsgroup instead of the mailing list, but having a
> bidirectional gateway helps a lot.
>
ok so i presume you are using emacs for the newsgroup?
i'm going to try this, once i find out how to get news through our
cable company - when i try news in emacs, i get unable to open
nntp:news so i presume our cable company doesn't offer it.
Giorgos Keramidas
> On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:16:54 +0200
> Giorgos Keramidas <kera...@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
>> I am using the newsgroup instead of the mailing list, but having a
>> bidirectional gateway helps a lot.
>
> ok so i presume you are using emacs for the newsgroup? i'm going to
> try this, once i find out how to get news through our cable company -
> when i try news in emacs, i get unable to open nntp:news so i presume
> our cable company doesn't offer it.
I am using Gnus both for email and Usenet access. My email messages
arrive through fetchmail to `~/Mailbox' where Gnus picks them up from
and filters them to nnml:* folders through an `nnmail-split-fancy' list
of patterns.
For Usenet access, I pull a small number of groups through a free NNTP
server (news.sunsite.dk). It requires NNTP authentication but anyone is
free to register for NNTP access.
If your ISP is not actively blocking NNTP access to other sources, you
can always register to sunsite.dk and then configure Gnus to use it as
one of the message sources. My own setup is:
(setq nntp-authinfo-function 'nntp-send-authinfo)
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.sunsite.dk"))
(setq gnus-message-archive-group "nnml:posted")
For more details for the news server I am using, please take a minute or
two to read the instructions at `http://dotsrc.org/usenet/' and, more
importantly, the rules of usage at `http://dotsrc.org/usenet/policy/'.
There are also other public, freely available servers you can use for
news access, like:
* Gmane. A bi-directional gateway from many mailing lists to Usenet
style groups and vice versa. See `http://gmane.org/post.php'.
* Motzarella. A private project providing free access to text-only
Usenet News. See `http://news.motzarella.org/'.
I'm sure there are several others that I am missing. If you find any
and you use them with satisfactory results for some time, please let me
know, so I can add them to the list of public news servers I recommend
to anyone who asks :-)
B. T. Raven
Lennart,
Will your rgrep work with the standard Emacs w32 build? I have most of
the gnuwin32 utilities but things like rgrep are just shell scripts like:
#!/bin/sh
exec grep -r "$@"
which I can make into ms batch files but then I don't know what to do
with them. Would I be able to use your rgrep in my setup? Can it be
stripped out of the Emacsw32 stuff? I got web-browser printing from you
and that works fine.
prad
i will do so. thanks for all the info.
i'll reinvestigate mail with emacs and explore usenet with as well.
there should be a definite advantage of doing both these things through
one program!
Lennart Borgman
> Lennart Borgman wrote:
>> One thing I forgot to mention is that learning Emacs on ms windows is
>> a bit more difficult because you might not have the external programs
>> needed for useful commands like rgrep etc. I have packed together a
>> distribution that includes those programs, see
>>
>> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsW32
>>
>> So if anyone reading this is using ms windows this might be a good way
>> to learn about Emacs. This might be a first step on the road to
>> GNU/Linux ...
>>
>>
>
> Lennart,
>
> Will your rgrep work with the standard Emacs w32 build? I have most of the
> gnuwin32 utilities but things like rgrep are just shell scripts like:
>
> #!/bin/sh
>
> exec grep -r "$@"
>
> which I can make into ms batch files but then I don't know what to do with
> them. Would I be able to use your rgrep in my setup? Can it be stripped out
> of the Emacsw32 stuff? I got web-browser printing from you and that works
> fine.
rgrep is a command in Emacs. No shell script is needed. However the
grep program is needed.
I did make some small changes to rgrep (to make it use GNU grep's
recursive switch), but that is not very important. rgrep works with
the standard Emacs build on ms windows. The only thing you need is
something like the gnuwin32 grep. I have packaged that with the
installation. That is really all (but hopefully convenient for
newbees).
