I've used vi (mostly the VIM implementation of vi) for 8+ years but I have decided to give emacs a try. I have always admired it from afar. The famous extensible editor. Now that I am doing more coding than ever it's time to figure out what people have been raving about for so many years. I feel like a smoker trying to quit. Getting off of vi is hard!

Anywho, here are some emacs links and info that I have found useful.

First, you are going to need some handy docs that tell you how to use this thing. The GNU Emacs manual is nice.

Your emacs distribution comes with a file called refcard.ps Unfortunately it is formatted in a bizarre way. You can reformat it for normal letter sized paper with three columns per page like this:

 psnup -h10.5in -w9.4in -H13in -W6in -l -3 -s.7 /usr/share/emacs/21.4/etc/refcard.ps > output.ps

Or regenerate it from the original tex source like so:

 tex /sw/share/emacs/22.0.50/etc/refcard.tex 
 dvips -t letter -t landscape -o refcard.ps refcard.dvi
 ps2pdf refcard.ps

Then get rid of that stupid caps lock key (which nobody should ever touch) and remap it to a control key which emacs really depends on. You can do this by putting this in your .Xmodmap file:

 remove Lock = Caps_Lock
 remove Control = Control_L
 keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock
 keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
 add Control = Caps_Lock
 add Control = Control_L

Courtesy of snarfed.org here is some code for your .emacs file to keep all of those auto-save and backup files in one place instead of scattered everywhere:

  ;; Put autosave files (ie #foo#) in one place, *not* scattered all over the
  ;; file system! (The make-autosave-file-name function is invoked to determine
  ;; the filename of an autosave file.)
  (defvar autosave-dir (concat "/tmp/emacs_autosaves/" (user-login-name) "/"))
  (make-directory autosave-dir t)

  (defun auto-save-file-name-p (filename)
    (string-match "^#.*#$" (file-name-nondirectory filename)))

  (defun make-auto-save-file-name ()
    (concat autosave-dir
            (if buffer-file-name
                (concat "#" (file-name-nondirectory buffer-file-name) "#")
              (expand-file-name
               (concat "#%" (buffer-name) "#")))))

  ;; Put backup files (ie foo~) in one place too. (The backup-directory-alist
  ;; list contains regexp=>directory mappings; filenames matching a regexp are
  ;; backed up in the corresponding directory. Emacs will mkdir it if necessary.)

  (defvar backup-dir (concat "/tmp/emacs_backups/" (user-login-name) "/"))
  (setq backup-directory-alist (list (cons "." backup-dir)))

And then if you are a Gnome user you will find that gnome-terminal intercepts the meta-w (forward-word) key as the hot-key to the file menu. This is clearly not acceptable. In the gnome-terminal window click Edit->Keyboard shortcuts and then click "Disable all menu access keys"

Other links:

A Tutorial Introduction to GNU Emacs

EMACS: The Extensible, Customizable Display Editor

Multics Emacs: The History, Design and Implementation

emacs wiki

Emacs Code Browser

What does Emacs stand for?

• Escape Meta Alt Control Shift
• Eighty Megs And Constantly Swapping
• Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping
• EMACS Makes A Computer Slow
• EMACS Makes All Computing Simple
• EMACS May Allow Customized Screwups
• Embarrassed Manual-Writer Accused of Communist Subversion
• Engine Monitoring and Control System
• Equipment Maintenance Accounting and Control System
• Equipment Management and Control System
• Escape Meta Alt Control Shift
• Eventually Malloc()s All Computer Storage
• Extensible Macro System
• Editor M A C ro S