This is ../info/emacs, produced by makeinfo version 4.0 from emacs.texi.
This is the Fourteenth edition of the `GNU Emacs Manual', updated
for Emacs version 21.1.
INFO-DIR-SECTION Emacs
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Emacs: (emacs). The extensible self-documenting text editor.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
Published by the Free Software Foundation 59 Temple Place, Suite 330
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Copyright (C) 1985,
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Invariant Sections being "The GNU Manifesto", "Distribution" and "GNU
GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE", with the Front-Cover texts being "A GNU
Manual," and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the
license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation
License."
(a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: "You have freedom to copy and
modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free
Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development."
File: emacs, Node: Mac Input, Next: Mac International, Up: Mac OS
Keyboard Input on the Mac
=========================
On the Mac, Emacs can use either the <option> key or the <command>
key as the <META> key. If the value of the variable
`mac-command-key-is-meta' is non-`nil' (its default value), Emacs uses
the <command> key as the <META> key. Otherwise it uses the <option>
key as the <META> key.
Most people should want to use the <command> key as the <META> key,
so that dead-key processing with the <option> key will still work.
This is useful for entering non-ASCII Latin characters directly from
the Mac keyboard, for example.
Emacs recognizes the setting in the Keyboard control panel and
supports international and alternative keyboard layouts (e.g., Dvorak).
Selecting one of the layouts from the keyboard layout pull-down menu
will affect how the keys typed on the keyboard are interpreted.
The Mac OS intercepts and handles certain key combinations (e.g.,
<command>-<SPC> for switching input languages). These will not be
passed to Emacs.
The Mac keyboard ordinarily generates characters in the Mac Roman
encoding. To use it for entering ISO Latin-1 characters directly, set
the value of the variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' to
`kTextEncodingISOLatin1'. Note that not all Mac Roman characters that
can be entered at the keyboard can be converted to ISO Latin-1
characters.
To enter ISO Latin-2 characters directly from the Mac keyboard, set
the value of `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' to `kTextEncodingISOLatin2'.
Then let Emacs know that the keyboard generates Latin-2 codes, by
typing `C-x <RET> k iso-latin-2 <RET>'. To make this setting
permanent, put this in your `.emacs' init file:
(set-keyboard-coding-system 'iso-latin-2)
File: emacs, Node: Mac International, Next: Mac Environment Variables, Prev: Mac Input, Up: Mac OS
International Character Set Support on the Mac
==============================================
The Mac uses a non-standard encoding for the upper 128 single-byte
characters. It also deviates from the ISO 2022 standard by using
character codes in the range 128-159. The coding system `mac-roman' is
used to represent this Mac encoding. It is used for editing files
stored in this native encoding, and for displaying file names in Dired
mode.
Any native (non-symbol) Mac font can be used to correctly display
characters in the `mac-roman' coding system.
The fontset `fontset-mac' is created automatically when Emacs is run
on the Mac. It displays characters in the `mac-roman' coding system
using 12-point Monaco.
To insert characters directly in the `mac-roman' coding system, type
`C-x <RET> k mac-roman <RET>', customize the option
`keyboard-coding-system', or put this in your init file:
(set-keyboard-coding-system 'mac-roman)
This is useful for editing documents in native Mac encoding.
You can use input methods provided either by LEIM (*note Input
Methods::) or the Mac OS to enter international characters.
To use the former, see the International Character Set Support
section of the manual (*note International::).
To use input methods provided by the Mac OS, set the keyboard coding
system accordingly using the `C-x <RET> k' command
(`set-keyboard-coding-system'). For example, for Traditional Chinese,
use `chinese-big5' as keyboard coding system; for Japanese, use `sjis',
etc. Then select the desired input method in the keyboard layout
pull-down menu.
The Mac clipboard and the Emacs kill ring (*note Killing::) are
connected as follows: the most recent kill is copied to the clipboard
when Emacs is suspended and the contents of the clipboard is inserted
into the kill ring when Emacs resumes. The result is that you can yank
a piece of text and paste it into another Mac application, or cut or
copy one in another Mac application and yank it into a Emacs buffer.
The encoding of text selections must be specified using the commands
`C-x <RET> x' (`set-selection-coding-system') or `C-x <RET> X'
(`set-next-selection-coding-system') (e.g., for Traditional Chinese,
use `chinese-big5-mac' and for Japanese, `sjis-mac'). *Note Specify
Coding::, for more details.
File: emacs, Node: Mac Environment Variables, Next: Mac Directories, Prev: Mac International, Up: Mac OS
Environment Variables and Command Line Arguments.
=================================================
Environment variables and command line arguments for Emacs can be set
by modifying the `STR#' resources 128 and 129, respectively. A common
environment variable that one may want to set is `HOME'.
The way to set an environment variable is by adding a string of the
form
ENV_VAR=VALUE
to resource `STR#' number 128 using `ResEdit'. To set up the program to
use unibyte characters exclusively, for example, add the string
EMACS_UNIBYTE=1
File: emacs, Node: Mac Directories, Next: Mac Font Specs, Prev: Mac Environment Variables, Up: Mac OS
Volumes and Directories on the Mac
==================================
The directory structure in the Mac OS is seen by Emacs as
/VOLUMENAME/FILENAME
So when Emacs requests a file name, doing file name completion on
`/' will display all volumes on the system. You can use `..' to go up
a directory level.
