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When using the X Window
System, you can create multiple windows at the X level in a
single Emacs session. Each X window
that belongs to Emacs displays a frame
which can contain one or several Emacs windows. A frame initially contains a single
general-purpose Emacs window
which you can subdivide vertically or horizontally into smaller
windows. A frame normally
contains its own echo area and minibuffer,
but you can make frames that don't have these---they use the echo
area and minibuffer of
another frame.
Editing you do in one frame
also affects the other frames. For instance, if you put text in the kill ring in one frame, you can yank it in another frame. If you exit Emacs through C-x
C-c in one frame, it
terminates all the frames. To delete just one frame, use C-x 5 0.
To avoid confusion, we reserve the word ``window'' for the subdivisions
that Emacs implements, and never use it to refer to a frame.
The mouse commands for selecting
and copying a region are
mostly compatible with the xterm program. You can
use the same mouse commands for copying between Emacs and other X
client programs.
- Mouse-1 Move point
to where you click (
mouse-set-point).
This is normally the left button.
Drag-Mouse-1 Set the region to the text you select by
dragging, and copy it to the kill ring (mouse-set-region).
You can specify both ends of the region with this single command.
If you move the mouse off the top or bottom of the window while dragging,
the window scrolls at
a steady rate until you move the mouse back into the window. This way, you
can select regions that don't fit entirely on the screen.
Mouse-2 Yank the last killed text, where you click (mouse-yank-at-click).
This is normally the middle button.
Mouse-3 This command, mouse-save-then-kill,
has several functions depending on where you click and
the status of the region.
The most basic case is when you click Mouse-1
in one place and then Mouse-3 in another. This
selects the text
between those two positions as the region. It also copies
the new region to the
kill ring, so that you can copy it to someplace else.
If you click Mouse-1, scroll with the
scroll bar, and then click Mouse-3, it
remembers where point
was before scrolling
(where you put it with Mouse-1), and uses that
position as the other end of the region. This is so that
you can select a region
that doesn't fit entirely on the screen.
More generally, if you do not have a highlighted region, Mouse-3
selects the text
between point and the
click position as the region.
It does this by setting the mark where point was, and moving point to where you
click.
If you have a highlighted region, or if the region was set just
before by dragging button 1, Mouse-3 adjusts
the nearer end of the region
by moving it to where you click. The adjusted region's text also replaces the
old region's text in the kill ring.
If you originally specified the region using a double or
triple Mouse-1, so that the region is defined to
consist of entire words or lines, then adjusting the region with Mouse-3
also proceeds by entire words or lines.
If you use Mouse-3 a second time
consecutively, at the same place, that kills the region already selected.
Double-Mouse-1 This key sets the region around the word
which you click on.
Double-Drag-Mouse-1 This key selects a region made up of the
words that you drag across.
Triple-Mouse-1 This key sets the region around the line
which you click on.
Triple-Drag-Mouse-1 This key selects a region made up of the
lines that you drag across.
The simplest way to kill text
with the mouse is to press Mouse-1 at one end, then
press Mouse-3 twice at the other end. See section Deletion and Killing. To copy the text into the kill ring without
deleting it from the buffer,
press Mouse-3 just once---or just drag across the text with Mouse-1.
Then you can copy it elsewhere by yanking
it.
To yank the killed or copied text
somewhere else, move the mouse there and press Mouse-2.
See section Yanking. However, if mouse-yank-at-point is non-nil, Mouse-2
yanks at point. Then it does
not matter precisely where you click; all that matters is which window you click on. The default
value is nil. This variable
also effects yanking the
secondary selection.
To copy text to another X window, kill it or save it in
the kill ring. Under X, this also sets the primary selection. Then use
the ``paste'' or ``yank'' command
of the program operating the other window to insert the text from the selection.
To copy text from another
X window, use the ``cut'' or
``copy'' command of the
program operating the other window,
to select the text you want.
Then yank it in Emacs with C-y or Mouse-2.
When Emacs puts text into
the kill ring, or rotates text
to the front of the kill ring, it sets the primary selection in the X
server. This is how other X clients can access the text. Emacs also stores the text in the cut buffer, but only if the text is short enough (x-cut-buffer-max
specifies the maximum number of characters); putting long strings
in the cut buffer can be slow.
