27.1 Minor Modes

Minor modes are options which you can use or not. For example, Auto Fill mode is a minor mode in which SPC breaks lines between words as you type. All the minor modes are independent of each other and of the selected major mode. Most minor modes inform you in the mode line when they are on; for example, ‘Fill’ in the mode line means that Auto Fill mode is on.

Append -mode to the name of a minor mode to get the name of a command function that turns the mode on or off. Thus, the command to enable or disable Auto Fill mode is called M-x auto-fill-mode. These commands are usually invoked with M-x, but you can bind keys to them if you wish. With no argument, the function turns the mode on if it was off and off if it was on. This is known as toggling. A positive argument always turns the mode on, and an explicit zero argument or a negative argument always turns it off.

Auto Fill mode allows you to enter filled text without breaking lines explicitly. Emacs inserts newlines as necessary to prevent lines from becoming too long. See Filling.

Overwrite mode causes ordinary printing characters to replace existing text instead of moving it to the right. For example, if point is in front of the ‘B’ in ‘FOOBAR’, and you type a G in Overwrite mode, it changes to ‘FOOGAR’, instead of ‘FOOGBAR’.

Abbrev mode allows you to define abbreviations that automatically expand as you type them. For example, ‘amd’ might expand to ‘abbrev mode’. See Abbrevs, for full information.