Can't type in Command Prompt

[Christen Cromer]

Hello,

I just downloaded Emacs on my laptop which has windows 10, everything seems
to work fine but I can't type in the emacs command prompt for some reason.
And because of that I cannot run my programs. Is there any tips or tricks
you can give me so that I can fully utilize the software?

With much hope.

*Christen Cromer*

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Christen Cromer <ccrom...@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I just downloaded Emacs on my laptop which has windows 10, everything seems
> to work fine but I can't type in the emacs command prompt for some
> reason.

What does "type in the emacs command prompt" mean?

There's no emacs command prompt. The principle of an emacs, is to not
have any command prompt, but instead, to have an event loop, taking in
events, like key-down, and calling a command found in a key-map indexed
by the key you typed. So as soon as you can type a key, and it's
received by emacs, emacs executes commands.

> And because of that I cannot run my programs. Is there any tips or tricks
> you can give me so that I can fully utilize the software?

There are several ways to run external programs from emacs.

* You can use the commands bound by defaults to:

M-! M-x shell-command RET
M-| M-x shell-command-on-region RET

(you may prefix those with C-u to have the output replace the current
region). But the commands you give are interpreted by an external
command interpreter and I don't know anything about MS-Windows command
interpreters, so I couldn't say much about the syntax and commands you
can type here.


* You can run a "shell":

M-x shell RET
M-x eshell RET

shell uses an external command interpreter. On MS-Windows, it not
bash by default, I don't know anything about MS-Windows, so I can't
help here.

eshell is implemented in emacs lisp and therefore uses an internal
command interpreter. On the other hand, apart from a few built-in
commands, it obviously runs external, MS-Window commands (of which I
know nothing, so I can't help here).


* You can run terminal emulators:

M-x term RET
M-x terminal-emulator RET

They will be similar to shells, but will implement more terminal
emulation (eg. they will process terminal control codes). The only
down side, is that there's only one very specific key sequence to exit
from a terminal emulator, since all the other key sequences are sent
to the program running in the terminal.

Since those programs ask you what program to run, you can directly run
your programs, without going thru an external command interpreter.


When I have to use a MS-Windows box, I install cygwin
(http://cygwin.com) and run emacs in cygwin, so that I have a unix-like
environment and command interpreter (ie. bash).


--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a
dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to
keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk

[Loris Bennett]

You need to explain your problem in a bit more detail. What do you mean
by "I can't type in the emacs command prompt"?

Can't you open a terminal? Can't you type because you are wearing
boxing gloves? Can you type something, but you get some kind of error?
What did you type?

If you have installed Emacs on Windows, you shouldn't normally have to
type anything at a command prompt anyway. There should be an
appropriate entry in the list of applications.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about Windows 10.

Cheers,

Loris

--
This signature is currently under construction.

[Kaushal Modi]

> I can't type in the emacs command prompt for some reason.

My best bet is that Christen is referring to the minibuffer as "emacs
command prompt".

@Christen: If you are trying to click the mouse in that minibuffer area and
start typing; that's not how it works.

To call any emacs command, you do M-x SOME-COMMAND.

You can do "M-x" by either pressing the Alt key, keeping it pressed and
then pressing the "letter X" key. Or you can press the Esc key, release it
and then press the "letter X" key.
With that, try

M-x help-with-tutorial

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <p...@informatimago.com>
> Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 15:46:40 +0100

>
> When I have to use a MS-Windows box, I install cygwin
> (http://cygwin.com) and run emacs in cygwin, so that I have a unix-like
> environment and command interpreter (ie. bash).

That's an advice I don't recommend giving to anyone who could be faint
at heart. Cygwin programs and a native Windows build of Emacs are
subtly incompatible, and will not work well without some tinkering.

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Agreed, it's not for random MS-Windows users. It's an option for unix
or Linux users who don't know much about MS-Windows and who'd want to
have a familiar environment on that system.

Granted, there are quite some subtle and not-so-subtle differences,
notably with respect to paths, between the same program, like GNU emacs,
running directly on MS-Windows, or running on cygwin.

However, I imagine that a lot of emacs users actually rely on the
underlying unix system more than they would like to confess. For a
starter, we all use shell or term… I have a sizeable collection of
emacs lisp commands and utilities, but I still write unix my scripts (in
clisp); how many emacs users write ALL their scripts in emacs lisp (and
thus, would be entirely at ease when changing from underlying system,
and perhaps even running emacs bare on a kernel)?

But yes, those are only consideration for a specific class of emacs users.