How to change emacs config in Lisp In A Box

Question

I have been a programmer for a decade now, but I believe this is the first time I've ever asked a question on a forum. I just can't figure this out and can't find the answer already online.

I am trying to turn on CUA mode so that emacs is more bearable for a windows user (normal copy paste functions). I am running Windows 7 and installed emacs through the Lisp In A Box package. I understand that I need to add a line to my .emacs file or init.el file. I'm not sure which, but I can't find either in my Lip In A Box install directory. The emacs package install also did not come with any tutorials or help files, so its really hard to pick this up.

I am stuck, any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

For GNU/Emacs, you can choose to use any one of the following three file names as the start-up configuration file:

${HOME}/.emacs
${HOME}/.emacs.el
${HOME}/.emacs.d/init.el

It would probably be a good idea to decide on one of the three options and then stick to it - the first one seems to be the most widely used one. In any case, ${HOME} stands for your home directory -- which is likely to be different from the Lisp In A Box install directory!

Coming from a Unix tradition, Emacs understands ~ (tilde) as an abbreviation for your home directory, so you can visit the .emacs file by typing:

C-x C-f ~/.emacs [ENTER]

(Note that the capital C is Emacs standard notation for a combination of the CTRL key and a second key, i.e. here you press CTRL-x CTRL-f which stands for "find-file" and will then ask you for a file name in the bottom part of the Frame (aka mini-buffer).)

If these are your first customizations, you will just see an empty buffer. Enter

;; start CUA mode every time Emacs starts
(cua-mode t)

and save the buffer with C-x C-s.

Next time you start Emacs, CUA mode should be turned on automatically.

Answer 2

What the others have told you is true: Simply adding (cua-mode t) to your dotfile would be sufficient. HOWEVER: Lisp in a box' Emacs doesn't load this file by default. Therefore, be sure to edit the shortcut so that it does load the dotfile. This is important, because otherwise you would get weird behavior, where you would add the correct line to the dotfile, start emacs, and then not get cua mode. That would suck.

The reason it does this is to ensure that it starts a vanilla emacs everytime, instead of finding, say C:/_emacs and loading that instead, giving you another user's customizations and confusing you.

The flag for not loading an init file is -q or --no-init-file. Also make sure that --no-site-file is not there.

(I realize that this is an old post, but I found this while looking for something related, and I don't want people walking away frustrated over something that doesn't work.)

Answer 3

The .emacs can be found by looking at the answers to this similar question.

Regarding documentation and tutorials, it looks like the link you provided for "Lisp in a Box" says:

If you are new to Emacs, it is recommended that you read the Emacs Tutorial which you can access from with Emacs by going to the Help menu, or by typing Control-h, letting go, and hitting t. A more extensive manual is also available from the Help menu, or on the web at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/.

Which makes it sound like the manual is there, and certainly the tutorial (I made bold the directions to get to the tutorial).

As far as other places to get information, there is a collection of screencasts on the wiki.

Your question doesn't specify whether or not you what to add to your .emacs to activate CUA mode. You can check out the CUA mode documentation on the wiki (which has links to the manual). The minimal installation is just adding this to your .emacs: (cua-mode t).