Emacspeak User`s Guide - The Linux Documentation Project
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1. Result The file is converted to text You can read the resulting text file with Emacs 7 3 2 Using Adobe s converter As an alternative to Xpdf you can use Adobe s PDF to HTML converter if the PDF file you want to read has a URL To convert a file 1 Use W3 to go to http access adobe com simple_form html 2 Type in the URL of the PDF file to convert Result The file is converted it HTML You can use W3 to read and navigate within the file Tests show that this conversion works very well on some PDFdocuments but not so well on others If the HTML file you end up with isn t readable try using Xpdf to convert to a plain text file 7 4 Scheduling appointments and calendar events Emacs has a built in desk calendar that includes a diary for planned events The calendar and diary support both US and European date formats but default to the US format The diary keeps track of appointments and reminders using a diary file a text file that contains a list of events and their dates You can have Emacs send you an email every day with your schedule or you can look at the calendar to view the day s events To start the calendar application use the command M x calendar Calendar navigation commands are for the most part identical to text navigation commands and you can also use the arrow keys to navigate If you d like to use the diary you need to create a diary file that contains your events The diary file is a simple text file an2. 4 Untar the resulting file using the command tar xvf stdiom tar 5 Change directories to the resulting stdio_musicianl 0 directory and type make You should get a message that says stdiosynth is up to date Currently there are two auditory icon themes that you can download from the Emacspeak website called Chimes and Cartoons Chimes is made up of different chimes and short notes from various instruments The icons are high quality 44K mono and can be downloaded from http emacspeak sourceforge net chimes mono tar gz The Cartoons theme was contributed by Bryan Smart and is made up of 22K mono sounds You can download it from http emacspeak sourceforge net cartoons mono tar gz To install either of these themes download and unpack the archives into the emacspeak sounds directory in your emacspeak installation You can then select themes you have already installed by using the Emacspeak command M x emacspeak sounds select theme Alternatively you can add the following lines to your emacspeak file setq emacspeak toggle auditory icons t when emacspeak sounds theme p chimes mono emacspe Some people use sound cards that can play multiple channels to produce their auditory icons For this option setemacspeak aumix multichannel capable p to tin your emacs file setq emacspeak aumix multichannel capable p t 7 3 Reading Adobe Acrobat files There are two ways to view an Adobe Acrobat PDF fi
3. www delorie com gnu docs emacs emacs toc html Not only does this document contain information on using Emacs as a text editor but it also contains information on how to use many of the Emacs applications In addition there are many help options within Emacs all of which can be accessed using C h Some of these options and the types of help they provide are listed below C hi Invokes the online hypertext help system also called info Not only does info contain Emacs specific help it also contains the man page help refer to man pages Viewing the Linux online man pages for more information When in info you can type h to open a primer for first time users Type q to quit C ha Runs apropos and asks for a word to search on It then gives you a list of all commands that contain that word C h C f When you enter a command name info jumps to the documentation for that command 3 3 Getting Help 4 Emacspeak User s Guide C he When you press any key or key sequence info provides the name of the function that key invokes Chk Similar to the C h e command but provides more detailed information about the function or action that occurs when you press a key or sequence of keys C hw Similar to the C h e and C h k commands except that when you type in the name of a command it returns the key sequence needed to invoke that command For example if you type C h w then finder by keyword it will return C h p C
4. in the Emacs tutorial and also includes overviews of some of the more popular Emacs packages including VM Gnus BBDB and AucTeX some of which are discussed in this HOWTO Finally you might want to peruse http Awww gnusoftware com WebRing zone cgi list which provides a list of Emacs resource sites 3 2 Emacs Command Conventions Emacs commands are denoted by holding down either the Control key or the Meta key then pressing one or more alphanumeric keys On today s keyboards the Alt key provides the same functionality as the old Meta key or alternatively you can press the Esc key followed by the alphanumeric keys you don t have to hold down the Esc key Because different documents sometimes use different notation to denote these sequences this section explains the notation used in this HOWTO For consistency this HOWTO uses the same notation as is used in the Emacs menus There are a few different types of key sequences you may see The first is commonly written in the form C x C s The letter C followed by a hypen literally means hold down the Control key the letter M would 3 Before you begin 3 Emacspeak User s Guide denote the Meta Alt or Esc key and the additional letters denote specific commands This example which saves the current file should be interpreted as Hold down the Control key press the letter x followed by the letter s then release the Control key Another common sequence is written in th
