4.4BSD/usr/src/contrib/jove-4.14.6/doc/teach-jove
J O V E T U T O R I A L
Welcome to JOVE - an advanced, easy-to-use, user-friendly environment
for editing text, programs or anything else you may like to type.
JOVE commands generally involve the CONTROL key (sometimes labelled
CTRL or CTL) or the META key (generally labelled ESCAPE). Rather than
write out META or CONTROL each time we want you to prefix a character,
we'll use the following abbreviations:
C-<chr> means hold the CONTROL key while typing the character <chr>
Thus, C-F would be: hold the CONTROL key and type F.
M-<chr> means type the META (ESCAPE) key and release it, then type
the character <chr>. The <chr> can be upper or lower case
and it will have the same meaning.
Important note: if you must exit at some point, type C-X C-C.
The characters ">>" at the left margin indicate directions for you to
try using a command. For instance:
>> Now type C-V (View next screen) to move to the next screen.
(go ahead, do it by depressing the control key and V together).
From now on, you'll be expected to do this whenever you finish
reading the screen.
Note that there is an overlap when going from screen to screen; this
provides some continuity when moving through the file.
The first thing that you need to know is how to move around from
place to place in the file. You already know how to move forward a
screen, with C-V. To move backwards a screen, type M-V (depress the
META key and type V, or type <ESC>V if you don't have a META or EDIT
key).
>> Try typing M-V and then C-V to move back and forth a few times.
SUMMARY
-------
The following commands are useful for viewing screenfuls:
C-V Move forward one screenful
M-V Move backward one screenful
C-L Center the current line--clear screen and redisplay
everything if current line is already at center.
>> find the cursor and remember what text is near it.
Then type a C-L.
Find the cursor again and see what text is near it now.
BASIC CURSOR CONTROL
--------------------
Getting from screenful to screenful is useful, but how do you
reposition yourself within a given screen to a specific place? There
are several ways you can do this. One way (not the best, but the most
basic) is to use the commands previous, backward, forward and next.
As you can imagine these commands (which are given to JOVE as C-P,
C-B, C-F, and C-N respectively) move the cursor from where it
currently is to a new place in the given direction. Here, in a more
graphical form are the commands:
Previous line, C-P
:
:
Backward, C-B .... Current cursor position .... Forward, C-F
:
:
Next line, C-N
You'll probably find it easy to think of these by letter. P for
previous, N for next, B for backward and F for forward. These are the
basic cursor positioning commands and you'll be using them ALL the
time so it would be of great benefit if you learn them now.
>> Do a few C-N's to bring the cursor down to this line.
>> Move into the line with C-F's and then up with several C-P's. See
what C-P does when the cursor is in the middle of the line.
Lines are separated by a single Linefeed character, which is what Unix
calls a Newline.
>> Try to C-B at the beginning of a line. Do a few more C-B's.
Then do C-F's back to the end of the line and beyond.
When you go off the top or bottom of the screen, the text beyond the
edge is shifted onto the screen so that your instructions can be
carried out while keeping the cursor on the screen.
>> Try to move the cursor off the bottom of the screen with C-N and
see what happens.
If moving by characters is too slow, you can move by words. M-F
(Meta-F) moves forward a word and M-B moves back a word.
>> Type a few M-F's and M-B's. Intersperse them with C-F's and C-B's.
Notice the parallel between C-F and C-B on the one hand, and M-F and
M-B on the other hand. Very often Meta characters are used for
operations related to English text whereas Control characters operate
on the basic textual units that are independent of what you are
editing (characters, lines, etc). There is a similar parallel between
lines and sentences: C-A and C-E move to the beginning or end of a
line, and M-A and M-E move to the beginning or end of a sentence.
>> Try a couple of C-A's, and then a couple of C-E's.
Try a couple of M-A's, and then a couple of M-E's.
See how repeated C-A's do nothing, but repeated M-A's keep moving
farther. Do you think that this is right?
