5. Help

XEmacs provides a comprehensive Help facility. On the extreme right of the menu-bar there is a Help menu. There are several help commands provided by this menu. You can also use C-h for invoking the Help facility. Type "?" for a list of keys you can type after typing C-h. If you want more information on what your options are and what kind of help you can get type "?" again. You will get a listing of all the keys you can type and what they will do. Initially if you want help, type C-h three times.

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5.1 Help menu

When you click on the Help menu with any of the mouse buttons you will get the following menu items:

Info

Selecting this item will take you to the Info page which is the online documentation browsing system. You can simply click on the highlighted items and "Info" will take you to the document providing information about that topic.

Describe Mode

After you select this item, you will get a documentation on the major and minor modes which are enabled in the buffer you are working with. See section Major and Minor Modes, for information on Modes.

Hyper Apropos...

After you select this item, you will see the following message in the echo area:

List symbols matching regexp:

If you type "mode" and hit <RET>, you will get a list of all the symbols (like functions and commands). You can now get documentation on any of the given symbols by "clicking" on any of the symbols (i.e. drag your mouse on the appropriate symbol and release the button). For example, if you "click" on the ’auto-fill-mode’ you will get the following message in the window at the bottom:

auto-fill-mode

Function, Command:

  Toggle auto-fill mode.
  With arg, turn auto-fill mode on if and only if arg is positive.
  In auto-fill mode, inserting a space at a column beyond `fill-column'
  automatically breaks the line at a previous space.

Variable:

  value = nil

  variable not documented

Command Apropos...

Selecting this item will prompt you for a string just like when you select Hyper Apropos.... After you give a string name, you will get a listing of all the functions and commands containing that string name with a very short description about what that command does.

Full Apropos...

After you select this item, you will be prompted for a string name in the echo area:

Apropos (regexp):

Now you can give any string name, for example "mode" and hit <RET>. You will get a listing of all the variables and commands containing that string i.e "mode" with a short description of its function.

List Keybindings

Select this item and you will get a listing of all the keys and the commands that they execute. Depending on which Major mode your buffer is in, you will get a listing of the special keybindings for that particular buffer also. For example, if you are in "Texinfo" mode, part of your list will contain:

C-c C-c n       texinfo-insert-@node
C-c C-c o       texinfo-insert-@noindent
C-c C-c s       texinfo-insert-@samp
C-c C-c t       texinfo-insert-@table
C-c C-c v       texinfo-insert-@var
C-c C-c x       texinfo-insert-@example
C-c C-c {      texinfo-insert-braces

These keybindings apply only to "Texinfo" mode. See section Major and Minor Modes, for more information on various modes.

Describe Key...

After you select this item, you will be see the following message in the echo area:

Describe Key:

After you type a command key sequence, full documentation of that command will be displayed. For example if you type C-g, you will see the following documentation for C-g:

keyboard-quit:
Signal a `quit' condition.

This means that C-g will quit whatever command you gave earlier.

Describe Function...

This menu item provides documentation for a function. After you select this item, it will prompt you for a function name in the echo area:

Describe function (default <some function name>):

If you hit <RET> without giving a function name, you will get documentation for that default function name, otherwise if you type a function name and hit <RET>, you will get documentation for the given function.

Describe Variable...

You can get documentation on any variable by selecting this menu item. It is similar to Describe Function and will prompt you for a variable name.

Unix Manual...

After you select this item you will be prompted for a Unix command for which you wish to see the man page. You will see the following message in the echo area:

Manual entry: (default <some name>)

Now you can type any command, for example type ‘who’ and press <RET>. You will get the man page for the Unix command ‘who’ which lists who is on the system.

Emacs Tutorial

Select this item and you will get a tutorial on Emacs. It is good for new users.

Emacs News

Select this item and you will get a lot of historical and current news on Emacs !