5. that can be accessed by typing M x w3 and then pressing the Tab key Emacs will provide you with a list of options to complete the string Some of the common commands for navigating in W3 are listed below Return Pressing Return when over a hyperlink follows that hyperlink Note that if the hyperlink goes to an FTP site you may get an error Tab Tabs between the various links on the page Goes to the beginning of the document gt Goes to the end of the document M s Saves the current document to the local disk as HTML source formatted text LaTeX source or binary space Scrolls down in the buffer backspace Scrolls up in the buffer q Kills the buffer For a complete listing of W3 commands refer to the User s Manual located at http www cs indiana edu elisp w3 docs html 6 2 Chatting online There are any number of IRC Internet Relay Chat applicationsthat you can install two of which are recommended AOL Instant Messenger for Emacs called TNT and ERC 6 2 Chatting online 15 Emacspeak User s Guide 6 2 1 AOL Instant Messenger for Emacs TNT There s a special version of AOL Instant Messenger AIM written just for Emacs called TNT The main site for TNT is at http sourceforge net projects tnt and you can download the necessary files from http download sourceforge net tnt tnt 2 3 2 tar gz Don t download any files from AOL s site as you ll end up with the graphical version of AIM instead of the Emacs v
6. the following tutorials e A gentle introduction to Emacspeak by Gary Lawrence Murphy http emacspeak guide sourceforge net tutorial html Gary provides a lighthearted but thorough introduction to Emacs and Emacspeak focusing on users who are not familiar with either application This introduction is recommend as a starting point even before you do the Emacs tutorial see next item e The Official Emacs Tutorial by the Free Software Foundation I call this the official tutorial because it is included with Emacs To access this tutorial start Emacs then type C h t Control h t This tutorial discusses the basic Emacs commands including navigation using Emacs as a text editor and a bit about how Emacs works under the hood For new users this tutorial is strongly recommended and even those users who are familiar with Emacs might find something they didn t already know e Emacspeak Tutorial by Nita Van Zandt available at http www mv com ipusers vanzandt emacspeak tutorial 1 0 tar gz This tutorial helps new Emacspeak users get up and running and includes plenty of examples and step by step instructions Once you ve gotten a grasp of Emacs this tutorial is a must e The Emacs Beginner s HOWTO by Jeremy D Zawodny It is available at http www linuxdoc org HOWTO Emacs Beginner HOWTO html and is also bundled into some of the newer Linux distributions The Beginner s HOWTO discusses many of the topics discussed
7. Emacspeak User s Guide Jennifer Jobst Revision History Revision 1 3 July 24 2002 Revised by SDS Updated the maintainer of this document to Sharon Snider corrected links and converted to HTML Revision 1 2 December 3 2001 Revised by JEJ Changed license to GFDL Revision 1 1 November 12 2001 Revised by JEJ Revision 1 0 DRAFT October 19 2001 Revised by JEJ This document helps Emacspeak users become familiar with Emacs as an audio desktop and provides tutorials on many common tasks and the Emacs applications available to perform those tasks Emacspeak User s Guide Table of Contents R604 NORGE cisions dcir 1 IEA a 2 2 ISA DIE iii 2 PAE SR ERA EO a 2 dy Bolore you DECI ais 3 3 1 Getting started with Emacs and Emacspeak 10 ccsnccssnssices vivvensgunincasensates alirenspiursecdunatacanens ER ENESE 3 32 Emacs Comman Conventi OnE earainn E reire 3 2 Gatas Heli E E R E 4 Le El E EIE AT N E E E aii 4 S22 Gettine helpon Emacspeak COMAS errada sas oe 5 33 a Ve ie the Linux online man PA 6 d System Adminis PAL nme EREATARA ARIA EA 7 41 Bann ine FOUR A A a 42 Main APOCO aca T 421 About Emacs Applicat nai T 4 22 Downloading VOUT gpp ICAO iseken in 8 E EAS U e a At A 8 A STA DAS ta 9 S Working TR ts 10 e APE E OLT AE T e ca 10 ENA D EUS AE o a E 10 2 TE ina 11 E II IAE ES A A 11 II A A O A AREARE 11 55 2 UI ie IEC EU RS 12 WORK Iie o aii 14 Gi Browsing A o es 14 E ECU aiii 15 6 21 AOL Instant Messeng
8. apacity But Emacs is not just a text editor it is actually a desktop in some ways like the graphical desktops that many use today As a desktop Emacs comes with all kinds of built in functions much like the Windows desktop including an e mail application calendar appointment program cd player games and more And like Windows there are many additional applications that you can download and add to Emacs that expand its functionality web browsers the LaTeX text editor mp3 players and others Unlike Windows all of these powerful tools are under the GPL Gnu Public License so you can use them free of charge For visually impaired users adding Emacspeak to Emacs might be compared to adding Jaws to Windows except that instead of simply reading the screen to you as a standard screenreader might do Emacspeak treats speech as first class information about what is going on than a typical screenreader would In addition there are many special commands just for Emacspeak that enhance interaction with a variety of Emacs applications 2 2 About this tutorial Because Emacs and Emacspeak are unlike any environments you may have used before it helps to know a little bit about how they work This tutorial assumes that you have either used and are familiar with Emacs and Emacspeak or that you have completed some of the Emacs and Emacspeak tutorials For a list of recommended tutorials please refer to Getting started This tut