To access files and folders on the desktop, look in the folder
`Desktop Folder' in your boot volume (this folder is usually invisible
in the Mac `Finder').
Emacs creates the Mac folder `:Preferences:Emacs:' in the `System
Folder' and uses it as the temporary directory. Emacs maps the
directory name `/tmp/' to that. Therefore it is best to avoid naming a
volume `tmp'. If everything works correctly, the program should leave
no files in it when it exits. You should be able to set the
environment variable `TMPDIR' to use another directory but this folder
will still be created.
File: emacs, Node: Mac Font Specs, Next: Mac Functions, Prev: Mac Directories, Up: Mac OS
Specifying Fonts on the Mac
===========================
It is rare that you need to specify a font name in Emacs; usually
you specify face attributes instead. But when you do need to specify a
font name in Emacs on the Mac, use a standard X font name:
-MAKER-FAMILY-WEIGHT-SLANT-WIDTHTYPE-STYLE...
...-PIXELS-HEIGHT-HORIZ-VERT-SPACING-WIDTH-CHARSET
*Note Font X::. Wildcards are supported as they are on X.
Native Apple fonts in Mac Roman encoding has maker name `apple' and
charset `mac-roman'. For example 12-point Monaco can be specified by
the name `-apple-monaco-*-12-*-mac-roman'.
Native Apple Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean fonts have charsets `big5-0', `gb2312.1980-0',
`jisx0208.1983-sjis', and `ksc5601.1989-0', respectively.
Single-byte fonts converted from GNU fonts in BDF format, which are
not in the Mac Roman encoding, have foundry, family, and character sets
encoded in the names of their font suitcases. E.g., the font suitcase
`ETL-Fixed-ISO8859-1' contains fonts which can be referred to by the
name `-ETL-fixed-*-iso8859-1'.
File: emacs, Node: Mac Functions, Prev: Mac Font Specs, Up: Mac OS
Mac-Specific Lisp Functions
===========================
The function `do-applescript' takes a string argument, executes it
as an AppleScript command, and returns the result as a string.
The function `mac-file-name-to-posix' takes a Mac file name and
returns the GNU or Unix equivalent. The function
`posix-file-name-to-mac' performs the opposite conversion. They are
useful for constructing AppleScript commands to be passed to
`do-applescript'.
File: emacs, Node: MS-DOS, Next: Manifesto, Prev: Mac OS, Up: Top
Emacs and MS-DOS
****************
This section briefly describes the peculiarities of using Emacs under
the MS-DOS "operating system" (also known as "MS-DOG"). If you build
Emacs for MS-DOS, the binary will also run on Windows 3.X, Windows NT,
Windows 9X/ME, Windows 2000, or OS/2 as a DOS application; the
information in this chapter applies for all of those systems, if you use
an Emacs that was built for MS-DOS.
Note that it is possible to build Emacs specifically for Windows
NT/2K or Windows 9X/ME. If you do that, most of this chapter does not
apply; instead, you get behavior much closer to what is documented in
the rest of the manual, including support for long file names, multiple
frames, scroll bars, mouse menus, and subprocesses. However, the
section on text files and binary files does still apply. There are
also two sections at the end of this chapter which apply specifically
for the Windows version.
* Menu:
* Input: MS-DOS Input. Keyboard and mouse usage on MS-DOS.
* Display: MS-DOS Display. Fonts, frames and display size on MS-DOS.
* Files: MS-DOS File Names. File name conventions on MS-DOS.
* Text and Binary:: Text files on MS-DOS use CRLF to separate lines.
* Printing: MS-DOS Printing. How to specify the printer on MS-DOS.
* I18N: MS-DOS and MULE. Support for internationalization on MS-DOS.
* Processes: MS-DOS Processes. Running subprocesses on MS-DOS.
* Windows Processes:: Running subprocesses on Windows.
* Windows System Menu:: Controlling what the ALT key does.
File: emacs, Node: MS-DOS Input, Next: MS-DOS Display, Up: MS-DOS
Keyboard and Mouse on MS-DOS
============================
The PC keyboard maps use the left <ALT> key as the <META> key. You
have two choices for emulating the <SUPER> and <HYPER> keys: choose
either the right <CTRL> key or the right <ALT> key by setting the
variables `dos-hyper-key' and `dos-super-key' to 1 or 2 respectively.
If neither `dos-super-key' nor `dos-hyper-key' is 1, then by default
the right <ALT> key is also mapped to the <META> key. However, if the
MS-DOS international keyboard support program `KEYB.COM' is installed,
Emacs will _not_ map the right <ALT> to <META>, since it is used for
accessing characters like `~' and `@' on non-US keyboard layouts; in
this case, you may only use the left <ALT> as <META> key.
The variable `dos-keypad-mode' is a flag variable that controls what
key codes are returned by keys in the numeric keypad. You can also
define the keypad <ENTER> key to act like `C-j', by putting the
following line into your `_emacs' file:
;; Make the <ENTER> key from the numeric keypad act as `C-j'.
