On Wed, 18 Mar 2020, Default User wrote:
Hey, been working on this emacs problem all day.
It would have taken me all day just to write up such a meticulous account. TLDR; I have never used the "abbrevs" functionality of emacs. So, (fair warning) you will not find a direct answer to your question in what I say below.
I'm running Unstable, up to date. Cinnamon DE. 64-bit. dummy@dummy:~$ sudo aptitude show emacs [sudo] password for default:
Just FYI, it would greatly surprise me if you actually needed root privileges for aptitude's "show" command. I wager you could get the same information with dummy@dummy:~$ aptitude show emacs and save yourself a password entry. (I am wagering, not promising, because I use apt-get exclusively, never aptitude.)
Package: emacs Version: 1:26.3+1-1
[snip]
I'm trying to learn Emacs, using: "Learning GNU Emacs". Old, but it would still seem to be a reputable and authoritative source.
I am sympathetic to reading older, slightly out-of-date sources of documentation. I frequently do it myself. So I know that it can be informative (sometimes in unexpected ways), and I know that at times it has downsides as well, can add an extra layer of confusion, etc. That said, if I were you, and if I had not done so already, I would enable the non-free component in your sources.list, and then install the (non-free) package "emacs-common-non-dfsg": | emacs-common-non-dfsg - GNU Emacs common non-DFSG items, including the core documentation | This package includes the core Emacs documentation: the Emacs Info | pages, the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, and the Emacs Lisp Intro. | . | GNU Emacs is the extensible self-documenting text editor. This | package contains the architecture independent infrastructure that | is not compliant with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. In | particular, this includes some of the GNU Emacs info pages, as they | are covered under the GFDL, and specify invariant sections. See | http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 for more information. This should give you the info pages version of the Emacs manual, which contains a section on Abbrevs (under Advanced Features, I think). Then, in emacs, do M-x info This brings up a menu of info documentation properly installed on your system. You'll want to traverse "Emacs" > "Abbrevs". What little else I have to say would merely be bikeshedding or poorly-informed speculation, so I'll stop here. Maybe I'll go read about Abbrevs. I hope this helps a little, while you're waiting for an emacs wizard to show up. Good luck with your project. -- The day will come | Last words, August Spies (1855--1887). When our silence will be | Hanged, by the U.S. state of Illinois, More powerful than | alongside fellow journalists The voices you strangle today | Adolf Fischer and Albert Parsons.