9. ays Also when you enter Emacs it will automatically show you the calendar entries for the next seven days According to the GNU Emacs Manual there is a way to change the number of days the email covers but according to Tim that feature also has bugs and doesn t seem to work At the time of writing these problems have not been addressed For complete instructions on using the calendar and diary refer to the section on the calendar and diary in the GNU Emacs Manual located at http www delorie com gnu docs emacs emacs_ 376 html 7 5 Writing text in Emacs Emacs provides for many modes of text editing and the tools you should use are task dependent 7 5 1 Writing for print PDF or postscript If you want to output your writing in print postscript or PDF LaTeX is the way to go LaTeX is essentially a markup language that produces high quality print PDF or postscript output LaTeX was designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation and in addition to allowing for detailed formatting it also provides support for mathematical functions automatic generation of bibliographies and indexes graphics support and much more You can find out more about LaTeX from http www latex project org In the documentation section at the LaTeX site you will find an introduction to LaTeX as well as a complete reference manual AUC Tex is the Emacs editing mode for LaTeX The AUC Tex home page is located at http mirrors suns
10. cirretn active modes 3 3 3 Viewing the Linux online man pages Linux comes with an extensive manual better known as the man pages These pages cover just about every Linux command The only drawback to using the man pages is that you must know the name of the command you want information about To read a man entry 1 From inside Emacs type M x man You will be prompted for the manual entry you want to view 2 Type the manual entry name for example mount The entry for that option will open in Emacs For more information on man pages themselves you can type man when prompted for the manual entry name 3 3 3 Viewing the Linux online man pages 6 4 System Administration This section contains information on common system administration tasks It is by no means an exhaustive list of what goes on in Linux system administration but rather a collection of a few common tasks that a new user may find useful If you would like more information on Linux system administration refer to the online Linux System Administrators Guide found at http www tldp org LDP gs node6 html chapsysadmnum 4 1 Changing your password Every time you log onto a Linux system you must provide a password for your account Occasionally you may wish to change your password and many systems require that you do so regularly for added security Changing your password is done in the Emacs shell Normally changing your password in the Emacs shell displays it
11. d by default Emacs uses diary as the diary file Although you ll need to create the file manually there are commands that allow you to add view and change diary entries Most of these commands are Emacspeak enabled Diary entries come in a number of formats and entries can be set to repeat Below are some examples Mom arrives for Appears once on 12 22 2001 BA 12 22 2001 a Repeats yearly on October 17 Joe s birthday October 17th Friday Time cards due Repeats every Friday 7 3 2 Using Adobe s converter 20 Emacspeak User s Guide Of course there are many more options than those shown here You can find a complete listing of diary features in the GNU Emacs manual located at http www delorie com gnu docs emacs emacs_376 html You can view the diary entries for the current date using the command M x diary Alternatively you can have the day s appointments automatically displayed when you enter Emacs by adding the following line to your emacs file diary You can also have your events emailed to you on a daily basis by running the command M x diary mail entries You ll probably get an error message the first time you do this that says No buffer named Fancy Diary Entries This error message was reported as a bug to the bug gnu emacs mailing list by Tim Hesterberg However the command does in fact work so you can just ignore the error message By default you ll be e mailed the calendar entries for the next seven d
