Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!wuarchive!rice!uw-beaver!milton!salte Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Message-ID: <1991May30.211023.21346@milton.u.washington.edu> From: salte@milton.u.washington.edu (Guess who) Date: Thu, 30 May 1991 21:10:23 GMT References: <1991May30.142750.9342@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> Organization: University of Washington In-Reply-To: ury@cosmos.huji.ac.il's message of Thu, 30 May 91 14:27:50 GMT Lines: 64 In article <1991May30.142750.9342@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> ury@cosmos.huji.ac.il (ury segal) writes: In article <1991May30.124131.4679@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> write: >2) I only need to use what-line and friends on very, very rare > occasions, like once in every two or three months of quite heavy > Emacs use for a variety of tasks. In fact, I didn't remember > (what-line) from the last time I used it, so I actually needed to > look it up, as described above, to answer your question. I find it > curious that you needed it within the first few hours of beginning > to use the editor. Your working style must be quite different from > mine. I'm a programmer. I need the line numbers 'cause the compiler give them to me to tell me where the errors are. -- You don't need to know the line numbers, what you need is the ability to move point (cursor or whatever you call it) to that line number. EMACS offer you the following functions for this: 1) An environment where the editor can move to the position in the source file where your error was found. Provided that you either compile the program in emacs or you read the listing file in some buffer and tell emacs that this listing file correspond to the source file you are working on. 2) If you don't have such an environment available, and you don't know how to get it, you can use 'goto-line' and give as input the line number that the compiler tells you. 3) (the least desireable solution) go to a random line and ask the editor if this line happened to be the line that the compiler complained about. I.e. use what-line. I have no doubt that 3 is the least efficient of these solutions, I would advice you to reconsider using one of the others. Also, you spent a long time without finding a simple command as what-line. This means that you have failed to read the initial information that emacs displays when you enter it. Where it tells you about C-H T (to get a tutorial) and C-H I (to get info) C-H A is also a very useful command, you have obviously not tried C-H, which tells you to press ? for further options and if so gives an explanation of each command. -- Look, everybody, I ment that EMACS is to complex to people like me, not because I'm stupid but It's that I don't need all those features. just the simple one. And the access to them is nod so easy as in vi. -- Wrong, as I said earlier you don't need to know the line number, you need to get to a specified line. It seems that your problem is that you don't know what you need. You might prefer VI, but it's not because VI is better or that VI gives you the functionality you need. It is because you have gotten accustomed to the environment that VI offer you and any change from this environment (improvement or the opposite) is therefore considered 'bad' from your viewpoint. I won't argue with you about that, but I will point out that many people do not share your view on the subject. -- --ury ****************************************************** LONG LIVE ROCK'N'ROLL ****************************************************** -- Alf