(define-key function-key-map [kp-enter] [?\C-j])
The key that is called <DEL> in Emacs (because that's how it is
designated on most workstations) is known as <BS> (backspace) on a PC.
That is why the PC-specific terminal initialization remaps the <BS> key
to act as <DEL>; the <DEL> key is remapped to act as `C-d' for the same
reasons.
Emacs built for MS-DOS recognizes `C-<BREAK>' as a quit character,
just like `C-g'. This is because Emacs cannot detect that you have
typed `C-g' until it is ready for more input. As a consequence, you
cannot use `C-g' to stop a running command (*note Quitting::). By
contrast, `C-<BREAK>' _is_ detected as soon as you type it (as `C-g' is
on other systems), so it can be used to stop a running command and for
emergency escape (*note Emergency Escape::).
Emacs on MS-DOS supports a mouse (on the default terminal only).
The mouse commands work as documented, including those that use menus
and the menu bar (*note Menu Bar::). Scroll bars don't work in MS-DOS
Emacs. PC mice usually have only two buttons; these act as `Mouse-1'
and `Mouse-2', but if you press both of them together, that has the
effect of `Mouse-3'. If the mouse does have 3 buttons, Emacs detects
that at startup, and all the 3 buttons function normally, as on X.
Help strings for menu-bar and pop-up menus are displayed in the echo
area when the mouse pointer moves across the menu items. Highlighting
of mouse-sensitive text (*note Mouse References::) is also supported.
Some versions of mouse drivers don't report the number of mouse
buttons correctly. For example, mice with a wheel report that they
have 3 buttons, but only 2 of them are passed to Emacs; the clicks on
the wheel, which serves as the middle button, are not passed. In these
cases, you can use the `M-x msdos-set-mouse-buttons' command to tell
Emacs how many mouse buttons to expect. You could make such a setting
permanent by adding this fragment to your `_emacs' init file:
;; Treat the mouse like a 2-button mouse.
(msdos-set-mouse-buttons 2)
Emacs built for MS-DOS supports clipboard operations when it runs on
Windows. Commands that put text on the kill ring, or yank text from the
ring, check the Windows clipboard first, just as Emacs does on the X
Window System (*note Mouse Commands::). Only the primary selection and
the cut buffer are supported by MS-DOS Emacs on Windows; the secondary
selection always appears as empty.
Due to the way clipboard access is implemented by Windows, the
length of text you can put into the clipboard is limited by the amount
of free DOS memory that is available to Emacs. Usually, up to 620KB of
text can be put into the clipboard, but this limit depends on the system
configuration and is lower if you run Emacs as a subprocess of another
program. If the killed text does not fit, Emacs outputs a message
saying so, and does not put the text into the clipboard.
Null characters also cannot be put into the Windows clipboard. If
the killed text includes null characters, Emacs does not put such text
into the clipboard, and displays in the echo area a message to that
effect.
The variable `dos-display-scancodes', when non-`nil', directs Emacs
to display the ASCII value and the keyboard scan code of each
keystroke; this feature serves as a complement to the `view-lossage'
command, for debugging.
File: emacs, Node: MS-DOS Display, Next: MS-DOS File Names, Prev: MS-DOS Input, Up: MS-DOS
Display on MS-DOS
=================
Display on MS-DOS cannot use font variants, like bold or italic, but
it does support multiple faces, each of which can specify a foreground
and a background color. Therefore, you can get the full functionality
of Emacs packages that use fonts (such as `font-lock', Enriched Text
mode, and others) by defining the relevant faces to use different
colors. Use the `list-colors-display' command (*note Frame
Parameters::) and the `list-faces-display' command (*note Faces::) to
see what colors and faces are available and what they look like.
*Note MS-DOS and MULE::, later in this chapter, for information on
how Emacs displays glyphs and characters that aren't supported by the
native font built into the DOS display.
When Emacs starts, it changes the cursor shape to a solid box. This
is for compatibility with other systems, where the box cursor is the
default in Emacs. This default shape can be changed to a bar by
specifying the `cursor-type' parameter in the variable
`default-frame-alist' (*note Creating Frames::). The MS-DOS terminal
doesn't support a vertical-bar cursor, so the bar cursor is horizontal,
and the `WIDTH' parameter, if specified by the frame parameters,
actually determines its height. As an extension, the bar cursor
specification can include the starting scan line of the cursor as well
as its width, like this:
'(cursor-type bar WIDTH . START)
In addition, if the WIDTH parameter is negative, the cursor bar begins
at the top of the character cell.
The MS-DOS terminal can only display a single frame at a time. The
Emacs frame facilities work on MS-DOS much as they do on text-only
terminals (*note Frames::). When you run Emacs from a DOS window on
MS-Windows, you can make the visible frame smaller than the full
screen, but Emacs still cannot display more than a single frame at a
time.
The `mode4350' command switches the display to 43 or 50 lines,
depending on your hardware; the `mode25' command switches to the
default 80x25 screen size.
