Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!silver!templon
From: templon@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (jeffrey templon)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Truncating lines in GNU Emacs and getting help
Message-ID: <3377@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Date: 8 Mar 89 07:03:15 GMT
References: <1057@novavax.UUCP>
Reply-To: templon@silver.UUCP (jeffrey templon)
Organization: Indiana University BACS, Bloomington
Lines: 71


	I agree that this list will sooner or later be flooded with this type
of stuff:
>  People need to learn to use the online help or
>to buy printed GNU Emacs manuals (help support the FSF).  Otherwise,
>as GNU Emacs use spreads, this group will be flooded with simple
>questions that are better answered by a manual than a newsgroup.

	I belonged to a Macintosh mailing list that was like this once.
This is why I think the idea that someone (I don't remember who) had a few
days ago is good - namely fix it so that the first message a new subscriber
to comp.emacs sees is some kind of general info.  For instance, what I needed
to know was:

1 - where to get a manual
2 - how are the different emacs flavors different
3 - is there online help? (no man pages, which is where everybody tells new
	people to look)
4 - does is run on VMS? On the Mac? on the (insert favorite machine here.)

	These are the kind of zeroth-order things one has to know before doing
pretty much ANYTHING (well, not the different machine stuff i guess) with
emacs.  You can't learn to use the online help if you don't know it exists.

	Maybe another thing that could go in the posting is the net etiquette:
"Make SURE you specify WHICH KIND OF EMACS you are using when you post
questions."

Oh yeah, I am using GNU emacs to send this message.  Thanks to all who helped.
I am in the process of getting it set up on our VMS system and have already
TeXed and printed the manual.  I did want to point out a few errors that
occured while TeXing: (ouput from EMACS.LIS TeX output listing):

[212] [213] Chapter 28 [214] [215]
WARNING: Cross-reference "Variable Index-snt" used but not yet defined
WARNING: Cross-reference "Variable Index-pg" used but not yet defined  [216]
[217] [218] [219] [220] [221] [222] [223] [224] [225] [226] [227] [228]
...
(SYS$USER3:[SCRATCH.EMACS.MAN]EMACS.FNS;1 [277] [278] [279] [280] [281])
(Variable Index)
Overfull \vbox (18.69067pt too high) has occurred while \output is active
\vbox(643.20255+0.0)x469.75499
.\glue(\topskip) 0.0
.\hbox(660.14322+1.75)x469.75499, glue set 20.23552fil
..\vbox(660.14322+1.75)x224.75974
...\glue(\topskip) 37.89322
...\hbox(6.25+1.75)x224.75974, glue set 117.71956filll []
...\glue(\parskip) 0.0
...\glue(\baselineskip) 6.0
...\hbox(6.25+0.0)x224.75974, glue set 158.5737filll []
...etc.
..\glue 0.0 plus 1.0fil
..\vbox(660.14322+1.75)x224.75974
...\glue(\splittopskip) 37.89322
...\hbox(6.25+1.75)x224.75974, glue set 155.95287filll []
...\glue(\parskip) 0.0
...\glue(\baselineskip) 6.45001
...\hbox(5.79999+1.75)x224.75974, glue set 133.03343filll []
...etc.
.\penalty 10000
.\glue 0.0 plus 1.0fill


[282] (SYS$USER3:[SCRATCH.EMACS.MAN]EMACS.VRS;1 [283] [284]) (Concept Index)

...

I should point out that I had to rename all the computer modern (cmXXX) fonts
in texinfo.tex to amXXX fonts since we have them instead.

					jeff