Re: [Fhsst-authors] Potpourri

[Sam Halliday]

Peter Hutnick wrote:
> Sam Halliday wrote:
> Oh, so "all" I have to do is memorize a seemingly endless list of 
> pseudo-mnemonic key combinations?  Brilliant!

no.. you have a single sheet beside you and learn them over time :-)

> With intuitive commands like C-"x v v" (how on /earth/ does one type 
> that?) who would want to resort to arcane commands like "cvs commit?"

it should have been "C-x v v"... so you press control and x together,
release control and press v twice. it is pretty intuitive since all the
CVS commands begin the same way (C-x v). all the LaTeX commands begin
with C-c. by typing C-c C-e i get an equation environment already setup
for me and it places the curosr ready for me to enter the equation
label. like i alread said, C-c C-b compiles the current buffer.

so... "C-x v v" is 3 keystrokes, add a comment and then C-c C-c (2 more
keystrokes)

compared to "use mouse to change to a terminal", "cvs commit" (10
keystrokes), and then use mouse to go to the editor and save/exit, and
back to your editor of choice. emacs is a hellova easier.

> But all sarcasm aside, I have made several good faith efforts to learn
> 
> emacs.  The most recent was only a month or so ago.  I had command 
> references pasted all over the place.  I made little labels for my 
> keyboard keys (I touch-type, hence the unbearably long emails ;-)  ). 
> I /wanted/ to like emacs, but it beat me like Caradhras.

i've been there :-) took me 2 years of trying of and on... moved from
vim to kwrite to gedit to nedit and then decided to give emacs one final
whirl when i started writing my own nedit macros. i still use nano for
quick editing.

the thing with emacs is to not try and learn all the commands at once.
use it normally... use the buttons and start to learn commands to
replace mouse clicks. then try to edit your .emacs, want to throw your
monitor out the window. sit down and redo your .emacs again and again.
learn some more macros. update your .emacs. get it the way you want.
start removing the graphical icons from emacs. realise your .emacs is so
big you'd be best backing it up. :-)

cheers,
Sam
-- 
Free High School Science Texts
  http://www.nongnu.org/fhsst/
Sam's Homepages
  http://fommil.homeunix.org/~samuel/
  http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/~samuel/