Two other simple cursor motion commands are M-< (Meta Less-than),
which moves to the beginning of the file, and M-> (Meta Greater-than),
which moves to the end of the file. You probably don't need to try
them, since finding this spot again will be boring. If you need the
shift key to type a "<", then you must also use the shift key to type
M-<. Otherwise, you would be typing M-, .
The location of the cursor in the text is also called "point". To
paraphrase, the cursor shows on the screen where point is located in
the text.
Here is a summary of simple moving operations including the word and
sentence moving commands:
C-F Move forward a character
C-B Move backward a character
M-F Move forward a word
M-B Move backward a word
C-N Move to next line
C-P Move to previous line
C-A Move to beginning of line
C-E Move to end of line
M-A Move back to beginning of sentence
M-E Move forward to end of sentence
M-< Go to beginning of file
M-> Go to end of file
>> Try all of these commands now a few times for practice. Since the
last two will take you away from this screen, you can come back
here with the command C-X C-X (which will be explained later).
These are the most often used commands.
Like all other commands in JOVE, these commands can be given arguments
which cause them to be executed repeatedly. The way you give a
command a repeat count is by typing META and then the digits before
you type the command. (Remember META is ususally called ESCAPE)
For instance, META 8 C-F moves forward eight characters.
>> Try giving a suitable argument to C-N or C-P to come as close
as you can to this line in one jump.
The only apparent exception to this is the screen moving commands, C-V
and M-V. When given an argument, they scroll the screen up or down by
that many lines, rather than screenfuls. This proves to be much more
useful.
>> Try typing M-8 C-V now.
Did it scroll the screen up by 8 lines? If you would like to scroll
it down you can give an argument to M-V.
THE UNIVERSAL ARGUMENT
----------------------
Almost every command in JOVE takes a so-called Universal Argument.
This argument, although it is interpreted differently in some cases,
usually means REPEAT. One important exception to this is with the screen
moving commands. In this case, the number refers to the number of LINES
to scroll, not the number of screens.
The way you give a command a universal argument is by typing ESC and
then the number. For example, ESC 10 C-F would move you forward ten
characters.
>>> Try giving a suitable argument to C-N or C-P to come as close as you
can to this line in one jump. Then try giving the same command,
except make the number negative.
Another count-giving command is C-U. This command, when you first type
it, gives you an argument of 4 (four). If you type C-U C-U, you will get
an argument of 16. Each time C-U is typed, the argument is multiplied by
four.
>>> Try typing ESC 8 C-V now.
THE GOTO COMMAND
----------------
Now that we've learned about the universal argument, we can introduce
another cursor positioning command, the command to move to a specific
line. This command is given by giving a line number via ESC, and then
typing M-G.
>>> Try using the M-< and M-> commands to move to the beginning and the
end of the file. Then come back here using the M-G command (this is
line 206, so you'd type ESC 206 M-G.)
QUITTING FROM COMMANDS
----------------------
The character in JOVE used to quit out of all commands which request
input is C-G. For example, you can use C-G to discard a numeric
argument or the beginning of a command that you don't want to finish.
>> Type M-100 to make a numeric arg of 100, then type C-G. Now type
C-F. How many characters does it move? If you have typed an <ESC>
by mistake, you can get rid of it with a C-G.
ERRORS
------
Sometimes you may do something which JOVE doesn't allow. If it is
something simple, such as typing a control key sequence which is not
associated with any command, JOVE will just beep at you. Otherwise,
JOVE will also display an informative error message at the bottom of
the screen.
Some versions of JOVE do not have all the features described in this
tutorial implemented yet. If you come across such an unimplemented
feature, you may get an error message when you try to use it. Just
proceed on to the next section of the tutorial.
INSERTING AND DELETING
----------------------
If you want to type text, just do it. Characters which you can see,
such as A, 7, *, etc. are taken by JOVE as text and inserted
immediately. Type <Return> (the carriage-return key) to insert a line
separator.
You can delete the last character you typed by typing <Delete>.
<Delete> is a key on the keyboard, which may be labeled "Rubout"
instead of "Delete" on some terminals. More generally, <Delete>
deletes the character immediately before the current cursor position.