By default, Emacs only knows how to set screen sizes of 80 columns by
25, 28, 35, 40, 43 or 50 rows. However, if your video adapter has
special video modes that will switch the display to other sizes, you can
have Emacs support those too. When you ask Emacs to switch the frame to
N rows by M columns dimensions, it checks if there is a variable called
`screen-dimensions-NxM', and if so, uses its value (which must be an
integer) as the video mode to switch to. (Emacs switches to that video
mode by calling the BIOS `Set Video Mode' function with the value of
`screen-dimensions-NxM' in the `AL' register.) For example, suppose
your adapter will switch to 66x80 dimensions when put into video mode
85. Then you can make Emacs support this screen size by putting the
following into your `_emacs' file:
(setq screen-dimensions-66x80 85)
Since Emacs on MS-DOS can only set the frame size to specific
supported dimensions, it cannot honor every possible frame resizing
request. When an unsupported size is requested, Emacs chooses the next
larger supported size beyond the specified size. For example, if you
ask for 36x80 frame, you will get 40x80 instead.
The variables `screen-dimensions-NxM' are used only when they
exactly match the specified size; the search for the next larger
supported size ignores them. In the above example, even if your VGA
supports 38x80 dimensions and you define a variable
`screen-dimensions-38x80' with a suitable value, you will still get
40x80 screen when you ask for a 36x80 frame. If you want to get the
38x80 size in this case, you can do it by setting the variable named
`screen-dimensions-36x80' with the same video mode value as
`screen-dimensions-38x80'.
Changing frame dimensions on MS-DOS has the effect of changing all
the other frames to the new dimensions.
File: emacs, Node: MS-DOS File Names, Next: Text and Binary, Prev: MS-DOS Display, Up: MS-DOS
File Names on MS-DOS
====================
MS-DOS normally uses a backslash, `\', to separate name units within
a file name, instead of the slash used on other systems. Emacs on
MS-DOS permits use of either slash or backslash, and also knows about
drive letters in file names.
On MS-DOS, file names are case-insensitive and limited to eight
characters, plus optionally a period and three more characters. Emacs
knows enough about these limitations to handle file names that were
meant for other operating systems. For instance, leading dots `.' in
file names are invalid in MS-DOS, so Emacs transparently converts them
to underscores `_'; thus your default init file (*note Init File::) is
called `_emacs' on MS-DOS. Excess characters before or after the
period are generally ignored by MS-DOS itself; thus, if you visit the
file `LongFileName.EvenLongerExtension', you will silently get
`longfile.eve', but Emacs will still display the long file name on the
mode line. Other than that, it's up to you to specify file names which
are valid under MS-DOS; the transparent conversion as described above
only works on file names built into Emacs.
The above restrictions on the file names on MS-DOS make it almost
impossible to construct the name of a backup file (*note Backup
Names::) without losing some of the original file name characters. For
example, the name of a backup file for `docs.txt' is `docs.tx~' even if
single backup is used.
If you run Emacs as a DOS application under Windows 9X, Windows ME,
or Windows 2000, you can turn on support for long file names. If you do
that, Emacs doesn't truncate file names or convert them to lower case;
instead, it uses the file names that you specify, verbatim. To enable
long file name support, set the environment variable `LFN' to `y'
before starting Emacs. Unfortunately, Windows NT doesn't allow DOS
programs to access long file names, so Emacs built for MS-DOS will only
see their short 8+3 aliases.
MS-DOS has no notion of home directory, so Emacs on MS-DOS pretends
that the directory where it is installed is the value of `HOME'
environment variable. That is, if your Emacs binary, `emacs.exe', is
in the directory `c:/utils/emacs/bin', then Emacs acts as if `HOME'
were set to `c:/utils/emacs'. In particular, that is where Emacs looks
for the init file `_emacs'. With this in mind, you can use `~' in file
names as an alias for the home directory, as you would on GNU or Unix.
You can also set `HOME' variable in the environment before starting
Emacs; its value will then override the above default behavior.
Emacs on MS-DOS handles the directory name `/dev' specially, because
of a feature in the emulator libraries of DJGPP that pretends I/O
devices have names in that directory. We recommend that you avoid
using an actual directory named `/dev' on any disk.
File: emacs, Node: Text and Binary, Next: MS-DOS Printing, Prev: MS-DOS File Names, Up: MS-DOS
Text Files and Binary Files
===========================
GNU Emacs uses newline characters to separate text lines. This is
the convention used on GNU and Unix.
MS-DOS and MS-Windows normally use carriage-return linefeed, a
two-character sequence, to separate text lines. (Linefeed is the same
character as newline.) Therefore, convenient editing of typical files
with Emacs requires conversion of these end-of-line (EOL) sequences.
And that is what Emacs normally does: it converts carriage-return
linefeed into newline when reading files, and converts newline into
carriage-return linefeed when writing files. The same mechanism that
handles conversion of international character codes does this conversion
also (*note Coding Systems::).
One consequence of this special format-conversion of most files is
that character positions as reported by Emacs (*note Position Info::) do
not agree with the file size information known to the operating system.
In addition, if Emacs recognizes from a file's contents that it uses
newline rather than carriage-return linefeed as its line separator, it
does not perform EOL conversion when reading or writing that file.
Thus, you can read and edit files from GNU and Unix systems on MS-DOS
with no special effort, and they will retain their Unix-style
end-of-line convention after you edit them.
