Question: How could I find out the M-x equivalent commands for doing GUI-based operations in Emacs, in those cases where my Emacs-variant uses OS-specific desktop functionality?
Background: Conventional understanding states that everything in Emacs is a command, and that commands can be invoked via M-x, as long as you know the name of the command. Assuming this statement is correct, what is the way to find the name of the commands used to trigger the "GUI-style" menus in a "desktop" based Emacs variant?
For example, if I were to mouse-select the File menu to open a file, the OS-specific "GUI" style file-open dialog pops up, waiting for my input.
How could I find out the M-x equivalent command for doing the exact same thing?
I thought that describe-key would tell me what I needed to know, but it's indication to use:
M-x menu-find-file-existing
doesn't invoke the "GUI" style file-open dialog. Instead, it uses the Emacs internal non-GUI-OS-neutral variant.
You need to trick Emacs into thinking that the keyboard was not being used, which is not as intuitive as tricking it into thinking that the mouse was used. :)
(defadvice find-file-read-args (around find-file-read-args-always-use-dialog-box act)
"Simulate invoking menu item as if by the mouse; see `use-dialog-box'."
(let ((last-nonmenu-event nil))
ad-do-it))
Tested on Emacs 22.2.1 on WinXP. I believe the paradigm has been around for a while, though, so it should work on older Emacs. No clue if XEmacs works similarly or not.
Wow, I'm glad you asked that. I've been meaning for a while to look it up myself.
C-h k followed by the menu choice will tell you this. Here, for example, is what you get from choosing menu/edit/paste:
<menu-bar> <edit> <paste> runs the command clipboard-yank
which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `menu-bar.el'.
It is bound to <paste>, <f18>, <menu-bar> <edit> <paste>.
(clipboard-yank)
Insert the clipboard contents, or the last stretch of killed text.
If you want the details, follow the link for menu-bar-el to the LISP source:
(defun menu-find-file-existing ()
"Edit the existing file FILENAME."
(interactive)
(let* ((mustmatch (not (and (fboundp 'x-uses-old-gtk-dialog)
(x-uses-old-gtk-dialog))))
(filename (car (find-file-read-args "Find file: " mustmatch))))
(if mustmatch
(find-file-existing filename)
(find-file filename))))
Related
The object: In terminal, on start, in one frame, restore emacs workspace. i.e. restore all "windows", to the state before C-x C-c.
Descriptions: The window restoration could be simply done in emacs GUI, by adding (desktop-save-mode 1) to the init.el file.
However, when running emacs as a Daemon, emacsclient does not perform the same way. With the same setup, it still remember the major mode of the file, as well as other buffers before exiting, but the window layout will not be restored. Only 1 major window is displayed depend on the default settings.
I did some research, poked into some functions/variables using the elisp build-in documentation. I checked (desktop-save-buffer 1), framset-save, framset-restore and none of them seems to work. Also I checked similar questions posted before, and I found someone's answer using the following script:
(setq desktop-restore-forces-onscreen nil)
(add-hook 'desktop-after-read-hook
(lambda ()
(frameset-restore
desktop-saved-frameset
:reuse-frames (eq desktop-restore-reuses-frames t)
:cleanup-frames (not (eq desktop-restore-reuses-frames 'keep))
:force-display desktop-restore-in-current-display
:force-onscreen desktop-restore-forces-onscreen)))
However this script is buggy, it opens a "GUI" frame, and could not be closed properly(reopen automatically whenever closed, and if possible, I prefer to open the frame in terminal, so that a terminal 'texteditor' setting is possibe, with some other minor merits).
Sorry for the tedious question, any help would be appreciated.
I don't really know the right way to do this, but I was able to restore a frameset created in a GUI frame into a terminal frame. The new frame must be big enough or it will throw an error. I did (setq foo (frameset-save (frame-list))) and (pp foo (get-buffer "*scratch*")) to dump a readable representation of the frameset to the *scratch* buffer. Then I edited it by hand to get rid of (display . ":0.0"). That seemed to be enough to get it to not force a GUI frame. Then I did (frameset-restore [frameset ...]) on the edited frameset.
If you look at frameset.el, there are filtering functions to edit a frameset programmatically. Also, if you look at the comments, the display parameter is treated specially. You should look at the details there.
In emacs shell, invoked using M-x shell, input lines under the cursor are highlighted, so you can then "mouse 2: insert after prompt as new input" to repeat the command. I'd prefer not to have this activated and just select text under the mouse as I do in a regular terminal and middle click to insert (I know I can do this in emacs but I don't get any visual feedback until I stop the mouse selection).
Is there any way to do this? I've done quite a bit of searching and can't find anything.
That message comes from this function in comint.el.