>> Do this now, type a few characters and then delete them by typing
<Delete> a few times. Don't worry about this file being changed;
you won't affect the master tutorial. This is just a copy of it.
>> Now start typing text until you reach the right margin, and keep
typing. When a line of text gets too big for one line on the
screen, the line of text is "continued" off the edge of the screen
The exclamation mark at the right margin indicates a line which has
been continued. The line will slide over if you move off the edge
on either side.
>> The following line actually goes off the edge. Trying typing enough
C-F's that you move off the right hand end of this line.... This is a long line of text that the JOVE editor extends to the right.
>> Use <Delete>s to delete the text until the line fits on one screen
line again. The continuation "!" will go away.
>> Move the cursor to the beginning of a line and type <Delete>. This
deletes the line separator before the line and merges the line onto
the previous line. The resulting line may be too long to fit, in
which case it has a continuation indication.
>> Type <Return> to insert the separator again.
Remember that most JOVE commands can be given a repeat count; Note
that this includes characters which insert themselves.
>> Try that now -- type META 8 * and see what happens.
If you want to create a blank line in between two lines, move to the
second of the two lines and type C-O.
>> Try moving to a line and typing C-O now.
You've now learned the most basic way of typing something in JOVE and
correcting errors. You can delete by words or lines as well. Here is
a summary of the delete operations:
<Delete> delete the character just before the cursor
C-D delete the next character after the cursor
M-<Delete> kill the word immediately before the cursor
M-D kill the next word after the cursor
C-K kill from the cursor position to end of line
M-K kill to the end of the current sentence
Notice that <Delete> and C-D vs M-<Delete> and M-D extend the parallel
started by C-F and M-F (well, <Delete> isn't really a control
character, but let's not worry about that). C-K and M-K are like C-E
and M-E, sort of, in that lines are opposite sentences.
Now suppose you kill something, and then you decide that you want to
get it back? Well, whenever you kill something bigger than a
character, JOVE saves it for you. To yank it back, use C-Y. Note
that you don't have to be in the same place to do C-Y; This is a good
way to move text around. Also note that the difference between
"Killing" and "Deleting" something is that "Killed" things can be
yanked back, and "Deleted" things cannot. Generally, the commands
that can destroy a lot of text save it, while the ones that attack
only one character, or nothing but blank lines and spaces, do not save.
For instance, type C-N a couple times to postion the cursor at some
line on this screen.
>> Do this now, move the cursor and kill that line with C-K.
Note that a single C-K kills the contents of the line, and a second
C-K kills the line itself, and make all the other lines move up. If
you give C-K a repeat count, it kills that many lines AND their
contents.
The text that has just disappeared is saved so that you can retrieve
it. To retrieve the last killed text and put it where the cursor
currently is, type C-Y.
>> Try it; type C-Y to yank the text back.
Think of C-Y as if you were yanking something back that someone took
away from you. Notice that if you do several C-K's in a row the text
that is killed is all saved together so that one C-Y will yank all of
the lines.
>> Do this now, type C-K several times.
Now to retrieve that killed text:
>> Type C-Y. Then move the cursor down a few lines and type C-Y
again. You now see how to copy some text.
What do you do if you have some text you want to yank back, and then
you kill something else? C-Y would yank the more recent kill. But
the previous text is not lost. You can get back to it using the M-Y
command. After you have done C-Y to get the most recent kill, typing
M-Y replaces that yanked text with the previous kill. Typing M-Y
again and again brings in earlier and earlier kills. When you have
reached the text you are looking for, you can just go away and leave
it there. If you M-Y enough times, you come back to the starting
point (the most recent kill).
>> Kill a line, move around, kill another line. Then do C-Y to get
back the second killed line. Then do M-Y and it will be replaced
by the first killed line. Do more M-Y's and see what you get.
Keep doing them until the second kill line comes back, and then a
few more. If you like, you can try giving M-Y positive and negative
arguments.