The commands to yank the first entry in the kill ring actually
check first for a primary selection
in another program; after that, they check for text in the cut buffer. If neither of those
sources provides text to
yank, the kill ring contents are used.
The secondary selection
is another way of selecting text using X. It does not use point or the mark, so you can use it to kill text without setting point or the mark.
- M-Drag-Mouse-1 Set the secondary selection, with one end
at the place where you press down the button, and the
other end at the place where you release it (
mouse-set-secondary).
The highlighting
appears and changes as you drag.
If you move the mouse off the top or bottom of the window while dragging,
the window scrolls at
a steady rate until you move the mouse back into the window. This way, you
can mark regions that
don't fit entirely on the screen.
M-Mouse-1 Set one endpoint for the secondary selection (mouse-start-secondary).
M-Mouse-3 Make a secondary selection, using the
place specified with M-Mouse-1 as the other
end (mouse-secondary-save-then-kill). A
second click at the same place kills the secondary selection just made.
M-Mouse-2 Insert the secondary selection where you
click (mouse-kill-secondary). This places point at the end of the
yanked text.
Double or triple clicking of M-Mouse-1 operates on
words and lines, much like Mouse-1.
If mouse-yank-at-point
is non-nil, M-Mouse-2 yanks at point. Then it does not matter
precisely where you click; all that matters is which window you click on. See section Mouse Commands for Editing.
Some Emacs buffers display lists of various sorts. These
include lists of files, of buffers, of possible completions, of
matches for a pattern, and so on.
Since yanking text into these buffers is not
very useful, most of them define Mouse-2 specially, as
a command to use or view the
item you click on.
For example, if you click Mouse-2 on a file name in
a Dired buffer, you visit the that file.
If you click Mouse-2 on an error message in the *Compilation* buffer, you go to the source code
for that error message. If you click Mouse-2
on a completion in the *Completions* buffer, you choose that completion.
You can usually tell when Mouse-2 has this special
sort of meaning because the sensitive text highlights when you move
the mouse over it.
Mouse clicks modified with the CONTROL bring up
menus.
- C-Mouse-1 This menu is for specifying the frame's default font.
C-Mouse-2 This menu is for specifying faces and
other text properties
for editing formatted text.
See section Editing
Formatted Text.
C-Mouse-3 This menu is mode-specific. For most
modes, this menu has the same items as all the
mode-specific menu bar menus put together. Some modes
You can use mouse clicks on window
mode lines to select and manipulate windows.
- Mouse-1 Mouse-1 on a mode line selects
the window above. By
dragging Mouse-1 on the mode line, you can
move it, thus changing the height of the windows above
and below.
Mouse-2 Mouse-2 on a mode line
expands that window
to fill its frame.
Mouse-3 Mouse-3 on a mode line
deletes the window
above.
C-Mouse-2 C-Mouse-2 on a mode line
splits the window
above horizontally, above the place in the mode line
where you click.
C-Mouse-2 on a scroll bar splits the corresponding window vertically. See section Splitting Windows.
The prefix key C-x 5 is analogous to C-x 4,
with parallel subcommands. The difference is that C-x 5
commands create a new frame
rather than just a new window
in the selected frame (See
section Displaying in Another
Window). If an existing visible or iconified frame already displays the
requested material, these commands use the existing frame, after raising or
deiconifying as necessary.
The various C-x 5 commands differ in how they find
or create the buffer to
select:
- C-x 5 2 Create a new frame (
make-frame). C-x
5 b bufname RET
Select buffer bufname
in another window.
This runs switch-to-buffer-other-frame. C-x
5 f filename RET
Visit file filename and select its buffer in another frame. This runs find-file-other-frame. See
section Visiting Files. C-x
5 d directory RET
Select a Dired buffer for directory directory in
another frame. This
runs dired-other-frame. See
section Dired, the
Directory Editor. C-x 5 m Start composing a mail message in another frame. This runs mail-other-frame. It is
the other-frame
variant of C-x m. See section Sending Mail. C-x 5 .
