AW: AW: [h-e-w] EmacsW32, gnuserv, pathes in .emacs

[C.Strobl]

i am stopping now here. my intention was only how to ease the first steps with 
emacs. the first steps for me are

1) searching for the download-page: (very easy)
2) looking at the page for downlaod (a little bit confusing)
3) installing (easy)
4) first steps inside (difficult, but there is a tutorial)
5) a little bit real working (difficult, because of the hidden examples, i know 
now, there is the i-command)
6) first customizing (difficult, also with the options-menu to find the options 
you are looking for)

inside emacs all is wonderfull, the question for me was how to get there. i 
didn't think that people who are using emacs for years can imagine the 
problems. so i wanted to give some feedback from my point of view. it's a very 
personal view. and it concerns no longer me because i did already the first 
steps also with your help. i know now the i-command in the manual, i bought a 
emacs-book,  and so on.
but for a potential new user who has no little success after one hour or two 
(and this is not so little time) it's important to have a sort of guide with 
the most important things. in this way the new user gets the impression there 
is  a possibility to learn it with not too much effort. otherwise he loose his 
motivation and goes back to ultraedit or whatever. i thought you want to get 
new emacs-users. if you want only users who are willing to spent much more time 
(me) or are very smart there is no need to change. i know also the time to get 
in is nothing compared with the time you all already spent with emacs, the 
developers not mentioned. but the motivation to get in is also not that high 
for new users.

christian

p.s. to the copy and paste in the menu. i was looking for a comfortable 
powerfull editor and copy-paste in the menu was far beyond my demands. even 
with notepad it's possible to copy, paste, replace with s-c, s-v, c-x
p.p.s. to david: all you write is right, but thats not the point. inside emacs 
you can find nearly everything. the problem is to get there.  for me pdf or 
html doesn't matter but pdf is a liitle bit more comfortable, especially for 
printing and distribuition.




-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden Im Auftrag von David Vanderschel
Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. Juli 2006 20:05
An: address@hidden
Betreff: Re: AW: [h-e-w] EmacsW32, gnuserv, pathes in .emacs

On Tuesday, July 11, <address@hidden> wrote:
>again, a short pdf-file with the following points would be very 
>helpfull for a really beginner. a beginner who doesn't know about emacs 
>really nothing.

In this discussion, I wonder why the official GNU Emacs FAQ For Windows 
95/98/ME/NT/XP and 2000 at 
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
has not been brought up.  I know that its maintenance lately has been somewhat 
poor; but the latest update on the Web page now says May 24.  It seems to me 
that it already addresses many of the problems that Christian seems to think 
should be addressed with a PDF.  

I do not understand why Christian wants a PDF.  HTML seems much more reasonable 
for addressing these sorts of issues.  I am quite certain that RMS would be 
strongly opposed to a PDF.  If it is so that the document can be printed in a 
way that looks good, it turns out that the source format for the Info files has 
been designed so that they can also be processed with TeX macros, in which case 
they are formatted very nicely and in a manner well-suited to printing.
Indeed, this is what you get if you order the Emacs manual in hard copy from 
the FSF.

I checked Lennart's EmacsW32 pages, and I could not see a link to the Windows 
FAQ.  On his "Emacs at OurComments.org" page, there is a link to a kind of 
'root' page for Emacs:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html
In its Section 6, Getting Help with Emacs, it references both the general Emacs 
FAQ at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-faq.text
and the Windows Emacs FAQ.  The general emacs FAQ is a bit dated; but for the 
basic sorts of information needed by a beginner, it should still be good.  IMO, 
its plain text format is not a serious drawback.

Lennart, you may not care for the Windows FAQ, but it seems to me that you are 
doing the users of your
EmacsW32 package a disservice by not providing a "for further information" type 
of link to it.  I don't think the fact that you can get there via the link to 
what I called the 'root' page for Emacs is sufficient.

>1) installation and configuration (for me especially
>   with windows)

Well covered in the Windows FAQ.  Lennart's package is not the only way to do 
it; but it is definitely an easier way and a way by which one is less likely to 
get fouled up.  OTOH, the Windows FAQ can certainly give more insight into what 
is going on in the installation process.

>2) simple emacs-commandos like described in the
>   tutorial in the emacs help menu

If "like described in the tutorial", then it would be redundant.  To run the 
tutorial, you need only install Emacs and click on the Help menu.  There is no 
bootstrapping issue here, as no initial configuration is required.

