Emacs is a free and open source editor which is part of the GNU project. We can customise almost every aspect of the editor in its Lisp variant (Emacs Lisp, with the extension .el
) such as 202206121523#, 202206131443# and 202206151006#. It consists of buffer, mode line and echo area by default.
The editor maintains several buffers for various information. *Messages*
buffer contains previous messages in the minibuffer or echo area. *Buffer List*
displays a list of currently opened buffers. *info*
buffer is used for viewing manuals.
In the left most area of the mode line, unsaved change(s) will be indicated by **
. By default, it will maintain the previous state of the file under the name ~{filename}
if changes happened to the file. Emacs will also auto-save files to with a name #{filename}#
. You can recover to the autosave file using the command recover-this-file
.
Emacs uses the concept of major mode and minor mode for each filetype in order to have accords or desired behaviours and features. There can be only one major mode exist for a buffer, but it is allowed to have multiple minor modes for a single buffer. You may treat these minor modes as the modification or enhancement to the major mode. Switching major mode can be done via M-x {major-mode-name}
.
Note: If you’ve entered recursive editing levels or encountered something strange, just type <ESC>
three times. It will save your sanity.