Byung-Hee HWANG
All your words is valuable, so i couldn't snip any words. Tonight i'll
try to connect news.sunsite.dk with Gnus. Unfortunately, here in Korea
there is no public news server. Your this message is really good to
me. After all, i'll feel the great power of open source through this big
network!
Sincerely,
Thien-Thi Nguyen
() Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:18:59 +0900
how do you become to the power user on Emacs?
If you listen to Emacs' chidings (as you (mis)use it),
perhaps you can imagine an alternative interaction mode.
In searching for that mode, you gain power. If you are
lucky the power is not only over Emacs, but over yourself,
as well.
thi
prad
Giorgos Keramidas <kera...@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
> If your ISP is not actively blocking NNTP access to other sources, you
> can always register to sunsite.dk
>
we do have news i found out from our isp, but it doesn't offer much so
i've setup on sunsite.dk - in fact, i'm replying through the newsgroup
instead of the maillist. i'll give emacs gnus a try later this week.
btw, motzeralla looks good too though i couldn't find this emacs
newsgroup on it.
the reason i posted this here instead of sending it privately is that
i'm trying to figure out what the advantages are of accessing things
through usenet vs email and would appreciate input on this from anyone.
the main ones i can see is that usenet works rather like an imap system
so that you aren't actually downloading everything and that it is
easier to search in posts which you may not have on your machine
anymore.
any thoughts on this for this list specifically perhaps?
Sean Sieger
On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:30:27 +0200
Giorgos Keramidas <kera...@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
> If your ISP is not actively blocking NNTP access to other sources, you
> can always register to sunsite.dk
>
we do have news i found out from our isp, but it doesn't offer much so
i've setup on sunsite.dk - in fact, i'm replying through the newsgroup
instead of the maillist. i'll give emacs gnus a try later this week.
btw, motzeralla looks good too though i couldn't find this emacs
newsgroup on it.
the reason i posted this here instead of sending it privately is that
i'm trying to figure out what the advantages are of accessing things
through usenet vs email and would appreciate input on this from anyone.
the main ones i can see is that usenet works rather like an imap system
so that you aren't actually downloading everything and that it is
easier to search in posts which you may not have on your machine
anymore.
any thoughts on this for this list specifically perhaps?
Prad, I have (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gmane.org")) in my
.emacs (I don't use a .gnus.el anymore, just one more file to back up).
And the combination of Gnus and Gmane ... I don't know, is a powerful
one to my way of thinking.
At any point, I can subscribe to most any list that I have ever wanted
to and had at my fingertips, the contents of the archive to do C-s and
C-r on to my hearts content. And really learn something let alone find
answers to questions that have been asked a lot of times. I just spent
last weekend reading the Cedet archive. The Python thread alone is, for
example a model of how to contribute a language to Cedet.
I'll tell you, I have unscribed to groups only to resubscribe and have
the server dump all that mail on me so that I may peruse it again and
again.
It's not necessary to do things like this. There are many more reasons
to hook up Gnus to a newsserver.
Michael Ekstrand
> On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:30:27 +0200
> Giorgos Keramidas <kera...@ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
>> If your ISP is not actively blocking NNTP access to other sources, you
>> can always register to sunsite.dk
>>
> we do have news i found out from our isp, but it doesn't offer much so
> i've setup on sunsite.dk - in fact, i'm replying through the newsgroup
> instead of the maillist. i'll give emacs gnus a try later this week.
>
> btw, motzeralla looks good too though i couldn't find this emacs
> newsgroup on it.
aioe.org carries the gnu.* hierarchy.
> the reason i posted this here instead of sending it privately is that
> i'm trying to figure out what the advantages are of accessing things
> through usenet vs email and would appreciate input on this from
> anyone.
I pull anything I can via usenet (I have a leafnode server that pulls
from aioe.org and gmane, and then access anything possible through
that). Then the server manages expiry for me :). Also, it makes using
Gnus a little more fluid, as it is its native habitat. Further, it
lowers the mail load and the time to download and split messages (I use
POP3 to receive mail) if all possible mass mailings go through NNTP.
