Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2021 May 10

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May 10

GNU emacs really fundamental mode?

There's a lurking tension in emacs, I feel, between keeping it pure or minimal, versus succumbing utterly to a veritable orgy of creeping features. (Some if not all of you will laugh, pointing out that this ship sailed about as long ago as Jason's, but I'll point out that, allegedly, rms insisted that "M-x fun" was always to remain a minimal unique abbreviation for entering Fundamental mode, to quickly get rid of all the fluff.)

Anyway, on one of my newest machines, running emacs 25.2.2, I'm noticing that it's autoindenting, even though I'm in Fundamental mode! What new madness is this? There's a reason I'm in Fundamental mode, and it's that no matter how DWIMmy somebody thought their autoindentation code was, it never does what I want, which is why I always turn it off, TYVM, and hit the TAB key myself when I want an indent. Sheesh.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, there. My question is, what's a good, easy way of turning this off? I see from "^H m" that in this version of Emacs, Fundamental mode is typically accompanied by no fewer than 13 minor modes, including Electric-Indent, which I'm sure is my problem. I remember, dimly, years ago reprogramming a mode hook to tinker with a mode's default instantiation, and I suspect I'll end up needing to do something like that to solve this problem. —Steve Summit (talk) 17:25, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

To switch it off everywhere, simply add (electric-indent-mode 0) to your initialization file.

To switch it off in specifically Fundamental mode, I think (add-hook 'after-change-major-mode-hook (lambda () (electric-indent-local-mode (if (eq major-mode 'fundamental-mode) 0 1)))) works. (Relevant documentation: 1, 2, 3)--116.86.4.41 (talk) 16:42, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! That second line looks like what I had in mind. I'll try it tomorrow when I'm at work. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:52, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

GNU emacs "Metahelp" mode

Another fresh emacs annoyance. While asking the previous question, of course I wanted to mention the version, so I tried "^H v", which is the first thing I always think of, but of course it never works. So I typed ^H^H, expecting to get a Help window in which I could search for the word "version", in hopes of finding the right Help subcommand for finding the current version.

But no. Some bright spark has done who knows how much extra work to arrange that the ^H^H text now appears in a new kind of meta-window, literally "*Metahelp*", which it is apparently impossible to switch to! So my task is impossible. Yes, a little banner notice tells me that I can type SPACE to scroll the metahelp window. Bzzt, rong, go back to computing kindergarten, scanning for strings with your eyeballs is what computer illiterates do. I search for strings using grep or control-S.

Whoops! Sorry again for the rant. (Mustn't abuse those whom one is about to ask for help, especially when it's not their fault.) So: is there a way to turn "metahelp" mode off, to get the top-level help-on-help text in a regular old window? —Steve Summit (talk) 17:39, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't know, but, maybe to answer an XY problem: Do you know about C-Ha ("apropos"?). That will bring up a window with all the commands and variables that contain your search term. In a C-s-searchable buffer, no less. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I had forgotten about ^Ha. Thanks for the tip. —Steve Summit (talk) 10:59, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

But for anyone still reading, I am still curious about an answer to the "Y" part of my question, which remains: "The ^H^H text is no longer properly fungible. How can I make it so?" —Steve Summit (talk) 14:27, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, I can only partially confirm your problem. If I type C-H C-H, I get a buffer that I can select with the mouse and search in. It does not show in the normal buffer list, though. I can get to it with C-x o (other-window), but not from the mini-buffer. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:18, 11 May 2021 (UTC)