Setting comint-use-prompt-regexp to a non-nil value should do what you want.
A good solution would probably be something like this (put the following somewhere in your initialization; regexp taken from comint-prompt-regexp docstring):
(add-hook 'shell-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(set (make-local-variable 'comint-use-prompt-regexp) t)
(set (make-local-variable 'comint-prompt-regexp) "^[^#$%>\n]*[#$%>] *")))
You do not specify the version of Emacs and I do not see that behaviour in my Emacs why I type M-x shell. However, a little googling turned up this:
(setq comint-highlight-input nil)
which is something that you can set in ~/.emacs.
This variable does not exist in GNU Emacs 25, even though there is a reference to a specific face (highlighting) to use in that case. Either that is a mere reminisence from when the feature was available or it is something that is actually enabled with another package. You can test by starting emacs with the "-Q" option and start shell as the first thing, if the behaviour does not appear, it is something that is related to your startup configuration or something you do before starting the shell.
The post in which the above variable was mentioned can be seen here:
https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/ess-help/2002-August/001134.html
When I use bower in M-x shell, as you can see in the picture, some rubbish code is displayed.
However M-x ansi-term works well
What could be the problem ? Is it possible to make shell mode display properly ?
Those symbols are ANSI escape sequences that the terminal emulator uses for visual effects like changing the color of text. shell-mode apparently doesn't know how to display these codes by default. What you want may be Term Mode:
Some programs (such as Emacs itself) need to control the appearance of the terminal screen in detail. They do this by emitting special control codes. Term mode recognizes and handles ANSI-standard VT100-style escape sequences, which are accepted by most modern terminals, including xterm. (Hence, you can actually run Emacs inside an Emacs Term window.)
Try the solution given in Cucumber's ANSI colors messing up emacs compilation buffer:
(require 'ansi-color)
(defun colorize-compilation-buffer ()
(toggle-read-only)
(ansi-color-apply-on-region (point-min) (point-max))
(toggle-read-only))
(add-hook 'compilation-filter-hook 'colorize-compilation-buffer)
that works beautifuly for me on emacs24.
ps: to colorize even more the shell output I like to play with
M-x highlight-regexp RET a regexp, i.e. \[OK\] RET a color (make use of TAB to see choices)
or
(add-hook 'shell-mode-hook (lambda () (highlight-regexp "\\[OK\\]" "hi-green-b")))
and (add-hook 'shell-mode-hook (lambda () (goto-address-mode ))) to make URLs clikable. Looking for the same stuff for file paths.
edit: making file paths clickable is as easy as using compilation-shell-minor-mode :)
edit2: my sources: http://wikemacs.org/index.php/Shell
WRT to bash, sometimes setting $PAGER helps here, i.e.
PAGER=cat
I'm running Mac OS X and GNU Emacs 22.3.1. I use a swedish keyboard. I am unable to type braces { }, [ ] in emacs. When trying to type braces I get parenthesis. Since I'm quite new to Mac and emacs I need a little help on configuring emacs to get this right.
(setq mac-option-modifier nil
mac-command-modifier 'meta
x-select-enable-clipboard t)
This is what I use for my swedish keyboard. It even works with svorak A5, if you use it :)
You could also try:
(setq mac-option-key-is-meta t)
(setq mac-right-option-modifier nil)
I'm assuming that you're using a graphical emacs, and not just using the OS X bundled version from within Terminal.
To ensure that Emacs responds to keystrokes in the same way as other OS X apps, try the following:
(setq default-input-method "MacOSX")
And in particular, if you want to use the Option key to enter extended characters not on your keyboard (e.g. "Option-c c" => "ç"), use these settings:
(setq mac-command-modifier 'meta)
(setq mac-option-modifier 'none)
(Put these commands in your ~/.emacs or ~/.emacs.d/init.el emacs startup file, and restart Emacs, or just "M-x eval-buffer" while editing the file.)
(setq default-input-method "MacOSX")
(setq mac-command-modifier 'meta
mac-option-modifier nil
mac-allow-anti-aliasing t
mac-command-key-is-meta t)
Try this. You will be able to use the Alt key as a AltGR and for all the old M-x functions you will have to use your command key.
Bind the relevant keyboard shortcuts to anonymous functions that insert those characters, for example add these lines to ~/.emacs for European Portuguese:
(global-set-key "\M-(" (lambda () (interactive) (insert "{")))
(global-set-key "\M-)" (lambda () (interactive) (insert "}")))
(global-set-key "\M-8" (lambda () (interactive) (insert "[")))
(global-set-key "\M-9" (lambda () (interactive) (insert "]")))
Then save ~/.emacs with C-x C-s and reload it with M-x load-file and type ~/.emacs.