The mode line indicates whether end-of-line translation was used for
the current buffer. If MS-DOS end-of-line translation is in use for the
buffer, a backslash `\' is displayed after the coding system mnemonic
near the beginning of the mode line (*note Mode Line::). If no EOL
translation was performed, the string `(Unix)' is displayed instead of
the backslash, to alert you that the file's EOL format is not the usual
carriage-return linefeed.
To visit a file and specify whether it uses DOS-style or Unix-style
end-of-line, specify a coding system (*note Specify Coding::). For
example, `C-x <RET> c unix <RET> C-x C-f foobar.txt' visits the file
`foobar.txt' without converting the EOLs; if some line ends with a
carriage-return linefeed pair, Emacs will display `^M' at the end of
that line. Similarly, you can direct Emacs to save a buffer in a
specified EOL format with the `C-x <RET> f' command. For example, to
save a buffer with Unix EOL format, type `C-x <RET> f unix <RET> C-x
C-s'. If you visit a file with DOS EOL conversion, then save it with
Unix EOL format, that effectively converts the file to Unix EOL style,
like `dos2unix'.
When you use NFS or Samba to access file systems that reside on
computers using GNU or Unix systems, Emacs should not perform
end-of-line translation on any files in these file systems-not even
when you create a new file. To request this, designate these file
systems as "untranslated" file systems by calling the function
`add-untranslated-filesystem'. It takes one argument: the file system
name, including a drive letter and optionally a directory. For example,
(add-untranslated-filesystem "Z:")
designates drive Z as an untranslated file system, and
(add-untranslated-filesystem "Z:\\foo")
designates directory `\foo' on drive Z as an untranslated file system.
Most often you would use `add-untranslated-filesystem' in your
`_emacs' file, or in `site-start.el' so that all the users at your site
get the benefit of it.
To countermand the effect of `add-untranslated-filesystem', use the
function `remove-untranslated-filesystem'. This function takes one
argument, which should be a string just like the one that was used
previously with `add-untranslated-filesystem'.
Designating a file system as untranslated does not affect character
set conversion, only end-of-line conversion. Essentially, it directs
Emacs to create new files with the Unix-style convention of using
newline at the end of a line. *Note Coding Systems::.
Some kinds of files should not be converted at all, because their
contents are not really text. Therefore, Emacs on MS-DOS distinguishes
certain files as "binary files". (This distinction is not part of
MS-DOS; it is made by Emacs only.) Binary files include executable
programs, compressed archives, etc. Emacs uses the file name to decide
whether to treat a file as binary: the variable
`file-name-buffer-file-type-alist' defines the file-name patterns that
indicate binary files. If a file name matches one of the patterns for
binary files (those whose associations are of the type `(PATTERN . t)',
Emacs reads and writes that file using the `no-conversion' coding
system (*note Coding Systems::) which turns off _all_ coding-system
conversions, not only the EOL conversion.
`file-name-buffer-file-type-alist' also includes file-name patterns for
files which are known to be DOS-style text files with carriage-return
linefeed EOL format, such as `CONFIG.SYS'; Emacs always writes those
files with DOS-style EOLs.
If a file which belongs to an untranslated file system matches one of
the file-name patterns in `file-name-buffer-file-type-alist', the EOL
conversion is determined by `file-name-buffer-file-type-alist'.
File: emacs, Node: MS-DOS Printing, Next: MS-DOS and MULE, Prev: Text and Binary, Up: MS-DOS
Printing and MS-DOS
===================
Printing commands, such as `lpr-buffer' (*note Hardcopy::) and
`ps-print-buffer' (*note PostScript::) can work in MS-DOS and
MS-Windows by sending the output to one of the printer ports, if a
Posix-style `lpr' program is unavailable. The same Emacs variables
control printing on all systems (*note Hardcopy::), but in some cases
they have different default values on MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
If you want to use your local printer, printing on it in the usual
DOS manner, then set the Lisp variable `lpr-command' to `""' (its
default value) and `printer-name' to the name of the printer port--for
example, `"PRN"', the usual local printer port (that's the default), or
`"LPT2"', or `"COM1"' for a serial printer. You can also set
`printer-name' to a file name, in which case "printed" output is
actually appended to that file. If you set `printer-name' to `"NUL"',
printed output is silently discarded (sent to the system null device).
On MS-Windows, when the Windows network software is installed, you
can also use a printer shared by another machine by setting
`printer-name' to the UNC share name for that printer-for example,
`"//joes_pc/hp4si"'. (It doesn't matter whether you use forward
slashes or backslashes here.) To find out the names of shared printers,
run the command `net view' at a DOS command prompt to obtain a list of
servers, and `net view SERVER-NAME' to see the names of printers (and
directories) shared by that server. Alternatively, click the `Network
Neighborhood' icon on your desktop, and look for machines which share
their printers via the network.
If the printer doesn't appear in the output of `net view', or if
setting `printer-name' to the UNC share name doesn't produce a hardcopy
on that printer, you can use the `net use' command to connect a local
print port such as `"LPT2"' to the networked printer. For example,
typing `net use LPT2: \\joes_pc\hp4si'(1) causes Windows to "capture"
the LPT2 port and redirect the printed material to the printer
connected to the machine `joes_pc'. After this command, setting
`printer-name' to `"LPT2"' should produce the hardcopy on the networked
printer.
