8.1 Other Customizations

In SXEmacs, variables are used for internal record-keeping and customizations. There are some variables called "options" which you can use for customizations. To examine a variable use:

;;; print the value and documentation of the variable, use either of the
;;; following commands
C-h v
M-x describe variable

After you type any of the above commands, you will be prompted for a variable name in the echo area. Type in the name of the variable, for example, type case-fold-search RET Your window will split into two and you will see the following message in that window:

case-fold-search's value is t
This value is specific to the current buffer.

Documentation:
*Non-nil if searches should ignore case.
Automatically becomes buffer-local when set in any fashion.

Since this variable’s value is ’t’ searches will ignore case. If you want case-sensitive-search (i.e. if you are searching for "Foo" and you do not want "foo" to be included in the search, you need to set this variable to "nil". In order to do that, use:

M-x set-variable

Emacs will prompt you for the variable which you wish to set. Type in "case-fold-search" and hit RET. You will see the following message:

Set case-fold-search to value:

Type "nil" and hit RET. Now if you again use M-x describe variable , you will see that the new value of case-fold-search will be "nil" and your searches will be case-sensitive. This will be effective only for that Emacs session. If you want to change the value of a variable permanently put the following statement in your init.el file :

(setq case-fold-search nil)

This statement will make searches case-sensitive only in the current buffer which is the init.el file. This will not be very useful. To make searches case-sensitive globally in all buffers, use:

(setq-default case-fold-search nil)

If you want to change the value of any other variable, use :

(setq <variable-name> <new value>)

"setq" will assign the "new value" to the "variable-name" .

If you want a list of the "options" i.e. the variables available for customization type:

;;; displays a buffer listing names, values and documentation of options
M-x list-options

;;; displays options and allows you to edit those list of options
M-x edit-options

Try these options. If you are using edit-options to edit a variable, just point at the variable you wish to edit and use one of the following commands:

1

Set the value of the variable to t (non-nil).

0

Set the value of the variable to nil.

n

Move to the next variable.

p

Move to the previous variable.

There are some other options available to make the value of a variable local to a buffer and then to switch to its global value. You can also have a local variables list in a file which specifies the values to use for certain Emacs variables when you edit that file. See Variables in SXEmacs User’s Manual, for information on these options.