Re: Vowel with Umlaut

[David Rogers]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> "GRAEME F ST CLAIR" <address@hidden> writes: 
>
> > Well, I plowtered (Scottish word) around with jEdit, but didn't 
> > get much where, so I recovered a Windows Emacs from backup, 
> > that I'd never got round to trying, installed it and got 
> > exactly nowhere with that either - like vi, "It's a Unix thang, 
> > I wouldn't understand"... 
>
> "Recovering a Windows Emacs from backup" is probably not the 
> best idea since it is under furious development (surprisingly so 
> for a 30 year old piece of software) and a lot of focus is on 
> making it less of "a Unix thang". 
>
> If you want to give it a fair try, you should install a 
> reasonably current version.  It won't be easier to understand, 
> but you'll be able to do a lot even without understanding.  Are 
> you married? 

:)

I'm using Emacs now, and have been for only a few months. The 
first few days I was more or less lost, but just as David Kastrup 
says, I've been able to do what I need without really 
understanding very much. I tried Emacs a few years ago and got 
nowhere, and the newer versions are (in my opinion) MUCH better 
for a person who's new to it. After getting over the fact that 
everything looks a bit funny, and that there are so many possible 
options for its operation that no individual person could know 
what all those settings do (but further knowing that you only set 
the ones you need for yourself, and leave the rest alone) it's 
quite possible for an "emacs newbie" to get his work done very 
effectively.

That is, if he's not married... :)



> From the point of view of a raw newbie like me, the newer versions of Emacs seem to 
> have settings & commands that are easier to use, and the Emacs display doesn't 
> look as funny as it used to (able to make use of the same fonts as other 
> applications do, etc).