>3) more extensivly examples for typical editing tasks
>   like search and replace, copy and paste, rectangle
>   editing, ...and so on. only with examples newbies
>   can see the possibilities of emacs

To the extent that they are not already covered in the tutorial, most of these 
sorts of things are covered in the general Emacs FAQ - in particular in its 
Section
5 on Common Requests.

>4) a few word about the .emacs file and customization

Why?  The Emacs Info file is fairly thorough on this subject - with examples.  
Node name: "Init File"

The real problem here lies less in how to do it, but in learning what can be 
customized and what one's criteria for doing so would be.  That takes 
experience with the system; but, as you learn about new packages for emacs, you 
also learn what about them is customizable.  There is no rush though, as the 
most basic functions are configured in a reasonable manner by default.  
Furthermore, as Eli pointed out, the Customization feature on the Help Menu 
will usually put the appropriate elisp commands in a user's .emacs file without 
the user having to understand elisp syntax.

>5) a glossary with the special emacs terms

As Eli has pointed out, the 'i' command in Info is very helpful on this front.

>it's a little bit like the book which was recommended by vincent:

>>The solution I went for was to buy Learning GNU Emacs 3rd Edition, 
>>Cameron et al, pub O'Reilly.
>>ISBN 0-596-00648-9

>but with much less content. for the first activation energy to climb 
>the emacs-hill. i think the activation energy you have to invest is 
>much bigger for using emacs than for a comparable tool if a comparable 
>tool exists at all.

Personally, I do not feel that there is any 'gap'
which needs filling and which 'gap' falls between the book and the freely 
available information about emacs which comes with it and which is available on 
the Internet.  For those for whom the free documentation remains insufficient, 
the book is a reasonable alternative.  (I think I now know a lot about Emacs, 
and I have never had access to such a book.)

>p.s. i think the emacs hill for windows user is still steeper. i 
>installed the windows-binaries from the gnu-page. there was no toolbar 
>available for me,

?  But the Menu Bar is enabled by default, is it not?
The functions are there.  No need for icons.  (I don't think a tool bar with 
icons would be in the spirit of GNU Emacs; but I think you can get this with 
xemacs.)

>also no copy, paste, ... 

?  They are right there on the Edit Menu.

>so the emacsW32 is a really important project for windows users, 
>especially for beginners. but also linux users have beginning problems. 
>i tested emacs also with open suse 10.0. there was no gnuserve 
>available so that it starts for every .txt-file a new emacs-instance.

Only the Windows version uses gnuserv.  There is also emacs-server (for which a 
much anticipated new version is expected to be able to work with Emacs under 
Windows - eventually).  emacs-server probably needs to be configured for Linux.

>i know the right way is to open files with c-x c-f or the dired and so 
>on. but for a new user ist often much simpler to click at an file or to 
>use the context-menu.

Back to Windows?  Emacs can be configured so that these things do work with 
Emacs.  I think Lennart's package facilitates configuring it so that it does so.
My Windows OS is configured so that Emacs is the default editor for opening any 
file of type unknown to the OS and for a great many other file types for which 
a plain text editor is appropriate (like .log, .txt, .java).  I also have an 
"Open in Emacs" option on the Explorer context menus for both directories and 
files.
You can also use drag and drop with Emacs.

If the point is about Linux, I would bet that these things can be configured to 
work as desired there as well.

>also the interaction between the kill-ring and the clipboard is with 
>linux more complicated, at least for me.

Its behaviour in this respect is probably configurable.  (I have not tried it 
under Linux; but it is definitely configurable for Windows.  In my own 
configuration, killed stuff does not go on the Clipboard for Windows.  (I did 
that because I use a utility for Windows which maintains a stack of items 
Copied to the Windows Clipboard.  I did not want that Clipboard stack to be 
cluttered with every little thing I ever kill in Emacs.)  I use a separate 
command to explicitly Copy to the Windows Clipboard only what I want to go 
there from Emacs.  (Also a separate command to Paste into an Emacs buffer from 
the Windows
clipboard.))


Emacs is sufficiently complex that any newcomer is going to have to spend some 
effort to get started.
During the initial learning stages there will be frustration; but I don't think 
it is fair to transform that frustration into an evaluation of the available 
documentation.  The documentation is more than adequate - in fact, far better 
than I get with most commercial software products.  The problem in Emacs's case 
is the shear volume of the relevant documentation - a problem that cannot be 
overcome easily without some commitment on the part of the beginner.  But it is 
ultimately worth the effort because Emacs is so powerful and so adaptable to so 
many activities.

Hang in there, Christian!

Regards,
  David V.