With some varieties of Windows network software, you can instruct
Windows to capture a specific printer port such as `"LPT2"', and
redirect it to a networked printer via the `Control Panel->Printers'
applet instead of `net use'.
Some printers expect DOS codepage encoding of non-ASCII text, even
though they are connected to a Windows machine which uses a different
encoding for the same locale. For example, in the Latin-1 locale, DOS
uses codepage 850 whereas Windows uses codepage 1252. *Note MS-DOS and
MULE::. When you print to such printers from Windows, you can use the
`C-x RET c' (`universal-coding-system-argument') command before `M-x
lpr-buffer'; Emacs will then convert the text to the DOS codepage that
you specify. For example, `C-x RET c cp850-dos RET M-x lpr-region RET'
will print the region while converting it to the codepage 850 encoding.
You may need to create the `cpNNN' coding system with `M-x
codepage-setup'.
If you set `printer-name' to a file name, it's best to use an
absolute file name. Emacs changes the working directory according to
the default directory of the current buffer, so if the file name in
`printer-name' is relative, you will end up with several such files,
each one in the directory of the buffer from which the printing was
done.
The commands `print-buffer' and `print-region' call the `pr'
program, or use special switches to the `lpr' program, to produce
headers on each printed page. MS-DOS and MS-Windows don't normally
have these programs, so by default, the variable `lpr-headers-switches'
is set so that the requests to print page headers are silently ignored.
Thus, `print-buffer' and `print-region' produce the same output as
`lpr-buffer' and `lpr-region', respectively. If you do have a suitable
`pr' program (for example, from GNU Textutils), set
`lpr-headers-switches' to `nil'; Emacs will then call `pr' to produce
the page headers, and print the resulting output as specified by
`printer-name'.
Finally, if you do have an `lpr' work-alike, you can set the
variable `lpr-command' to `"lpr"'. Then Emacs will use `lpr' for
printing, as on other systems. (If the name of the program isn't
`lpr', set `lpr-command' to specify where to find it.) The variable
`lpr-switches' has its standard meaning when `lpr-command' is not `""'.
If the variable `printer-name' has a string value, it is used as the
value for the `-P' option to `lpr', as on Unix.
A parallel set of variables, `ps-lpr-command', `ps-lpr-switches',
and `ps-printer-name' (*note PostScript Variables::), defines how
PostScript files should be printed. These variables are used in the
same way as the corresponding variables described above for
non-PostScript printing. Thus, the value of `ps-printer-name' is used
as the name of the device (or file) to which PostScript output is sent,
just as `printer-name' is used for non-PostScript printing. (There are
two distinct sets of variables in case you have two printers attached
to two different ports, and only one of them is a PostScript printer.)
The default value of the variable `ps-lpr-command' is `""', which
causes PostScript output to be sent to the printer port specified by
`ps-printer-name', but `ps-lpr-command' can also be set to the name of
a program which will accept PostScript files. Thus, if you have a
non-PostScript printer, you can set this variable to the name of a
PostScript interpreter program (such as Ghostscript). Any switches
that need to be passed to the interpreter program are specified using
`ps-lpr-switches'. (If the value of `ps-printer-name' is a string, it
will be added to the list of switches as the value for the `-P' option.
This is probably only useful if you are using `lpr', so when using an
interpreter typically you would set `ps-printer-name' to something
other than a string so it is ignored.)
For example, to use Ghostscript for printing on an Epson printer
connected to the `LPT2' port, put this in your `_emacs' file:
(setq ps-printer-name t) ; Ghostscript doesn't understand -P
(setq ps-lpr-command "c:/gs/gs386")
(setq ps-lpr-switches '("-q" "-dNOPAUSE"
"-sDEVICE=epson"
"-r240x72"
"-sOutputFile=LPT2"
"-Ic:/gs"))
(This assumes that Ghostscript is installed in the `"c:/gs"' directory.)
For backwards compatibility, the value of `dos-printer'
(`dos-ps-printer'), if it has a value, overrides the value of
`printer-name' (`ps-printer-name'), on MS-DOS and MS-Windows only.
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) Note that the `net use' command requires the UNC share name to be
typed with the Windows-style backslashes, while the value of
`printer-name' can be set with either forward- or backslashes.
File: emacs, Node: MS-DOS and MULE, Next: MS-DOS Processes, Prev: MS-DOS Printing, Up: MS-DOS
International Support on MS-DOS
===============================
Emacs on MS-DOS supports the same international character sets as it
does on GNU, Unix and other platforms (*note International::), including
coding systems for converting between the different character sets.
However, due to incompatibilities between MS-DOS/MS-Windows and other
systems, there are several DOS-specific aspects of this support that
you should be aware of. This section describes these aspects.
`M-x dos-codepage-setup'
Set up Emacs display and coding systems as appropriate for the
current DOS codepage.
`M-x codepage-setup'
Create a coding system for a certain DOS codepage.
MS-DOS is designed to support one character set of 256 characters at
any given time, but gives you a variety of character sets to choose
from. The alternative character sets are known as "DOS codepages".