Find a tag in the current tag table in another frame. This runs find-tag-other-frame, the
multiple-frame variant
of M-.. See section Tags Tables. C-x 5 r filename RET
Visit file filename read-only, and select its buffer in another frame. This runs find-file-read-only-other-frame. See
section Visiting Files.
You can control the appearance of new frames you create by
setting the frame parameters
in default-frame-alist.
You can use the variable initial-frame-alist
to specify parameters that affect only the initial frame. See section 'Initial
Parameters' in The Emacs Lisp Manual, for more
information.
A single Emacs can talk to more than one X Windows display.
Initially, Emacs uses just one display---the one specified with
the DISPLAY environment variable or with the --display option (see section Initial Options). To connect to
another display, use the command make-frame-on-display:
- M-x make-frame-on-display RET display RET
Create a new frame on
display display.
A single X server can handle more than one screen. When you
open frames on two screens belonging to one server, Emacs knows
they share a single keyboard, and it treats all the commands
arriving from these screens as a single stream of input.
When you open frames on different X servers, Emacs makes a
separate input stream for each server. This way, two users can
type simultaneously on the two displays, and Emacs will not
garble their input. Each server also has its own selected frame. The commands you enter
with a particular X server apply to that server's selected frame.
Despite these features, people using the same Emacs job from
different displays can still interfere with each other if they
are not careful. For example, if any one types C-x C-c,
that exits the Emacs job for all of them!
You can make certain chosen buffers, for which Emacs normally
creates a second window when
you have just one window,
appear in special frames of their own. To do this, set the variable special-display-buffer-names
to a list of buffer names; any buffer whose name is in that list automatically gets a special frame, when an Emacs command wants to display it ``in
another window.''
For example, if you set the variable
this way,
(setq special-display-buffer-names
'("*Completions*" "*grep*" "*tex-shell*"))
then completion lists, grep
output and the TeX mode shell buffer
get individual frames of their own. These frames, and the windows
in them, are never automatically split or reused for any other
buffers. They continue to show the buffers they were created for,
unless you alter them by hand. Killing
the special buffer deletes its frame automatically.
More generally, you can set special-display-regexps
to a list of regular
expressions; then a buffer
gets its own frame if its name
matches any of those regular expressions. (Once again, this
applies only to buffers that normally get displayed for you in a
separate window.)
The variable special-display-frame-alist
specifies the frame parameters
for these frames. It has a default value, so you don't need to
set it.
For those who know Lisp, an element of special-display-buffer-names
or special-display-regexps can also be a list. Then the first element is
the buffer name or regular
expression; the rest of the list
specifies how to create the frame.
It can be an association list
specifying frame parameter
values; these values take precedence over parameter values
specified in special-display-frame-alist.
Alternatively, it can have this form:
(function args...)
where function is a symbol. Then the frame is constructed by calling function;
its first argument is the buffer,
and its remaining arguments are args.
This section describes commands for altering the display style
and window management
behavior of the selected frame.
- M-x set-foreground-color RET color RET
Specify color color for the foreground of the
selected frame.
M-x set-background-color RET color RET
Specify color color for the background of the
selected frame. This
changes the foreground color of the modeline
face also, so that it remains in inverse video compared
with the default.
M-x set-cursor-color RET color RET
Specify color color for the cursor of the selected frame.
M-x set-mouse-color RET color RET
Specify color color for the mouse cursor when it is over
the selected frame.
M-x set-border-color RET color RET
Specify color color for the border of the
selected frame.
M-x list-colors-display
Display the defined color names and show what the colors
look like. This command
is somewhat slow.
M-x auto-raise-mode Toggle whether or not the
selected frame should
auto-raise. Auto-raise means that every time you move the
mouse onto the frame,
it raises the frame.
Note that this auto-raise feature is implemented by
Emacs itself. Some window
managers also implement auto-raise. If you enable
auto-raise for Emacs frames in your X window manager, it
should work, but it is beyond Emacs's control and
therefore auto-raise-mode has no effect on
it.
M-x auto-lower-mode Toggle whether or not the
selected frame should
auto-lower. Auto-lower means that every time you move the
mouse off of the frame,
the frame moves to the
bottom of the stack of X windows.