FILES
-----
In order to make the text you edit permanent, you must put it in a
file. Otherwise, it will go away when your invocation of JOVE goes
away. While you are editing a file in JOVE, your changes are actually
being made to a private "scratch" copy of the file. However, the
changes still don't become permanent until you "save" the file. This
is so you can have control to avoid leaving a half-changed file around
when you don't want to.
If you look near the botton of the screen you will see a line that
looks like this:
JOVE (Text) Buffer: teach-jove "teach-jove" *
"teach-jove" is the name of the file you are editing. This is the name
of your own temporary copy of the text of the JOVE tutorial; the file
you are now editing. Whatever file you edit, that file's name will
appear in that precise spot.
The commands for finding and saving files are unlike the other
commands you have learned in that they consist of two characters.
They both start with the character Control-X. There is a whole series
of commands that start with Control-X; many of them have to do with
files, buffers, and related things, and all of them consist of
Control-X followed by some other character. As with M- the character
interpreted the same regardless of case.
Another thing about the command for finding a file is that you have to
say what file name you want. We say the command "reads an argument
from the terminal" (in this case, the argument is the name of the
file). After you type the command
C-X C-F Find a file
JOVE will ask you for the file name. You should end the name with
the Return key. After this command, you will see the contents of the
file in your JOVE. You can edit the contents. When you wish to make
the changes permanent, issue the command
C-X C-S Save the file
Warning: on many systems JOVE will not be able to process the key C-S.
In place of C-S, you should type C-\. It is possible to make C-S work
but C-\ is guaranteed always to work in place of C-S.
The old version of the file will be replaced. When the operation is
finished, JOVE prints the name and number of lines and characters
saved.
If you forget to save and then edit a different file, JOVE will remind
you that you made changes that have not been saved and then ask you
whether you really want to quit. (If you don't save them, they will
be thrown away. That might be what you want!) You should answer with
a "Y" to throw the changes away or "N" to abort quitting so you can
then save the changes.
To make a new file, just edit it "as if" it already existed. Then
start typing in the text. When you ask to "save" the file, JOVE will
really create the file with the text that you have inserted. From
then on, you can consider yourself to be editing an already existing
file.
It is not easy for you to try out editing a file and continue with the
tutorial. But you can always come back into the tutorial by starting
it over and skipping forward. So, when you feel ready, you should try
editing a file named "FOO", putting some text in it, and saving it;
then exit from JOVE and look at the file to be sure that it worked.
CONCLUSION OF PART ONE
----------------------
This is the end of the first part of this tutorial. You now know
enough to edit a file with JOVE, and save your work. The second part of
this tutorial, which starts with the next section, discusses searching,
replacing, word processing, and other modes of JOVE. You may wish to
stop here and practice for awhile before you continue.
EXTENDING THE COMMAND SET
-------------------------
There are many, many more JOVE commands than could possibly be put on
all the control and meta characters. JOVE gets around this with the X
(eXtend) command. This comes in two flavors:
C-X Character eXtend. Followed by one character.
M-X Named command eXtend. Followed by a long name.
These are commands that are generally useful but used less than the
commands you have already learned about. You have already seen two of
them: the file commands C-X C-F to Find and C-X C-S to Save. Another
example is the command to tell JOVE that you'd like to stop editing.
The command to do this is C-X C-C.
There are many C-X commands. The ones you need immediately are:
C-X C-V Visit file.
C-X C-S Save file.
C-X C-C Quit JOVE. This does not save your files auto-
matically, though if your files have been modi-
fied, JOVE asks if you really want to quit. The
standard way to save and exit is C-X C-S C-X C-C.
Named eXtended commands are commands which are used even less
frequently, or commands which are used only in certain modes. These
commands are usually called "commands". An example is the command
"apropos", which prompts for a keyword and then gives the names of all
the commands that apropos for that keyword. When you type M-X, JOVE
prompts you at the bottom of the screen with ":" and you should type
the name of the command you wish to call; in this case, "apropos".