- Michael
--
mouse, n: A device for pointing at the xterm in which you want to type.
prad
Sean Sieger <sean....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Prad, I have (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gmane.org")) in my
> .emacs (I don't use a .gnus.el anymore, just one more file to back
> up). And the combination of Gnus and Gmane ... I don't know, is a
> powerful one to my way of thinking.
>
ok i'm trying this.
> At any point, I can subscribe to most any list that I have ever wanted
> to and had at my fingertips,
>
however, i'm only seeing these groups:
*: alt.test
*: alt.config
*: news.announce.newusers
*: news.groups.questions
*: gnu.emacs.gnus
6: nndoc+gnus-help:gnus-help
in the last item there is a thread:
Where are all the groups, then?
following the instructions there i tried to revive the zombie groups
but only got:
Z 1: gmane.comp.gis.openstreetmap.region.de.dortmund (m)
Z 1: gmane.comp.gis.openstreetmap.region.de.duesseldorf (m)
Z 11: gmane.comp.video.tuxbox.scm (m)
Z 6: gmane.linux.drivers.otus.devel (m)
Z 4: gmane.org.user-groups.breds.talks (m)
now i'm looking through the gnus info to figure out what's going on.
> the contents of the archive to do C-s and
> C-r on to my hearts content.
>
this will search the article contents while you are in the headers
buffer? i could only search the titles.
> And really learn something let alone
> find answers to questions that have been asked a lot of times.
>
this sounds great from what you and michael have written - once i can
get some newsgroups that is :D
> It's not necessary to do things like this. There are many more
> reasons to hook up Gnus to a newsserver.
>
i'm using claws-mail as a newsreader right now and it's pretty good. i
have a feeling gnus is going to be much better once i learn to use it.
i found the search on claws-mail rather slow in comparison to going to
the mail list archives with a browser and searching there.
thank you sean and michael for explaining the benefits. i'll keep at it.
Sean Sieger
however, i'm only seeing these groups:
*: alt.test
*: alt.config
*: news.announce.newusers
*: news.groups.questions
*: gnu.emacs.gnus
6: nndoc+gnus-help:gnus-help
in the last item there is a thread:
Where are all the groups, then?
In the *Group* buffer, do `A A'. It sounds like you need to read a Gnus
tutorial.
> the contents of the archive to do C-s and
> C-r on to my hearts content.
>
this will search the article contents while you are in the headers
buffer? i could only search the titles.
Poster's names and subject lines, right? Often I do that just to find
answers to questions I have asked and forgotten the answers to.
Sometimes I use the two to find the name of a poster that I remember
saying a certain something. And it's just a great way to browse
archives from the application that I live in---everything else bugs me,
including browsers, but when in Rome ...
thank you sean and michael for explaining the benefits. i'll keep at it.
You're welcome. Sorry I cannot be of more help; Gnus is pretty big and
I use it for such a comparatively small purpose. It does so much and
what I have it do for me is so narrow but so perfect.
prad
Sean Sieger <sean....@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the *Group* buffer, do `A A'. It sounds like you need to read a
> Gnus tutorial.
>
ya i started working with one right after posting this. i found i could
get stuff from gmane with B (foreign) - didn't realize that how the
terminology went.
> You're welcome. Sorry I cannot be of more help
>
not at all! you've been a big help and i'm discovering things as i
work through gnus. still using claws-mail, but working it with gnus in
parallel these days - pretty soon it'll be all gnus!
Sean Sieger
ya i started working with one right after posting this. i found i could
get stuff from gmane with B (foreign) - didn't realize that how the
terminology went.
I've lost track of what you are using, but if you have,
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gmane.org"))
in your .gnus.el (or .emacs) you shouldn't be subscribing to news
through Gmane with `B', but simply `U'. Maybe you should have a look at
~/.newsrc (early on, I used to just throw mine out) and then, armed with
a tutorial, start over.
prad
Sean Sieger <sean....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe you should have a look at
> ~/.newsrc (early on, I used to just throw mine out) and then, armed
> with a tutorial, start over.
>
i'm doing so and am fine.
thx for all your suggestions.
next time i post here, it'll be from emacs!!