a new user

Hi, I am new to XEmacs (I have many years of fairly advanced Emacs experience though), and I would like to try XEmacs 21.0. Please don't tell me that since I am new, I should start with the stable version. Whenever a new XEmacs version came out (from 19.16 on) I tried it. So I tried 20.4 and I found that I liked Emacs 20.3 better. I really hope to switch to 21.0. So far I managed to get the sources by cvs and build bare XEmacs, no packages. Immediately I have problems. I hope this is the right ml to report them. `report-emacs-bug' seems to be undefined. 1. There are 2 (yep, two!) identical buffers, "*Warnings*" and "*Warnings-Show*". Why? 2. When a key is undefined or bound to an undefined function, nothing happens. Emacs beeps, can I make XEmacs beep too? 3. I have (set-face-foreground 'bold "Red") (set-face-foreground 'bold-italic "Magenta") (set-face-foreground 'italic "Maroon") in my .emacs, and I have no desire whatsoever to mess with X resources. Nevertheless, I am told: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) (font/warning) xemacs: couldn't deduce a bold-italic version of the font "-cronyx-fixed-*-r-semicondensed--13-*-*-*-*-*-koi8-r". Please specify X resources to make the bold-italic face visually distinguishable from the default face. For example, you could add one of the following to $HOME/Emacs: Emacs.bold-italic.attributeFont: -dt-*-medium-i-* or Emacs.bold-italic.attributeForeground: hotpink (3) (font/warning) xemacs: couldn't deduce an italic version of the font "-cronyx-fixed-*-r-semicondensed--13-*-*-*-*-*-koi8-r". Please specify X resources to make the italic face visually distinguishable from the default face. For example, you could add one of the following to $HOME/Emacs: Emacs.italic.attributeFont: -dt-*-medium-i-* or Emacs.italic.attributeForeground: hotpink (4) (font/warning) xemacs: couldn't deduce a bold version of the font "-cronyx-fixed-*-r-semicondensed--13-*-*-*-*-*-koi8-r". Please specify X resources to make the bold face visually distinguishable from the default face. For example, you could add one of the following to $HOME/Emacs: Emacs.bold.attributeFont: -dt-*-medium-i-* or Emacs.bold.attributeForeground: hotpink --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can understand the implementational reasons for this (the frame is created before reading .emacs), but I would still consider this a bug, possibly a design one. 4. I get this: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) (initialization/error) An error has occurred while loading ~/.emacs: Cannot open load file: timezone To ensure normal operation, you should investigate the cause of the error in your initialization file and remove it. Use the `-debug-init' option to XEmacs to view a complete error backtrace. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I do not get any errors with --debug-init or with -q and then loading .emacs by hand. 5. C-h p displays `nil' as one of the package groups. 6. There seems to be 2 parallel help/apropos facilities: hyper-apropos/hyper-help and apropos-command/apropos/help. Why not dump the latter as the least featureful? Incidentally, it creates a lot of buffers (it doesn't reuse buffers as it does in Emacs). I wrote a package, midnight.el, to periodically clean up the buffer list (it is distributed with Emacs 20.3) Even if I will eventually decide agains switching, you might consider including midnight.el with XEmacs. Also, in Emacs 20.3 "*Help*" you can click on the name of the file in which the function is defined and you are taken to the definition of that function. Very neat. 7. I use special-display-* to display all help/apropos/info etc in their own frames. "q" doesn't do anything useful in them now - for the simple reason that it doesn't expect that, say, "*Hyper Help*" lives in a dedicated frame. Emacs had the same problem, and I wrote a special function, `quit-window' (distributed with Emacs 20.3, file window.el, this is the final version, heavily modified by RMS): (defun quit-window (&optional kill window) "Quit the current buffer. Bury it, and maybe delete the selected frame. \(The frame is deleted if it is contains a dedicated window for the buffer.) With a prefix argument, kill the buffer instead. Noninteractively, if KILL is non-nil, then kill the current buffer, otherwise bury it. If WINDOW is non-nil, it specifies a window; we delete that window, and the buffer that is killed or buried is the one in that window." (interactive "P") (let ((buffer (window-buffer window)) (frame (window-frame (or window (selected-window)))) (window-solitary (save-selected-window (if window (select-window window)) (one-window-p t))) window-handled) (save-selected-window (if window (select-window window)) (or (window-minibuffer-p) (window-dedicated-p (selected-window)) (switch-to-buffer (other-buffer)))) ;; Get rid of the frame, if it has just one dedicated window ;; and other visible frames exist. (and (or (window-minibuffer-p) (window-dedicated-p window)) (delq frame (visible-frame-list)) window-solitary (if (and (eq default-minibuffer-frame frame) (= 1 (length (minibuffer-frame-list)))) (setq window nil) (delete-frame frame) (setq window-handled t))) ;; Deal with the buffer. (if kill (kill-buffer buffer) (bury-buffer buffer)) ;; Maybe get rid of the window. (and window (not window-handled) (not window-solitary) (delete-window window)))) Most of quit/exit functions in Emacs now use this function, and some (like `dired-quit' and others like it) were replaced with `quit-window'. I also tried to convince RMS that in all "non-self-insert modes" (like help, dired etc) "q" should run `quit-window' or something which calls `quit-window', while "z" or "x" should run `kill-this-buffer' of something which calls `kill-this-buffer'. He rejected the idea. Maybe I will be more successful with you? :-) 8. I am sorry about asking a trivial (apparently) question, but I seem to be unable to get the packages working. Soppose I want xemacs to work with dired, gnus etc. I have the xemacs cvs tree under /usr/src/xemacs/* and gnus and dired in /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-gnus/* etc (all by cvs). what do I do? I did read the relevant info page, but I am still at a loss. M-x pui-list-packages RET does nothing. What is the exact value of --package-path=PATH (or whatever?) that I should give ./configure? I tried both without this option and with --package-path=/usr/src/xemacs/lisp/, and I get plenty of compile-time errors, like Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-edit-utils/mode-motion+.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-edit-utils/mode-motion+.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "thing")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-edit-utils/outl-mouse.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-edit-utils/outl-mouse.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "annotations")) ........... Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cms-knet.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cms-knet.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cms.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cms.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-coke.