Just type "apr<Space>" and JOVE will complete the name. JOVE will ask
you for a keyword or phrase and you type the string that you want ask
about.
>> Try typing M-X, followed by "apropos" or "apr" and then Return.
Then try typing "file" followed by a Return.
MODE LINE
---------
If JOVE sees that you are typing commands slowly it shows them to you
at the bottom of the screen in an area called the echo area. The echo
area contains the bottom line of the screen. The line immediately above
them is called the MODE LINE. The mode line says something like
JOVE (Text) Buffer: [buffername] "filename" *
This is a very useful "information" line.
The buffername is the name JOVE gave to the buffer, and it is usually
related to the filename. You already know what the filename means --
it is the file you have edited.
The star means that you have made changes to the text. Right after
you visit or save a file, there is no star.
The part of the mode line inside the parentheses is to tell you what
modes you are in. The default mode is Text which is what you are in
now. It is an example of a "major mode". There are several major
modes in JOVE for editing different languages and text, such as C
mode, Lisp mode, Text mode, etc. At any time one and only one major
mode is active, and its two-letter code can always be found in the
mode line just where "Text" is now. Each major mode makes a few
commands behave differently. For example, what JOVE considers as part
of a valid expression or an identifier differs from one major mode to
another, since each programming language has a different idea of what
is a legal identifier.
Major modes are called major because there are also minor modes. They
are called minor because they aren't alternatives to the major modes,
just minor modifications of them. Each minor mode can be turned on or
off by itself, regardless of what major mode you are in, and
regardless of the other minor modes. So you can use no minor modes,
or one minor mode, or any combination of several minor modes.
One minor mode which is very useful, especially for editing English
text, is "Auto Fill" mode. When this mode is on, JOVE breaks the line
in between words automatically whenever the line gets too long. You
can turn this mode on by doing M-X auto-fill-mode<Return>. When the
mode is on, you can turn it off by doing M-X auto-fill-mode<Return>--
it toggles.
>> Type "M-X auto-fill-mode<Return>" now. Then insert a line with a
bunch of words over again until you see it divide into two lines.
You must put in spaces between them because Auto Fill breaks lines
only at spaces. Notice that "Fill" (the code for Auto Fill) appears
in the mode line after "Text" to indicate that you are in Text Fill
mode.
The margin is usually set at 78 characters, but you can change it with
the set command. The margin is kept in a variable just like the mode
values.
>> Type "M-X set right-margin 20", then type in some text and see
JOVE fill lines of 20 characters with it. Then set the margin
back to 72 using M-X set again.
SEARCHING
---------
JOVE can do searches for strings (these are groups of contiguous
characters or words) either forward through the file or backward
through it. To search for the string means that you are trying to
find that string somewhere in the file. Remember to use C-\ where it
says C-S.
>> Now type C-S to start a search. Type the word 'cursor', then
Return.
>> Type C-S Return to find the next occurrence of "cursor".
The C-S starts a search that looks for any occurrence of the search
string AFTER the current cursor position. But what if you want to
search for something earlier in the text? To do this one should type
C-R for reverse search. Everything that applies to C-S applies to C-R
except that the direction of the search is reversed.
REPLACING TEXT
--------------
>> Move the cursor to the blank line two lines below this one.
Then type M-r changed<Return>altered<Return>.
Notice how this line has changed: you've replaced the word
c-h-a-n-g-e-d with "altered" wherever it occurs after the cursor.
The more customary command for replacing strings is the interactive
command query-replace-search, which has several options. In essence,
it shows each occurrence of the first string and asks you if you want to
replace it or not. You can also choose to edit around the string, or
go on and replace all occurrences without asking further.
This is invoked with M-Q.. When you start up a Query Replace, it
will prompt you with "From" and "To", for what you want to change, and
what you want to change it to. JOVE will then move to the first
occurence of the "From", and wait for a character. You can type:
<SPACE> Do the replacement, and move to next occurrence
of the "From" string.
<DEL> Skip the current "From" string and move to the
next one.
RETURN Exit the Query Replace now.
r Recursive Edit
p Replace all further occurences of the "From"
string, without asking.
