The EliEmacs Environment
                        ========================

This environment started as a small hack to make life easier for myself,
then it was used by some more people, so I continued working on it,
improving things until I got a good version.  When Emacs 21 came out, I
finally got to rewrite the whole thing in a more reasonable way, and
also make it work with XEmacs too, but support for Emacs 19 is gone.
Then came Emacs 22, and another major overhaul was done.  This time,
only v22 was supported -- easier to just keep the previous environment
as-is to be used with older versions.  Emacs 23 is now the current
version, meaning less things to do still.

The version that you use is displayed after Emacs finishes initializing.
The latest version can be found at

  http://barzilay.org/misc/EliEmacs.tgz

To use this environment, simply load the eliemacs.elc file in your
.emacs, for example, my .emacs file has:

  (load "~eli/EliEmacs/eliemacs")

On a Windows machine, you might use something like:

  (load "c:/EliEmacs/eliemacs")

All questions regarding my environment in specific or Emacs in general
should be go to me: Eli Barzilay <[email protected]>


Installing:
-----------

The whole thing works on any platform, as long as you have GNU Emacs
version 23.  Here is what you need to do:

1. Open EliEmacs.tgz in an appropriate place (using tar+gunzip, or
   winzip).

2. Edit your ".emacs" file so it loads "eliemacs" as above.  On a
   Windows machine, the file can also be called "_emacs", and it should
   be placed in a home directory -- which is the value of the
   environment variable "HOME".


Note: the following is mostly outdated!!


Customizing:
------------

The .emacs file contains a simple load command for the new environment
file which loads up everything in EliEmacs.  You can set up things
either before or after doing this.  There are some variables that can
customize the way EliEmacs sets things up (so they should be set before
loading it).  See the QuickRef for more variables.


Files:
------

There are many files now, all in EliEmacs.  You don't need everything
but it's useful to see what I have there -- read "eliemacs.el" to learn
abou them.  The following is a list of things that you can delete if you
copy it to your machine (either NTEmacs or Emacs on Linux should work
fine) according to your space limitations, least to most important
(roughly):

1. The "extras" directory contains extra packages -- you can safely
   remove all source files (.el) and the compiled code if you don't use
   that package.  It contains some subdirectories containing big
   packages that can be removed if unused too.

2. The "include" directory holds files that are compiled into the single
   "eliemacs.elc" file.

2. ".el" files in the "include" directories are compiled into
   "eliemacs.elc" so it is safe to throw them away.  Even the sources in
   "EliEmacs" itself can be removed.

3. If you're really short in space, you could get along with
   "eliemacs.elc" and nothing else.


Features:
---------

This is a very brief list.  I need to get more info here.

