Xah Emacs Tutorial

Xah Lee, 2005, …, 2011

This emacs tutorial is designed for programers and scientists who wish to learn emacs to get things done quickly, without spending a lot time on learning Emacs's special terminologies and methods.

If you are a programer by profession, knowing emacs benefits you for life.

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Emacs Tutorial

General Tips

• Emacs Basics
• Which Emacs to Download?
• Emacs Intermediate
• How to Make Emacs Use Modern User Interface
• Emacs and MS Windows Tips
• Emacs Advanced Tips
• Emacs Less-known Tips
• Fun Things To Do With Emacs

• New Features in Emacs 23
• Emacs Online Resources and Communities 2011

Working With Files

• File Management (dired)
• Using Bookmarks
• Renaming Multiple Files
• Find ＆ Replace on Multiple Files

Common Tasks

• Using shells #! $ > &
• Emacs: Searching for Text in Files (grep, find)

• Emacs Keyboard Macro and Examples
• Coding HTML
• Writing Outline: org-mode
• Make Whitespaces Visible
• Insert Templates for Any Language (YASnippet)
• Lookup References for Any Language
• Using Emacs's Abbrev Mode for Abbreviation
• Working with Unicode ⇒ λ ∞ π § ☺ ♀ ♂ ♥

All about Find ＆ Replace

• All about Find ＆ Replace Find → Replace
• Emacs Regex
• Emacs: Newline Representations ^M ^J ^L

Keyboarding ⌨

Emacs Lisp Tutorial

• Emacs's Keyboard Shortcut Layout
• Defining Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts ◇ Sample Practical Keybindings ◇ Defining Super ＆ Hyper Keys ◇ Adding Web Browser Keys
• How to Override Keybindings in Emacs
• Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts are Painful
• A Ergonomic Keyboard Shortcut Layout
• How to Avoid the Emacs Pinky Problem
• Emacs's Key Notations Explained (/r, ^M, C-m, RET, <return>, M-, meta)
• Emacs Custom Keybinding to Enhance Productivity
• Emacs: Commands and Keys to Navigate Brackets

Misc

• Long Term Emacs Productivity Tips
• Emacs Keyboard Macro Example: Adding HTML Attribute
• Emacs Keyboard Macro Example: Insert All Unicode Bullets
• Emacs Misc Tips
• How to Turn a Mode on/off/toggle?
• list-matching-lines, delete-matching-lines
• unfill-paragraph, unfill-region, compact-uncompact-block
• Working With Tables
• manipulate Column Text, string-rectangle, ASCII-Art
• Aligning Text and Sorting by Fields
• Emacs as Word Processor: Bold and Highlight Text

Customization

• Where to get JavaScript, PHP, Visual Basic?
• How to Install Packages
• How to Associate a File with a Major Mode?
• Organize Your .emacs File in 5 Minutes
• What's Emacs Custom System and Should You Use It?
• How to Define Templates In YASnippet ◇ Emacs YASnippet Tip: Expand Whole hyphenated-word as Input
• Emacs: How to Copy/Cut Current Line
• Emacs: Single Command to Delete Whole Line
• How to Add Menu in Emacs
• Emacs dired Tips (File Management)
• Emacs: Defining Alias to Increase Productivity
• Using Emacs's “Dired+” (DiredPlus) Mode
• Emacs: perl-mode vs cperl-mode
• Emacs: Insert Brackets by Pair
• Emacs Regex Quirk: Matching Beginning/End of Line/String/Buffer
• Emacs Dired: Opening Files in External Apps

Emacs Modernization

Emacs Related Essays

About the author, Acknowledgement

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