how to open an uninstalled info file from within emacs
Robert P. J. Day
in my quest to now learn elisp, i wanted to read "programming in
emacs lisp (2nd ed.)", using the info form of that doc. i've already
figured out that, when i'm in regular emacs, i can open up an info
document with "C-h i" and, conveniently, if there are elisp expressions,
i can execute them with "C-x C-e".
however, the info form of the document i want to read, while it is
downloadable from www.fsf.org, is not part of the installed info
library on my latest version of red hat.
so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
info file that i've downloaded from the net? (short of installing
it, that is; i want to be able to do this to arbitrary info files
that i might download from arbitrary locations.)
am i making any sense here?
rday
Klaus Berndl
If i understand you right you do not want install these info-files in any path
where Emacs searches autom., right?!
If yes, then just press "C-u C-h i" instead of just "C-h i" and you will be
asked for the filename of an info-file to open.
Klaus
>
> rday
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Klaus Berndl mailto: klaus....@sdm.de
sd&m AG http://www.sdm.de
software design & management
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Jonas Steverud
> so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
> info file that i've downloaded from the net?
C-u C-h i
> am i making any sense here?
Yep. :-)
--
( www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d4jonas/ ! Wei Wu Wei )
( Meaning of U2 Lyrics, Roleplaying ! To Do Without Do )
Robert P. J. Day
> "Robert P. J. Day" <rpj...@mindspring.com> writes:
>
> > so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
> > info file that i've downloaded from the net?
>
> C-u C-h i
ok, i'll bite -- why does adding the "C-u" universal argument on the front
of "C-h i" cause this behavior? it certainly isn't intuitive, at least
not to me. should i have guessed this somehow?
rday
Jesper Harder
> On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Jonas Steverud wrote:
>
>> "Robert P. J. Day" <rpj...@mindspring.com> writes:
>>
>> > how can i open in info mode a specific info file that i've
>> > downloaded from the net?
>>
>> C-u C-h i
>
> ok, i'll bite -- why does adding the "C-u" universal argument on the
> front of "C-h i" cause this behavior? it certainly isn't intuitive,
> at least not to me. should i have guessed this somehow?
It's probably hard to guess, but `C-h k C-h i' would have told you. The
node "(emacs)Misc Help" also mentions it.
Thomas F. Burdick
> On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Jonas Steverud wrote:
>
> > "Robert P. J. Day" <rpj...@mindspring.com> writes:
> >
> > > so, from within emacs, how can i open in info mode a specific
> > > info file that i've downloaded from the net?
> >
> > C-u C-h i
>
> ok, i'll bite -- why does adding the "C-u" universal argument on the front
> of "C-h i" cause this behavior? it certainly isn't intuitive, at least
> not to me. should i have guessed this somehow?
It is intuitive when you've internalized some of the logic of C-u, and
I originally found it by guessing -- but that's not to say I would've
expected J. Random Emacsuser to necessarily guess it.
For commands where a numeric argument makes sense, they generally take
a numeric argument as a repeat count. For commands where a numeric
argument doesn't make sense, they generally give you an expanded
version of the command. For C-s, this means using a regexp search.
For something like C-x C-f (when you're using ffap), this means
defaulting to whatever "thing" is right at or around the point. For
something like C-h i, which has a default place to look (the system
info dir file), this means prompting you for a different place.
I found this originally by saying, "I want to look at this info file,
but C-h i is defaulting to the wrong place ... maybe an `expanded'
version of this would let me choose the default place".
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