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8.7 Other Help Commands

C-h i (info) runs the Info program, which is used for browsing through structured documentation files. The entire SXEmacs manual is available within Info. Eventually all the documentation of the GNU system will be available. Type h after entering Info to run a tutorial on using Info.

If you specify a numeric argument, C-h i prompts for the name of a documentation file. This way, you can browse a file which doesn’t have an entry in the top-level Info menu. It is also handy when you need to get to the documentation quickly, and you know the exact name of the file.

There are two special help commands for accessing SXEmacs documentation through Info. C-h C-f function RET enters Info and goes straight to the documentation of the SXEmacs function function. C-h C-k key enters Info and goes straight to the documentation of the key key. These two keys run the commands Info-elisp-ref and Info-goto-emacs-key-command-node. (GNU Emacs binds C-h C-f to Info-goto-emacs-command-node, but this is less helpful to programmers.)

If something surprising happens, and you are not sure what commands you typed, use C-h l (view-lossage). C-h l prints the last 100 command characters you typed in. If you see commands that you don’t know, you can use C-h c to find out what they do.

SXEmacs has several major modes. Each mode redefines a few keys and makes a few other changes in how editing works. C-h m (describe-mode) prints documentation on the current major mode, which normally describes all the commands that are changed in this mode.

C-h b (describe-bindings) and C-h s (describe-syntax) present information about the current SXEmacs mode that is not covered by C-h m. C-h b displays a list of all the key bindings currently in effect, with the local bindings of the current major mode first, followed by the global bindings (see Key Bindings). C-h s displays the contents of the syntax table with explanations of each character’s syntax (see Syntax).

You can get a similar list for a particular prefix key by typing C-h after the prefix key. (There are a few prefix keys for which this does not work—those that provide their own bindings for C-h. One of these is ESC, because ESC C-h is actually C-M-h, which marks a defun.)

The other C-h options display various files of useful information. C-h C-w (describe-no-warranty) displays the full details on the complete absence of warranty for SXEmacs. C-h n (view-emacs-news) displays the file sxemacs/etc/NEWS, which contains documentation on SXEmacs changes arranged chronologically. C-h F (sxemacs-local-faq) displays local version of the SXEmacs frequently-answered-questions-list. C-h t (help-with-tutorial) displays the learn-by-doing SXEmacs tutorial. C-h C-c (describe-copying) displays the file sxemacs/etc/COPYING, which tells you the conditions you must obey in distributing copies of SXEmacs. C-h C-d (describe-distribution) displays another file named sxemacs/etc/DISTRIB, which tells you how you can order a copy of the latest version of SXEmacs.


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