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view man/entering.texi @ 71394:4b4feab31516
(Bindat Spec): Clarify previous change.
author | Richard M. Stallman <rms@gnu.org> |
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date | Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:53:40 +0000 |
parents | a946a9fb6f9e |
children | b327bddebef6 146cd8369025 |
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@c This is part of the Emacs manual. @c Copyright (C) 1985, 1986, 1987, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2002, 2003, 2004, @c 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. @c See file emacs.texi for copying conditions. @node Entering Emacs, Exiting, Text Characters, Top @chapter Entering and Exiting Emacs @cindex entering Emacs @cindex starting Emacs The usual way to invoke Emacs is with the shell command @command{emacs}. Emacs clears the screen, then displays an initial help message and copyright notice. Some operating systems discard your type-ahead when Emacs starts up; they give Emacs no way to prevent this. On those systems, wait for Emacs to clear the screen before you start typing. From a shell window under the X Window System, run Emacs in the background with @command{emacs&}. This way, Emacs won't tie up the shell window, so you can use it to run other shell commands while Emacs is running. You can type Emacs commands as soon as you direct your keyboard input to an Emacs frame. @vindex initial-major-mode When Emacs starts up, it creates a buffer named @samp{*scratch*}. That's the buffer you start out in. The @samp{*scratch*} buffer uses Lisp Interaction mode; you can use it to type Lisp expressions and evaluate them. You can also ignore that capability and just write notes there. You can specify a different major mode for this buffer by setting the variable @code{initial-major-mode} in your init file. @xref{Init File}. It is possible to specify files to be visited, Lisp files to be loaded, and functions to be called through Emacs command-line arguments. @xref{Emacs Invocation}. The feature exists mainly for compatibility with other editors, and for scripts. Many editors are designed to edit one file. When done with that file, you exit the editor. The next time you want to edit a file, you must start the editor again. Working this way, it is convenient to use a command-line argument to say which file to edit. It's not smart to start Emacs afresh for every file you edit. Emacs can visit more than one file in a single editing session, and upon exit Emacs loses valuable accumulated context, such as the kill ring, registers, undo history, and mark ring. These features are useful for operating on multiple files, or even one. If you kill Emacs after each file, you don't take advantage of them. The recommended way to use GNU Emacs is to start it only once, just after you log in, and do all your editing in the same Emacs session. Each time you edit a file, you visit it with the existing Emacs, which eventually has many files in it ready for editing. Usually you do not kill Emacs until you are about to log out. @xref{Files}, for more information on visiting more than one file. To edit a file from another program while Emacs is running, you can use the @command{emacsclient} helper program to open a file in the already running Emacs. @xref{Emacs Server}. @ifnottex @raisesections @end ifnottex @node Exiting, Basic, Entering Emacs, Top @section Exiting Emacs @cindex exiting @cindex killing Emacs @cindex suspending @cindex leaving Emacs @cindex quitting Emacs There are two commands for exiting Emacs, and three kinds of exiting: @dfn{suspending} Emacs, @dfn{Iconifying} Emacs, and @dfn{killing} Emacs. @dfn{Suspending} means stopping Emacs temporarily and returning control to its parent process (usually a shell), allowing you to resume editing later in the same Emacs job, with the same buffers, same kill ring, same undo history, and so on. This is the usual way to exit Emacs when running on a text terminal. @dfn{Iconifying} means replacing the Emacs frame with a small box somewhere on the screen. This is the usual way to exit Emacs when you're using a graphics terminal---if you bother to ``exit'' at all. (Just switching to another application is usually sufficient.) @dfn{Killing} Emacs means destroying the Emacs job. You can run Emacs again later, but you will get a fresh Emacs; there is no way to resume the same editing session after it has been killed. @table @kbd @item C-z Suspend Emacs (@code{suspend-emacs}) or iconify a frame (@code{iconify-or-deiconify-frame}). @item C-x C-c Kill Emacs (@code{save-buffers-kill-emacs}). @end table @kindex C-z @findex suspend-emacs To suspend or iconify Emacs, type @kbd{C-z} (@code{suspend-emacs}). On text terminals, this suspends Emacs. On graphical displays, it iconifies the Emacs frame. Suspending Emacs takes you back to the shell from which you invoked Emacs. You can resume Emacs with the shell command @command{%emacs} in most common shells. On systems that don't support suspending programs, @kbd{C-z} starts an inferior shell that communicates directly with the terminal, and Emacs waits until you exit the subshell. (The way to do that is probably with @kbd{C-d} or @command{exit}, but it depends on which shell you use.) On these systems, you can only get back to the shell from which Emacs was run (to log out, for example) when you kill Emacs. Suspending can fail if you run Emacs under a shell that doesn't support suspending programs, even if the system itself does support it. In such a case, you can set the variable @code{cannot-suspend} to a non-@code{nil} value to force @kbd{C-z} to start an inferior shell. (One might also describe Emacs's parent shell as ``inferior'' for failing to support job control properly, but that is a matter of taste.) On graphical displays, @kbd{C-z} has a different meaning: it runs the command @code{iconify-or-deiconify-frame}, which temporarily iconifies (or ``minimizes'') the selected Emacs frame (@pxref{Frames}). Then you can use the window manager to get back to a shell window. @kindex C-x C-c @findex save-buffers-kill-emacs To exit and kill Emacs, type @kbd{C-x C-c} (@code{save-buffers-kill-emacs}). A two-character key is used to make it harder to type by accident. This command first offers to save any modified file-visiting buffers. If you do not save them all, it asks for confirmation with @kbd{yes} before killing Emacs, since any changes not saved now will be lost forever. Also, if any subprocesses are still running, @kbd{C-x C-c} asks for confirmation about them, since killing Emacs will also kill the subprocesses. @vindex confirm-kill-emacs If the value of the variable @code{confirm-kill-emacs} is non-@code{nil}, @kbd{C-x C-c} assumes that its value is a predicate function, and calls that function. If the result is non-@code{nil}, the session is killed, otherwise Emacs continues to run. One convenient function to use as the value of @code{confirm-kill-emacs} is the function @code{yes-or-no-p}. The default value of @code{confirm-kill-emacs} is @code{nil}. You can't resume an Emacs session after killing it. Emacs can, however, record certain session information when you kill it, such as which files you visited, so the next time you start Emacs it will try to visit the same files. @xref{Saving Emacs Sessions}. The operating system usually listens for certain special characters whose meaning is to kill or suspend the program you are running. @b{This operating system feature is turned off while you are in Emacs.} The meanings of @kbd{C-z} and @kbd{C-x C-c} as keys in Emacs were inspired by the use of @kbd{C-z} and @kbd{C-c} on several operating systems as the characters for stopping or killing a program, but that is their only relationship with the operating system. You can customize these keys to run any commands of your choice (@pxref{Keymaps}). @ifnottex @lowersections @end ifnottex @ignore arch-tag: df798d8b-f253-4113-b585-f528f078a944 @end ignore