3 ms·

Regardless of your stance in the editor wars, the 'first' key or key chord you need to know about is what it takes to leave the application. How to get in and h

by hsmyers 16y ago

Regardless of your stance in the editor wars, the 'first' key or key chord you need to know about is what it takes to leave the application. How to get in and how to get out first--- everything else second. The chord BTW is ^x^c I suppose you could claim that ^z leaves as well, but it is not quite the same thing. Although many never kill emacs, they just pause and return...

melling 16y ago
I would observe that modern emacs has menus so the getting started learning curve is no more difficult than Notepad. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ The command short-cuts are on the menus, so as you get tired of reaching for the mouse you can begin to use them. A couple of good reasons to use emacs: 1. It runs on most platforms. 2. It's a gateway drug to Lisp. Emacs is really just a big Lisp interpreter.
- rubergly 16y ago
  I'm curious; do you have experience (or know of someone who does) of learning Emacs by using it like Notepad and slowly learning the keyboard shortcuts by looking up things in menus? I'm skeptical that this approach would work; I think there are a lot of basic (non-obvious) things specific to Emacs that you need to know to use it well. If you just use it like Notepad and lookup shortcuts for copying/pasting, then I predict that you would just end up using it like Notepad.
  - lukeschlather 16y ago
    Definitely. It was easily three months before I learned about apropos. Otherwise it was menus and C-h k.
  - melling 16y ago
    Once you discover a handful of useful commands/features, you'll appreciate it more. These a few of my favorites: * Unlimited undo/redo - C-_ * Incremental search forwards/backwards - C-s/C-r * Macros - C-x ( C-x ) * Query-Replace: M-% * "Hippie" Expand - M-/ * M-x tetris -- Actually has an enjoyable game of Tetris.
  - waterlesscloud 16y ago
    This has pretty much been my process with it. I started using it sometime last year. Fumbled completely for a day or so, but started out just using menus and slowly changing to keyboard commands. That, and googling when I wanted some behavior that wasn't immediately clear to me. What I need to do now is read a fairly substantial book/site to tell me about the things I don't even know I would want to know. The Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns.
troels 16y ago
Unlike vim, I never use Emacs within a terminal. I use a standalone application, which has all the desktop chrome that comes with that. Including a quit button.
- cema 16y ago
  I too use Emacs mostly as a standalone but turn the chrome off. But the chrome is useful for a beginner.

by hsmyers 16y ago

melling 16y ago

I would observe that modern emacs has menus so the getting started learning curve is no more difficult than Notepad. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/ The command short-cuts are on the menus, so as you get tired of reaching for the mouse you can begin to use them. A couple of good reasons to use emacs: 1. It runs on most platforms. 2. It's a gateway drug to Lisp. Emacs is really just a big Lisp interpreter.

rubergly 16y ago
I'm curious; do you have experience (or know of someone who does) of learning Emacs by using it like Notepad and slowly learning the keyboard shortcuts by looking up things in menus? I'm skeptical that this approach would work; I think there are a lot of basic (non-obvious) things specific to Emacs that you need to know to use it well. If you just use it like Notepad and lookup shortcuts for copying/pasting, then I predict that you would just end up using it like Notepad.
- lukeschlather 16y ago
  Definitely. It was easily three months before I learned about apropos. Otherwise it was menus and C-h k.
- melling 16y ago
  Once you discover a handful of useful commands/features, you'll appreciate it more. These a few of my favorites: * Unlimited undo/redo - C-_ * Incremental search forwards/backwards - C-s/C-r * Macros - C-x ( C-x ) * Query-Replace: M-% * "Hippie" Expand - M-/ * M-x tetris -- Actually has an enjoyable game of Tetris.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  This has pretty much been my process with it. I started using it sometime last year. Fumbled completely for a day or so, but started out just using menus and slowly changing to keyboard commands. That, and googling when I wanted some behavior that wasn't immediately clear to me. What I need to do now is read a fairly substantial book/site to tell me about the things I don't even know I would want to know. The Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns.

troels 16y ago

Unlike vim, I never use Emacs within a terminal. I use a standalone application, which has all the desktop chrome that comes with that. Including a quit button.

cema 16y ago
I too use Emacs mostly as a standalone but turn the chrome off. But the chrome is useful for a beginner.