Ask HN: Which Emacs commands do you find most useful?

5 points·wicknicks··6 comments

Hi Folks,

I have been trying to learn how to use Emacs. And find some of its features really nice. Especially, the interactive search, and text formatting.

What commands do you use most often? Do these require some additional scripts to be installed?

Thanks!

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That's not how I would approach the problem of learning emacs. I'd choose something I want to get more efficient at (managing notes, dealing with broken compilationsm finding files, editing Java files, etc) and research packages for that. Once you find a package, pick a couple commands to learn, tape them to your monitor, use them until they are wired, pick a couple more, rinse and repeat.

In all circumstances, make sure you know how to use all the various help tools and make sure you know enough elisp to do some basic configuration.

C-h:

'C-h S' to get help on that obscure bash built-in or elisp function,

'C-h v' to get help on an elisp variable (most modes offer a lot of customisation via setting particular variables),

'C-h m' to show the current mode's keybindings,

'C-h k' to find the name of the function bound to a particular key sequence,

'C-h t' for a tutorial on all the basic (and not so basic) editing & buffer/window management commands,

and 'C-h ?' to get a list of other help commands.

I think the reason why many find it useful is the speed at which you can work because of all the shortcuts. I'm still faster on Geany though :-( need to use Emacs more to remember all the commands

org-mode :)

Yes, Org mode commands. Converting my notes and web bookmarks to a personal wiki using Emacs and Org mode was a great decision. I wish I had done it sooner.

C-x C-c -- Exit and kill Emacs

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