1. QuickRef access with `C-h e'.
2. A single elc file that you can easily move between accounts and
   machines, some more stuff is external but not strictly needed.
3. Lots of sensible key and mouse bindings.  Heavy usage of function
   keys, and otherwise keep standard keys the same (except for very few
   cases).
4. Works with FSF Emacs v.20 and v.21, and XEmacs v.21.
5. Easy customization variables for colors etc (see QuickRef).
6. Ability to supress any parts of EliEmacs you don't like using
   `eli-suppressed-features' and command-line arguments.
7. Some functions to make life simpler for writing ELisp code (e.g,
   define-keys).
8. An easy function to sort a whole buffer.
9. Backspace erases indentation when appropriate.
10. A convenient function to save and kill the current buffer (C-f10).
11. Easy function to toggle line truncating with horizontal scrolling
    (C-S-f12).
12. Functions that do negative transposing (C-S-t, M-S-t, M-C-S-t).
13. Convenient buffer and window navigation (S-tab and C-tab).
14. A sensible join-line function (M-j).
15. An intelligent fill-paragraph/region or toggle refill-mode (M-q).
16. C-f in isearch mode grabs the next character.
17. Ability to define a buffer-local key rather than mode-local (C-c b)
    with a fuction to undo these bindings (C-c B).
18. A function that compares the current buffer with the recent one
    (M-S-c).
19. Smart insertion of paired characters - parens, brackets, braces,
    angles, quotes, stars etc.  (M-\(, M-\[, M-\{, M-<, M-\", M-* etc).
20. Convenient and smart line-comment toggling (C-;).
21. A local variable that can be set to hide the local-variable section
    (hide-local-variable-section).
22. Counter keys that insert a counter value and increase it (M-esc *,
    M-esc =, M-esc +), good for keyboard macros.
23. A key that allows to send any characted directly to a running
    process (M-q, in comint).
24. A thin layer of functionality that makes life with both XEmacs and
    Emacs nicer.
25. Some sensible defaults for NTEmacs.
26. Initialization of window properties, which makes color, font etc
    settings possible from ELisp rather than XDefaults, registry or
    whatever.
27. A lot of sensible default variable settings that took years to
    collect.
28. Settings to make the minibuffer resize when needed.
29. Default settings for Emacs' calendar, diary etc.
30. A facility to make all your backup files go into a single directoy,
    plus easy settings for no backups, or super-safety mode.
31. Using electric-buffer-list for convenient buffer switching (C-f1).
32. Make history for minibuffer entries unique so you can save more.
33. Make shell-command complete filenames the smart way.
34. Beter minibuffer history searches (C-up/down, M-up/down).
35. Some electric when reading filenames ("/", "~", "\\", ":").
36. Improved mode-line display (truncate some info).
37. Solution for C-h problems in remote ttys - C-h is normal help, but
    when hit twice without ever using backspace then it'll rebind itself
    to backspace.
38. Convenient keys for saving marks (C-M-kp...), when used more than
    once save window/frame conf as well, and jumping to a mark with
    (C-kp...).
39. Convenient macro key definition (M-z, M-S-z for local), and saving
    (C-M-f12) in addition to standard editing (C-x C-k).  Can even hack
    mouse clicks to apply a macro key.
40. Improved scrolling commands that leave the cursor at the same place,
    and make it possible to scroll back to exactly the last position.
41. Shifted arrow keys start and extend an existing selection, also use
    delete-selection mode for convenient editing.  (An improved
    shift-select-mode).
42. A convenient fuction to create color faces-on-demand, allow `M-g o'
    to read and use these on-demand specs.
43. Functions to set the color of a region or all matches of a regular
    expression (for programs, not interactive).
44. Use a sophisticated paren-highlight package (mic-paren) with a
    simple paren-hightlight-mode toggle (C-\().
45. Allow any colors in `M-g M-f' and `M-g M-b'.
46. Customizing sensibly, and globally enabling font-lock.
47. Attempt to set sensible default colors for font-lock.
48. Ability to interactively add regexps to highlight with font-lock and
    specify a color (C-S-a and C-S-r to remove).
49. Better font-lock supoprt for dired and prolog-mode.
50. Mail and news settings.
51. A smart tab key command for mail/news messages that moves between
    header fields and the message body.
52. Enable abbrev mode for interactive expansion of mail aliases.
53. Dynamic word completion that tries to complete based on the current
    buffer contents (M-/).
54. Smart completion that allows a `b-c-f' command to expand to
    `byte-compile-file', and the same with file name.
55. Enable the smart completion in shells.
56. Enable automatic de/compression for compressed files.
57. Make buffer names unique using their directory name.
58. Make auto-fill-mode use only one line's context, and make refilling
    smarter (respect quoting, numbered items, bullet-like things etc).
59. A much improved generic-mode file with lots of small useful modes
    (various configuration, FVWM, INI, INF, BAT files etc).
60. Make help-buffers and shell-output buffer popup in a more reasonable
    way (so `q' restores the screen).
61. Setup extra info directory if one is found.
62. Various fixes for things I haven't had the time to nag the Emacs
    maintainers enough (but I'm slowly getting them done).  Include
    tabbings, delete-selection mode, filename wildcard expansion.
63. Automatically revert a buffer that has been modified outside, but
    allow undoing to the previous version (not in `super-safe' mode).
64. Hack the smart completion mode so it can do the same trick (expand
    `/u/l/b/gp' to `/usr/local/bin/gphoto').
65. Save and restore the active `desktop' - buffers that are open, and
    various input histories.  If escape is used at the logo screen (or
    -fast was given on the command line), don't load previous buffers.
66. A lot of nice stuff in the extras directory all optional.  These
    include: my calculator (standard part of v.21), mode-based
    compilation (C-f9), maze draing (C-x f2), big-font for banners,
    cursor flashing mode, Swindle mode, Matlab mode, finger, vkill (for
    system processes), folding mode (selective display), vm (great
    emailer), calc (huge matlab-like thing in Emacs), auctex (improved
    la/tex editing), ilisp (lisp interactions).
67. Finally, a beautiful logo (that you cannot get rid of, unless you
    look at the sources).
68. A responsive author that will be happy to make more things
    customizable, and the complete sources so you can hack your own
    thing.