1.5 The Echo Area

The line at the bottom of the frame (below the mode line) is the echo area. Emacs uses this area to communicate with you:

• The echo area will print out the characters that you type. For example, if you choose the Open... option from the File menu you might get the following in the echo area:

  Find file: /usr/lib/x11/
  

  Now you need to give a file name to open, for example if the file name is myfile, you will type myfile after /usr/lib/x11/ and press the Return key. If you pause for more than a second while typing, you will see the characters that you type in the echo area.

• The echo area also prints error messages. For example, if you misspell ‘usr’ and type /urs/lib/x11/myfile RETURN in the above example you might get an error message. Since Emacs will not be able to find the /urs directory, the echo area will say:

  error→ Opening directory: no such file or directory, /urs/lib/x11/myfile
  

  This error message will be accompanied by a beep. Some SXEmacs commands will print informative messages in the echo area. See The Echo Area in SXEmacs User’s Manual, for more information on the echo area.