One downside is that this does not work in the mini-buffer, and typing "Alt-9" will insert text in the buffer and not the mini-buffer.
Comparison with other solutions: This solution maintains compatibility with other shortcuts using M-. The solutions by #monotux, #sanityinc, and Abdul Bijur V A do work, but they do not maintain that compatibility, e.g. Cmd-Q no longer quits the program and M-x no longer calls the mini-buffer to execute commands.
The solution by #patrikha doesn't suit touch-typing, which requires the same modifier commands on the right and the left side of the keyboard (Command, Alt/Option, Shift, and Control). For example, with this solution doing M-x requires the left thumb on the left Alt key and the left index finger on the S key, instead of the right thumb on the right Alt key. You could (setq mac-left-option-modifier nil), but that might require a change in habits for letters on the right side of the keyboard.
Notes: If you use AquaMacs, the wiki has a work-around in the section "Inputting {}[] etc. on non-English keyboards, or other keys with the Option modifier".
I also add this line to the end of ./emacs to show the matching of brackets and braces: (show-paren-mode).
I would try a Cocoa based emacs ie version 23. For a mac integrated emacs I would try Aquamacs
I had the same issue with a french keyboard. It looks like an Aquamacs issue (Carbon Emacs does not replace { with ()).
The change in emacs above work fine and I could type brackets but I could not use standard shortcuts anymore (Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V for instance).
Aquamacs provides a workaround.
Menu Bar > Options > Option, Command, Meta keys > select ...Meta & French
It worked fine for me. However it may not work for swedish, no swedish keyboard option.
Using Aquamacs:
From the main menu, go to Options - Option, command, meta keys and select "option for composed characters".
The braces and the brackets work as with the standard Mac keyboard.
You don't need to remember those programming like things: Here is the answer. Go to Keyboard preferences, and check the "Show keyboard and character viewer in menu bar". After that, check on the menu bar near the battery meter for the icon and start double clicking any character you want.
Background information:
I'm on a Mac, and I've just upgraded to Emacs 23.1 via http://emacsformacosx.com/. There are a few issues, notably the lack of full screen ability.
I've attempted to get around this last issue by installing Megazoomer, which adds a global input manager bound to Cmd-return. This causes the currently forward application to maximise. However, Emacs reports that <s-return> is undefined. I've never seen an s-[key] mentioned before, and Google isn't forthcoming with an answer.
So, two parts:
What does s-[key] mean? This is purely for my satisfaction; and
Can I tell Emacs to ignore this key combination and let the key combination carry through to the system (so that hopefully I can have full screen Emacs back again)?
EDIT: so 1) is resolved, and as to 2) I've got: (global-set-key (kbd "<s-return>") 'ignore), which at least stops the error. However, Emacs still swallows the key combination, which isn't ideal.
It's the Super key, like M- is the Meta key (alt key on a PC keyboard, Command key on your keyboard) and C- is the Control key.
I have of course never actually seen a super key on my keyboard... they are from a long gone era. Wikipedia has an image of this impressive "Space Cadet keyboard" which has all the modifiers you'll ever need:
With plain Emacs 23.1 on a Macbook Pro, I can map the right option key to super by
(setq ns-right-option-modifier 'super)
Your other choice seems to be the function key, which would be ns-function-modifier. However, fn might have other uses, whereas Emacs’ default is to map ns-right-option-modifier to ’left (ie, the same effect as the left option key, which I at any rate need to get the # character!), so the right option key is to some extent redundant.
Left-handers may want to reverse this.
For the question about what the s-[key] means, on ubuntu box it means the Windows® shaped key. What it means on the OSX systems, I do not know.
As for maximizing windows, could you try this?
(It should work, iif OSX runs an X server somewhere underneath it all)
(if (equal (window-system) 'x)
(progn
(defun toggle-fullscreen ()
"Toggles fullscreen"
(interactive)
(x-send-client-message nil 0 nil "_NET_WM_STATE" 32
'(2 "_NET_WM_STATE_MAXIMIZED_VERT" 0))
(x-send-client-message nil 0 nil "_NET_WM_STATE" 32
'(2 "_NET_WM_STATE_MAXIMIZED_HORZ" 0)))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c C-y") 'x-clipboard-yank)
(global-set-key (kbd "M-RET") 'toggle-fullscreen)))
This little snippet is what I use to toggle fullscreen on my *nix computers. And yanking from X's clipboard is a neat ability to have.
As for how to set keybindings, use global-set-key for mode independent keybindings.
(Add it to your .emacs file if you want it to be permanent.)
(setq ns-command-modifier nil)
That is supposed to do what you want. However, it's having somewhat unpredictable behaviour on machine when I test it, so be warned.