Recursive edit makes it possible to temporarily supend the Q-R-S, let the
user go off and do something, and then return to the search after the he
is done. The command exit-jove (C-X C-C) returns from the recursive-edit.
GETTING MORE HELP
-----------------
In this tutorial we have tried to supply just enough information to
get you started using JOVE. There is so much available in JOVE that
it would be impossible to explain it all here. However, you may want
to learn more about JOVE since it has numerous desirable features that
you don't know about yet. JOVE has a some internal documentation.
The most basic HELP feature is the describe-key command which is
available by typing C-X ? and then a command character. JOVE prints
one line line on the bottom of the screen tell what command is bound to
that key. You can then get further information on that command
using...
The describe-command command M-? will prompt for the name of a command
and print out the section from the manual about that command. When you
are finished reading it, type a Space or a C-G (quit) to bring your text
back on the screen.
>> Type C-X ? Control-P. The message at the bottom of the screen should
be something like "C-P is bound to previous-line".
Multi-character commands such as C-X C-C and <ESC>V are also allowed
after C-X ?.
Now lets get more information about the previous-line command.
>> Type M-? previous-line. When you are finished reading the
output, type a Space.
The "name of the command" is important for people who are customizing
JOVE. It is what appears in the JOVE CHART as the documentation for
the command character.
One other form of help is the "apropos" command. We have already tried
using this command in an earlier part of this tutorial, but it should
be mentioned again here. Apropos prompts for a word or phrase and
lists all the commands that contain that string. If you couldn't
remember the name of a certain command to read file, you could run the
apropos command with the keyword "file" and it would list all the
commands that contain "file". To run apropos you would type
M-X apr<Space>file<Return>
Finally, the full set of JOVE manuals are in five parts, and reside in the
directory /local/src/jove/doc under the names jove.1 to jove.5. These
are in TROFF form and can be formatted into a form readable on the terminal
or line-printer with the commands:
cd /local/src/jove/doc
nroff -ms cmds.doc.nr jove.[1-5]
Besides, someone around you must have a printed version which you can
borrow! (There's also a copy on the Berkeley Unix 4.3 manuals - in the User
Supplementary Documents manual (the one with the green spine). There is also
a chart of JOVE commands, sorted by function, which is handy as a quick
reference. Ask your local Jove guru for a copy.
CONCLUSION OF PART TWO
----------------------
This concludes section two of the JOVE tutorial. The rest of this
tutorial describes some of the very advanced features of JOVE, such as
editing more than one file at once, writing your own macros, windows, and
initialization files. Unless you're already somewhat familiar with
JOVE, you should probably wait a little while before starting the third
section.
MARKS AND REGIONS
-----------------
In general, a command which processes an arbitrary part of the buffer
must know where to start and where to stop. In JOVE, such commands
usually operate on the text between point (where the cursor is now) and
"the mark". This range of text is called "the region". To specify a
region, you set point to one end of it and mark at the other. It doesn't
matter which one is set first chronologically, or which one comes earlier
in the text. Here are some commands for setting the mark:
C-@ Set the mark where point is.
C-<SPACE> The same.
C-X C-X Interchange mark and point.
The most common way to set the mark is with the C-@ command or the
C-<SPACE> command. They set the mark where point is. Then you can move
point away, leaving the mark behind.
Since terminals have only one cursor, there is no way for JOVE to
show you where the mark is located. You have to remember. The usual
solution to this problem is to set the mark and then use it soon, before
you forget where it is. But you can see where the mark is with the
command C-X C-X which puts the mark where point was and point where the
mark was. The extent of the region is unchanged, but the cursor and
point are now at the previous location of the mark.
There are many, many commands which use regions (the area between the
point and the mark), which we have not mentioned here. They can be found
in the Jove Quick Reference Card.
BUFFERS
-------
When editing a file, JOVE reads the file into a buffer. This is
where the modifcations are done, and when you save the file with C-X C-S,
the buffer is actually written out to the file. JOVE permits you to
have up to 100 buffers, so, in essence, you can edit up to 100 files at
the same time.