The command auto-lower-mode
has no effect on auto-lower implemented by the X window manager. To
control that, you must use the appropriate window manager features.
M-x set-default-font RET font RET
Specify font font as the default for the
selected frame. See
section Font Specification
Options, for ways to list
the available fonts on your system.
You can also set a frame's
default font through a pop-up menu. Press C-Mouse-1
to activate this menu.
In Emacs versions that use an X toolkit, the color-setting and
font-setting functions don't affect menus and the menu bar, since
they are displayed by their own widget classes. To change the
appearance of the menus and menu bar, you must use X resources
(see section X Resources). See
section Window Color Options,
regarding colors. See section Font
Specification Options, regarding choice of font.
For information on frame
parameters and customization,
see section 'Frame Parameters'
in The Emacs Lisp Manual.
When using X, Emacs normally makes a scroll bar at
the right of each Emacs window.
The scroll bar runs the height of the window, and shows a moving
rectangular inner box which represents the portion of the buffer currently displayed. The
entire height of the scroll bar represents the entire length of
the buffer.
You can use Mouse-2 (normally, the middle button)
in the scroll bar to move or drag the inner box up and down. If
you move it to the top of the scroll bar, you see the top of the buffer. If you move it to the
bottom of the scroll bar, you see the bottom of the buffer.
The left and right buttons in the scroll bar scroll by
controlled increments. Mouse-1 (normally, the left
button) moves the line at the level where you click up to the top
of the window. Mouse-3
(normally, the right button) moves the line at the top of the window down to the level where
you click. By clicking repeatedly in the same place, you can
scroll by the same distance over and over.
Aside from scrolling, you
can also click C-Mouse-2 in the scroll bar to split a window vertically. The split
occurs on the line where you click.
You can enable or disable Scroll Bar mode with the command M-x scroll-bar-mode.
With no argument, it toggles the use of scroll bars. With an
argument, it turns use of scroll bars on if and only if the
argument is positive. This command
applies to all frames, including frames yet to be created. You
can use the X resource verticalScrollBars to control
the initial setting of Scroll Bar mode. See section X Resources.
To enable or disable scroll bars for just the selected frame, use the M-x
toggle-scroll-bar command.
By default, each Emacs frame
has a menu bar at the top which you can use to perform certain
common operations. There's no need to describe them in detail
here, as you can more easily see for yourself; also, we may
change them and add to them in subsequent Emacs versions.
Each of the operations in the menu bar is bound to an ordinary
Emacs command which you can
invoke equally well with M-x or with its own key
bindings. The menu lists one equivalent key binding (if the command has any) at the right
margin. To see the command's
name and documentation, type C-h k and then select the
menu bar item you are interested in.
You can turn display of menu bars on or off with M-x
menu-bar-mode. With no argument, this command toggles Menu Bar mode, a
minor mode. With an argument, the command
turns Menu Bar mode on if the argument is positive, off if the
argument is not positive. You can use the X resource menuBarLines
to control the initial setting of Menu Bar mode. See section X Resources.
When using Emacs with X, you can set up multiple styles of
displaying characters. The aspects of style that you can control
are the type font, the foreground color, the background color,
and whether to underline. Emacs 19.29 does not support faces on
MS-DOS, but future versions may support them partially (see
section MS-DOS Issues).
The way you control display style is by defining named faces.
Each face can specify a type font, a foreground color, a
background color, and an underline flag; but it does not have to
specify all of them.
The style of display used for a given character in the text is determined by combining
several faces. Any aspect of the display style that isn't
specified by overlays or text
properties comes from the frame
itself.
Enriched mode, the mode for editing formatted text, includes several commands
and menus for specifying faces. See section Faces in Formatted Text, for how
to specify the font for text
in the buffer. See section Colors in Formatted Text, for how
to specify the foreground and background color.
To see what faces are currently defined, and what they look
like, type M-x list-faces-display.