Each codepage includes all 128 ASCII characters, but the other 128
characters (codes 128 through 255) vary from one codepage to another.
Each DOS codepage is identified by a 3-digit number, such as 850, 862,
etc.
In contrast to X, which lets you use several fonts at the same time,
MS-DOS normally doesn't allow use of several codepages in a single
session. MS-DOS was designed to load a single codepage at system
startup, and require you to reboot in order to change it(1). Much the
same limitation applies when you run DOS executables on other systems
such as MS-Windows.
If you invoke Emacs on MS-DOS with the `--unibyte' option (*note
Initial Options::), Emacs does not perform any conversion of non-ASCII
characters. Instead, it reads and writes any non-ASCII characters
verbatim, and sends their 8-bit codes to the display verbatim. Thus,
unibyte Emacs on MS-DOS supports the current codepage, whatever it may
be, but cannot even represent any other characters.
For multibyte operation on MS-DOS, Emacs needs to know which
characters the chosen DOS codepage can display. So it queries the
system shortly after startup to get the chosen codepage number, and
stores the number in the variable `dos-codepage'. Some systems return
the default value 437 for the current codepage, even though the actual
codepage is different. (This typically happens when you use the
codepage built into the display hardware.) You can specify a different
codepage for Emacs to use by setting the variable `dos-codepage' in
your init file.
Multibyte Emacs supports only certain DOS codepages: those which can
display Far-Eastern scripts, like the Japanese codepage 932, and those
that encode a single ISO 8859 character set.
The Far-Eastern codepages can directly display one of the MULE
character sets for these countries, so Emacs simply sets up to use the
appropriate terminal coding system that is supported by the codepage.
The special features described in the rest of this section mostly
pertain to codepages that encode ISO 8859 character sets.
For the codepages which correspond to one of the ISO character sets,
Emacs knows the character set name based on the codepage number. Emacs
automatically creates a coding system to support reading and writing
files that use the current codepage, and uses this coding system by
default. The name of this coding system is `cpNNN', where NNN is the
codepage number.(2)
All the `cpNNN' coding systems use the letter `D' (for "DOS") as
their mode-line mnemonic. Since both the terminal coding system and
the default coding system for file I/O are set to the proper `cpNNN'
coding system at startup, it is normal for the mode line on MS-DOS to
begin with `-DD\-'. *Note Mode Line::. Far-Eastern DOS terminals do
not use the `cpNNN' coding systems, and thus their initial mode line
looks like the Emacs default.
Since the codepage number also indicates which script you are using,
Emacs automatically runs `set-language-environment' to select the
language environment for that script (*note Language Environments::).
If a buffer contains a character belonging to some other ISO 8859
character set, not the one that the chosen DOS codepage supports, Emacs
displays it using a sequence of ASCII characters. For example, if the
current codepage doesn't have a glyph for the letter `o`' (small `o'
with a grave accent), it is displayed as `{`o}', where the braces serve
as a visual indication that this is a single character. (This may look
awkward for some non-Latin characters, such as those from Greek or
Hebrew alphabets, but it is still readable by a person who knows the
language.) Even though the character may occupy several columns on the
screen, it is really still just a single character, and all Emacs
commands treat it as one.
Not all characters in DOS codepages correspond to ISO 8859
characters--some are used for other purposes, such as box-drawing
characters and other graphics. Emacs maps these characters to two
special character sets called `eight-bit-control' and
`eight-bit-graphic', and displays them as their IBM glyphs. However,
you should be aware that other systems might display these characters
differently, so you should avoid them in text that might be copied to a
different operating system, or even to another DOS machine that uses a
different codepage.
Emacs supports many other characters sets aside from ISO 8859, but it
cannot display them on MS-DOS. So if one of these multibyte characters
appears in a buffer, Emacs on MS-DOS displays them as specified by the
`dos-unsupported-character-glyph' variable; by default, this glyph is
an empty triangle. Use the `C-u C-x =' command to display the actual
code and character set of such characters. *Note Position Info::.
By default, Emacs defines a coding system to support the current
codepage. To define a coding system for some other codepage (e.g., to
visit a file written on a DOS machine in another country), use the `M-x
codepage-setup' command. It prompts for the 3-digit code of the
codepage, with completion, then creates the coding system for the
specified codepage. You can then use the new coding system to read and
write files, but you must specify it explicitly for the file command
when you want to use it (*note Specify Coding::).
These coding systems are also useful for visiting a file encoded
using a DOS codepage, using Emacs running on some other operating
system.
MS-Windows provides its own codepages, which are different from the
DOS codepages for the same locale. For example, DOS codepage 850
supports the same character set as Windows codepage 1252; DOS codepage
855 supports the same character set as Windows codepage 1251, etc. The
MS-Windows version of Emacs uses the current codepage for display when
invoked with the `-nw' option.
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) Normally, one particular codepage is burnt into the display
memory, while other codepages can be installed by modifying system
configuration files, such as `CONFIG.SYS', and rebooting. While
third-party software is known to exist that allows to change the
codepage without rebooting, we describe here how a stock MS-DOS system
behaves.