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-coke.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cp-p.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cp-p.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cu.el... Wrote /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-cu.elc Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-defun.el... Wrote /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-defun.elc Done /usr/src/xemacs/src/xemacs -batch -vanilla -f batch-byte-compile lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-dired-mule.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-dired.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-dl.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-dos-distinct.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-dump.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-fnh.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-guardian.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-gwp.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-hell.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-ka9q.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-kerberos.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-mpe.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-ms-unix.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-mts.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-mvs.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-netrc.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-netware.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-nos-ve.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-ovwrt.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-pc.el Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dired-mule.el... While compiling the end of the data in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dired-mule.el: ** The following functions are not known to be defined: dired-get-filename, efs-internal-file-name-sans-versions, dired-display-file Wrote /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dired-mule.elc Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dired.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dired.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dl.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dl.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dos-distinct.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dos-distinct.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dump.el... While compiling remote-path-file-handler-function in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dump.el: ** reference to free variable allow-remote-paths Wrote /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-dump.elc Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-fnh.el... Wrote /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-fnh.elc Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-guardian.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-guardian.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-gwp.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-gwp.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-hell.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-hell.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ka9q.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ka9q.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-kerberos.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-kerberos.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-mpe.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-mpe.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ms-unix.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ms-unix.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-mts.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-mts.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-mvs.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-mvs.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-netrc.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-netrc.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "passwd")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-netware.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-netware.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-nos-ve.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-nos-ve.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ovwrt.el... While compiling the end of the data in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ovwrt.el: ** The following functions are not known to be defined: ad-is-advised, ad-deactivate, ad-activate Wrote /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ovwrt.elc Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-pc.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-pc.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Done /usr/src/xemacs/src/xemacs -batch -vanilla -f batch-byte-compile lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-plan9.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-report.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-ti-explorer.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-ti-twenex.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-tops-20.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-vm.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-vms.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-vos.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs-x19.15.el lisp/./xemacs-efs/efs.el lisp/./xemacs-games/gamegrid.el lisp/./xemacs-games/snake.el lisp/./xemacs-games/sokoban.el lisp/./xemacs-games/tetris.el lisp/./xemacs-gnats/gnats-admin.el lisp/./xemacs-gnats/gnats.el lisp/./xemacs-gnats/send-pr.el lisp/./xemacs-gnus/gnus/lisp/custom-load.el lisp/./xemacs-gnus/gnus/lisp/dgnushack.el lisp/./xemacs-gnus/gnus/lisp/earcon.el Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-plan9.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-plan9.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-report.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-report.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ti-explorer.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ti-explorer.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ti-twenex.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-ti-twenex.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-tops-20.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-tops-20.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-vm.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-vm.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "vm")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-vms.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-vms.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-vos.el... While compiling toplevel forms in file /usr/src/xemacs/lisp/xemacs-efs/efs-vos.el: !! File error (("Cannot open load file" "comint")) .................. Thanks. -- Sam Steingold (http://www.goems.com/~sds) running RedHat5.1 GNU/Linux Micros**t is not the answer. Micros**t is a question, and the answer is Linux, (http://www.linux.org) the choice of the GNU (http://www.gnu.org) generation. Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users?