If you want to list the buffers you have, use the C-X C-B command.
This will display a list of the buffers, their numbers and names, and
whether or not they've been modified.
>>> Do this now, type C-X C-B. When you're done looking, type a <SPACE>.
You probably noticed you only have one buffer, named "Main". If you
were editing more than one file, however, you would have more than one
buffer. There are two ways to edit more than one file. The first is to
call JOVE with more than one file on the command line. For example, the
command
jove a b c
would create three buffers (named Main, b, and c), each one containing
one file. The other way is to use the C-X C-F command (called Find
File). This command prompts you for a filename, and then reads that file
into a new buffer, and puts you into the new buffer.
To change buffers, use the C-X B command. JOVE will prompt you for a
buffer name, and print a name in parentheses. If you just hit a carriage
return without typing a buffer name, you will go to the buffer named in
parentheses. Another way to change buffers is to give C-X B a NUMBER.
This goes to the buffer NUMBER, rather than using the buffer name.
>>> Get a piece of paper, and write down the following commands. Then
run them, to get a feel for playing with buffers. BE SURE TO WRITE
THEM DOWN! We don't want to get you lost!
C-X C-B
<SPACE>
C-X C-F (type "/etc/motd" to the prompt)
C-X C-B
<SPACE>
C-X B
<RETURN>
Well, wasn't that fun? Now you know how to get another file into
another buffer, and then "bounce" back and forth. A nice feature about
editing more than one file is that you can transfer text from one file to
the other. Just kill it in one file, change buffers, and then put it
back with C-Y.
WINDOWS
-------
What you see on your screen is a "window" into the buffer you are
editing. JOVE allows you to have more than one window on your screen, and
you can therefore look into two, or more buffers at once. You can also look at
different parts of the same file. The command C-X 2 splits your screen into
two windows, both looking into the same buffer. The command C-X 4 f will
display a specified file in the other window, C-X 4 b will display a specified
buffer in the other window, C-X n moves to the next window on the screen,
while C-X p moves to the previous window.
>>> Try the command C-X 2, which splits the screen into two windows, and
displays the same buffer in both. You'll notice that you are in the new
window. Try some commmands in this window, like C-V, or M-V, to move
around in the file. Observe that the other window doesn't change its
position relative to the buffer. This gives you a way of looking at two
parts of the same file.
>>> Now try to type some text, or change something. You will see the changes
affecting the text in the other window as well. That is because both
windows are displaying the same buffer, and therefor the same text. Changes
in the contents of the buffer have to affect both windows.
>>> Let's now try to edit another file in this window. Give the command
C-X C-F and type the name of file as "/etc/motd". You now have two files
on your screen at the same time.
>>> Type the command M- C-V (Meta followed by C-V) and watch the other window
page downward. This is very convenient when doing a variety of tasks, like
correcting errors in a file - edit the file, with the list of errors in
the other window!
>>> Finally, let's get back to the main window (with this document) by typing
C-X p (or C-X n, since there are only two windows). Expand this window
to fill the entire screen by typing C-X 1.
Enjoyable, wasn't it! There are other commands for shrinking and growing
windows, but one of the most useful when editing text like this is the command
which invokes JOVE's interactive spelling checker. It's called spell-buffer.
It runs the UNIX spell(1) command on the buffer, and puts the errors in
another buffer in another window, and allows you to edit the list to remove
the words you know are not errors. Then, type C-X C-C, which usually gets you
out of JOVE but in this case only gets you out of the spell-edit mode. You can
now go through the remaining spelling errors word-by-word, and you can correct
them. The commands for this are C-X C-N (for next error) and C-X C-P (for
previous error.)
>>> Try the spell-buffer command now, by going M-X spel <space> and watch.
Delete a few errors, then type C-X C-C, and do a few C-X C-N's to find some
errors in this document. We've left a few ! (deliberately, of course!!!)