(2) The standard Emacs coding systems for ISO 8859 are not quite
right for the purpose, because typically the DOS codepage does not
match the standard ISO character codes. For example, the letter `c,'
(`c' with cedilla) has code 231 in the standard Latin-1 character set,
but the corresponding DOS codepage 850 uses code 135 for this glyph.
File: emacs, Node: MS-DOS Processes, Next: Windows Processes, Prev: MS-DOS and MULE, Up: MS-DOS
Subprocesses on MS-DOS
======================
Because MS-DOS is a single-process "operating system," asynchronous
subprocesses are not available. In particular, Shell mode and its
variants do not work. Most Emacs features that use asynchronous
subprocesses also don't work on MS-DOS, including Shell mode and GUD.
When in doubt, try and see; commands that don't work output an error
message saying that asynchronous processes aren't supported.
Compilation under Emacs with `M-x compile', searching files with
`M-x grep' and displaying differences between files with `M-x diff' do
work, by running the inferior processes synchronously. This means you
cannot do any more editing until the inferior process finishes.
Spell checking also works, by means of special support for
synchronous invocation of the `ispell' program. This is slower than the
asynchronous invocation on other platforms
Instead of the Shell mode, which doesn't work on MS-DOS, you can use
the `M-x eshell' command. This invokes the Eshell package that
implements a Posix-like shell entirely in Emacs Lisp.
By contrast, Emacs compiled as native Windows application *does*
support asynchronous subprocesses. *Note Windows Processes::.
Printing commands, such as `lpr-buffer' (*note Hardcopy::) and
`ps-print-buffer' (*note PostScript::), work in MS-DOS by sending the
output to one of the printer ports. *Note MS-DOS Printing::.
When you run a subprocess synchronously on MS-DOS, make sure the
program terminates and does not try to read keyboard input. If the
program does not terminate on its own, you will be unable to terminate
it, because MS-DOS provides no general way to terminate a process.
Pressing `C-c' or `C-<BREAK>' might sometimes help in these cases.
Accessing files on other machines is not supported on MS-DOS. Other
network-oriented commands such as sending mail, Web browsing, remote
login, etc., don't work either, unless network access is built into
MS-DOS with some network redirector.
Dired on MS-DOS uses the `ls-lisp' package where other platforms use
the system `ls' command. Therefore, Dired on MS-DOS supports only some
of the possible options you can mention in the `dired-listing-switches'
variable. The options that work are `-A', `-a', `-c', `-i', `-r', `-S',
`-s', `-t', and `-u'.
File: emacs, Node: Windows Processes, Next: Windows System Menu, Prev: MS-DOS Processes, Up: MS-DOS
Subprocesses on Windows 9X/ME and Windows NT/2K
===============================================
Emacs compiled as a native Windows application (as opposed to the DOS
version) includes full support for asynchronous subprocesses. In the
Windows version, synchronous and asynchronous subprocesses work fine on
both Windows 9X and Windows NT/2K as long as you run only 32-bit Windows
applications. However, when you run a DOS application in a subprocess,
you may encounter problems or be unable to run the application at all;
and if you run two DOS applications at the same time in two
subprocesses, you may have to reboot your system.
Since the standard command interpreter (and most command line
utilities) on Windows 95 are DOS applications, these problems are
significant when using that system. But there's nothing we can do
about them; only Microsoft can fix them.
If you run just one DOS application subprocess, the subprocess should
work as expected as long as it is "well-behaved" and does not perform
direct screen access or other unusual actions. If you have a CPU
monitor application, your machine will appear to be 100% busy even when
the DOS application is idle, but this is only an artifact of the way CPU
monitors measure processor load.
You must terminate the DOS application before you start any other DOS
application in a different subprocess. Emacs is unable to interrupt or
terminate a DOS subprocess. The only way you can terminate such a
subprocess is by giving it a command that tells its program to exit.
If you attempt to run two DOS applications at the same time in
separate subprocesses, the second one that is started will be suspended
until the first one finishes, even if either or both of them are
asynchronous.
If you can go to the first subprocess, and tell it to exit, the
second subprocess should continue normally. However, if the second
subprocess is synchronous, Emacs itself will be hung until the first
subprocess finishes. If it will not finish without user input, then
you have no choice but to reboot if you are running on Windows 9X. If
you are running on Windows NT/2K, you can use a process viewer
application to kill the appropriate instance of ntvdm instead (this
will terminate both DOS subprocesses).
If you have to reboot Windows 9X in this situation, do not use the
`Shutdown' command on the `Start' menu; that usually hangs the system.
Instead, type `CTL-ALT-<DEL>' and then choose `Shutdown'. That usually
works, although it may take a few minutes to do its job.
File: emacs, Node: Windows System Menu, Prev: Windows Processes, Up: MS-DOS
Using the System Menu on Windows
================================
Emacs compiled as a native Windows application normally turns off the
Windows feature that tapping the <ALT> key invokes the Windows menu.
The reason is that the <ALT> also serves as <META> in Emacs. When
using Emacs, users often press the <META> key temporarily and then
change their minds; if this has the effect of bringing up the Windows
menu, it alters the meaning of subsequent commands. Many users find
this frustrating.
You can reenable Windows's default handling of tapping the <ALT> key
by setting `w32-pass-alt-to-system' to a non-`nil' value.