The emacs text editor is available on Sandbox. This is a very powerful
tool, but it is also a complex one. If you plan to do any
programming, it is worth your time to learn it. Among its features:
- When you type a closing delimiter, such as
} or ), emacs
flashes its opening mate. Very nice for complex expressions or code blocks.
- Automatically indents your program.
- When properly configured, you can run the compiler from emacs,
and automatically move the cursor to the location of
any error messages.
- You may simultaneously display multiple windows containing the same or
different files.
If you want to learn about emacs, simply log on and run the
program. If you like, you may run a tutorial by typing F1 then t.
You also might want to download the small initialization file
here.
Install it under the name
.emacs in your home directory.
Emacs will interpret it whenever it runs, and
make a few settings which I find to be useful.
Specifically, it:
- Changes the meaning of the backspace key to erase the character
before the cursor. The default meaning is to run help (since the
backspace key is ASCII control-H: H for help). You can still run help
by typing F1, or pressing Escape x, then typing help.
- Binds the compilation facility to keystrokes. To compile your
program, say control-x control-e. To locate the next compiler error
message, say control-x control-n. To kill a compilation in progress,
say control-x control-k.
- Changes the forward and reverse search keys (control-s and
control-r) to be ordinary string searches instead of the interactive
search that emacs normally uses. This string search is
case-sensitive. If you like the i-search and prefer to keep it,
remove the last part of the file, starting with the
defvar line.
If you are interested,
a port of Emacs to the Windows platform is available
here.