MACROS
------
A "keyboard macro" is a command defined by the user to abbreviate a
sequence of other commands. If you discover that you are about to type
C-N C-D forty times, you can define a keyboard macro to do C-N C-D and
call it with a repeat count of forty. The commands which deal with
keyboard macros are:
C-X ( Start defining a keyboard macro.
C-X ) End the definition of a keyboard macro.
C-X E Execute the most recent keyboard macro.
You define a keyboard macro while executing the commands which are the
definition. Put differently, as you are defining a keyboard macro, the
definition is being executed for the first time. This way, you can see
what the effects of your commands are, so that you don't have to figure
them out in your head. When you are finished, the keyboard macro is
defined and also has been, in effect, executed once. You can then do the
whole thing over again by invoking the macro.
To start defining a keyboard macro, type the C-X ( command. From then
on, your commands continue to be executed, but also become part of the
definition of the macro. "Def" appears in the mode line to remind you of
what is going on. When you are finished, the C-X ) command terminates
the definition (without becoming part of it!).
The macro thus defined can be invoked again with the C-X E command
which may be given a repeat count as a numeric argument to execute the
macro many times. C-X ) can also be given a repeat count as an argument,
in which case it repeats the macro that many times right after defining
it, but defining the macro counts as the first repetition (since it is
executed as you define it). So, giving C-X ) an argument of 2 executes
the macro immediately one additional time.
If you want to perform an operation on each line, then either you
should start by positioning point on the line above the first one to be
processed and then begin the macro definition with a C-N, or you should
start on the proper line and end with a C-N. Either way, repeating the
macro will operate on successive lines.
>>> Place the cursor at the top of the screen and then enter the commands
below. Note that after the first command, "Def" appears in the mode
line.
C-X (
C-A
*****
M-F
M-F
M-F
-----
C-N
C-X )
>>> Notice that as you typed those commands in, they were executed. Now
move the cursor down a couple of lines, but keep it near the top of
the screen. Type the command C-U C-X E. This will execute your
macro 4 times.
Although not described here, it is possible to both name your macros,
and to save and restore them from files. See the documentation for this.
INITIALIZATION FILES
--------------------
You can initialize JOVE just the way you like it by putting a file
named ".joverc" in your home directory. To see what this file should
look like, look at the one in the directory /usr/src/local/jove/doc. The
file system.rc is one such file, the other example is example.rc. It
should be noted that the commands in this file contain control
characters, which may make it hard to read. Use the "cat -v" command
for this.
To insert control characters into a file with JOVE, you should use
the C-Q command. Type C-Q <X> where <X> is the control character. Note that
C-Q will not work on some terminals, because it, like C-S, is used for
suspending and restoring the output to the terminal. In that case, use
the command M-X quo <space> <X>.
INTERACTIVE SHELLS
------------------
One of JOVE's very powerful features is the ability to start up shells
within the editor, and then use shell commands within the screen editing
environment. To execute a command again, just cursor-up to it, change it if
you want with all the normal editing keys, and hit RETURN once to bring it
down to your present command line, and again to execute it. We'll bow out
here suggesting you consult the manual for hard details, or type M-X shell
<space> if you are the adventurous type!
CONCLUSION
----------
Remember, to exit use C-X C-C.
This tutorial is meant to be understandable to all new users, so if
you found something unclear, don't sit and blame yourself - complain to
one of the people listed at the end of this document!
You'll probably find that if you use JOVE for a few days you won't
be able to give it up. Initially it may give you trouble. But remember
that this is the case with any editor, especially one that can do many,
many things. And JOVE can do practically everything.
Hopefully you have enjoyed this tutorial, and, more importantly, I
hope you've learned something. If you use JOVE for about a week, and be
patient, you will find that it is more convenient and friendly to use
than any other editor you've used. I know. I did.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This tutorial was originally written by Richard Stallman for EMACS and
modified by Doug Kingston and Jonathan Payne for JOVE. The section on windows
was added by Mark Moraes. Comments on this document should be sent to
jpayne@sun.com or to moraes@csri.toronto.edu.