It's possible for a given face to look different in different
frames; this command shows the
appearance in the frame in
which you type it. Here's a list
of the standardly defined faces:
- default This face is used for ordinary text that doesn't
specify any other face. modeline This face is used
for mode lines. By default, it's set up as the inverse of
the default face. See section Variables Controlling Display. highlight
This face is used for highlighting
portions of text, in
various modes. region
This face is used for displaying a selected region (when Transient Mark mode is
enabled---see below). secondary-selection This
face is used for displaying a secondary selection (see section Secondary Selection). bold
This face uses a bold variant of the default font, if it
has one. italic This face uses an italic variant
of the default font, if it has one. bold-italic
This face uses a bold italic variant of the default font,
if it has one. underline This face underlines text.
When Transient Mark mode is
enabled, the text of the region is highlighted when the mark is active. This uses the
face named region;
you can control the style of highlighting
by changing the style of this face (see section Modifying Faces). See section Transient Mark Mode, for more
information about Transient Mark
mode and activation and deactivation of the mark.
One easy way to use faces is to turn on Font-Lock mode. This
minor mode, which is always local
to a particular buffer,
arranges to choose faces according to the syntax of the text you are editing. It can
recognize comments and strings in most languages; in several
languages, it can also recognize and properly highlight various
other important constructs---for example, names of functions
being defined.
Font-Lock mode is a minor mode. The command M-x font-lock-mode
turns the mode on or off. The function turn-on-font-lock
unconditionally enables Font-Lock mode. This is useful in
mode-hook functions. For example, to enable Font-Lock mode
whenever you edit a C file, you can do this:
(add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
To get the full benefit of Font-Lock mode, you need to choose
a default font which has bold, italic, and bold-italic variants;
or else you need to have a color or grayscale screen. The variable font-lock-display-type
specifies whether Font-Lock mode should use font styles, colors,
or shades of gray to distinguish the various kinds of text. Emacs chooses the default
value according to the characteristics of your display.
Here are the commands for changing the font of a face:
- M-x set-face-font RET face RET font RET
Change face face to use font font.
See section Font
Specification Options, for more information about
font naming under X.
M-x make-face-bold RET face RET
Convert face face to use a bold version of its
current font.
M-x make-face-italic RET face RET
Convert face face to use a italic version of
its current font.
M-x make-face-bold-italic RET face RET
Convert face face to use a bold-italic version
of its current font.
M-x make-face-unbold RET face RET
Convert face face to use a non-bold version of
its current font.
M-x make-face-unitalic RET face RET
Convert face face to use a non-italic version
of its current font.
Here are the commands for setting the colors and underline
flag of a face:
- M-x set-face-foreground RET face RET color RET
Use color color for the foreground of
characters in face face.
M-x set-face-background RET face RET color RET
Use color color for the background of
characters in face face.
On a black-and-white display, the colors you can use
for the background are black, white, gray, gray1
and gray3. Emacs supports the gray colors by
using background stipple patterns instead of a color.
M-x set-face-stipple RET face RET pattern RET
Use stipple pattern pattern for the background
of characters in face face.
M-x list-colors-display
Display the defined color names and show what the colors
look like.
M-x set-face-underline-p RET face RET flag RET
Specify whether to underline characters in face face.
M-x invert-face RET face RET
Swap the foreground and background colors of face face.
M-x modify-face RET face RET attributes...
Change various attributes of face face. This command prompts for all
the attribute of the face, one attribute at a time. For
the color and stipple attributes, the attribute's current
value is the default---type just RET if you
don't want to change that attribute. Type none
if you want to clear out the attribute.
You can also use X resources to specify attributes of
particular faces. See section X
Resources.
The following commands let you create, delete and operate on
frames:
- C-z To iconify the selected Emacs frame, type C-z
(
iconify-or-deiconify-frame). The
normal meaning of C-z, to suspend Emacs, is
not useful under a window
system, so it has a different binding in that case.
If you type this command
on an Emacs frame's
icon, it deiconifies the frame.
C-x 5 0 To delete the selected frame, type C-x 5 0
(delete-frame).
This is not allowed if there is only one frame.
M-x transient-mark-mode
Under X Windows, when Transient Mark mode is enabled,
Emacs highlights the region
when the mark is
active. This feature is the main motive for using
Transient Mark mode.
To toggle the state of this mode, use the command M-x
transient-mark-mode.
See section The Mark and the
Region.
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