12. d line or aren t familiar with it To start dired 1 In Emacs type M x dired You will be prompted for the directory to open 2 Type in the directory to display or press Return to open the default directory Once you ve started dired you can move around in the Emacs buffer to have the file names permissions owners sizes and dates created edited read aloud In dired some commands mark files for manipulation for example you can mark several files then delete them all and some commands such as the copy command are executed immediately Note that in dired case does make a difference for many commands Some of the more common dired commands and what they do are listed below press the Returnkey Pressing Return when the focus is on a particular file opens that file in the appropriate major mode d Marks a single file for deletion but doesn t actually delete the file You can mark multiple files for deletion then delete them all simultaneously u If a file is marked for deletion this option unmarks it x Deletes all files marked for deletion You will be prompted to make sure you want to delete the files in question type yes or no as appropriate 5 4 2 Using the directory editor 12 Emacspeak User s Guide Copies a file You will be asked for the name of the new file to create when you copy the old file Renames a file You will be prompted for the name of the new file to create when you rename the file Because
13. directory To install the documentation 1 Change directories to the doc directory 2 At the command prompt type make When the makefile is finished type make install Result The documentation is installed in the usr local info directory You can also get this information in the online manual at http mirrors sunsite dk auctex www auctex doc Since AUC TeX is a part of LaTeX you ll need to know LaTeX to use it There s a good LaTeX manual by David R Wilkins called Getting Started with LaTeX located at http www maths tcd ie dwilkins LaTeXPrimer 7 5 2 Writing for online viewing If you re writing a document that will be read online you have several choices HTML SGML and XML to name a few Emacs comes with a built in HTML editor called html mode This editor provides you with additional commands for adding appropriate HTML tags to your document To start html mode type M x html mode If you do a lot of HTML coding you may wish to use html helper mode This mode has a slightly different interface and many more features than html mode The home page for html helper mode is located at http www santafe edu nelson tools You can either download just the html helper mode el file from http www santafe edu nelson tools html helper mode el or you can download the entire distribution including documentation from ftp ftp reed edu pub src htm helper mode tar gz Installation instructions for both
14. dired is so extensive including the full documentation for it here is not feasible However complete instructions can be found in the GNU Emacs Manual at http www delorie com gnu docs emacs emacs_360 html 5 4 2 Using the directory editor 13 6 Working online This section explores many of the tasks you would commonly perform using the Internet including browsing the web chatting online reading e mail etc 6 1 Browsing the Internet The best way to browse the Internet from within Emacs is using W3 W3 is a full featured web browser written just for Emacs It does not come with Emacs but it can be downloaded from ftp ftp xemacs org pub xemacs emacs w3 w3 tar gz The latest release of W3 is version 4 0 information about it from the W3 at http www cs indiana edu elisp w3 docs html Once you ve downloaded W3 you ll need to perform the following tasks to install it 1 Use the ed command to change to the directory where the w3 tar gz file is Uncompress the w3 tar gz file using the following commands 8 9 10 Open an Emacs shell as root using the command M x emacspeak root a At the root command prompt type gunzip w3 tar gz You ll be left with a file calledw3 tar b At the root command prompt type tar xvf w3 tar You ll be left with a directory called w3 4 0pre 46 Change directories to the w3 4 Opre 46 directory Note that the next several steps are also covered in extensive d
15. document however Winfried Tramper wrote an excellent HOWTO on making both data and audio CDs which is available at http www linuxdoc org HOWTO CD Writing HOWTO html If you are new to burning CDs in Linux this document is indispensable 8 2 Playing CDs The best tool for playing CDs in Emacs is cd tool An Emacspeak enabled version is included with your Emacspeak distribution All of the commands that control cd tool must be prefaced by the command M x cd tool After you type this you will be prompted to enter the command to execute For example if you wanted to start playing a CD you would type M x cd tool then at the prompt type p for play The CD will then start playing The commands for cd tool are listed below P Play the CD Play the CD in random order shuffle Skip to the next track Return to the previous track 8 Entertainment 23 Emacspeak User s Guide SPC Pause or resume play i Show the CD info s Stop playing the CD e Eject the CD must be stopped 8 3 Playing mp3s To play an mp3 music file you ll need the application mpg123 Although the application is included in a number of distributions the standard version is not Emacs native so you ll need to download an install the Emacs enabled version You can download the file mpg123 e1 1 24 1 tar gz the latest Emacs enabled version from Debian at http http us debian org debian pool main m mpg123 el Once you v
16. e downloaded the file you ll need to install it using the following steps Open an Emacs shell using the command M x shell Change directories to the directory containing the new file Unzip the file using the command gunzip mpg123 el 1 24 1 tar gz Untar the resulting mpg123 e1 1 24 1 tar file using the command tar xvf mpg123 el 1 24 1 tar 5 Change directories into the resulting mpg123 e1 1 24 1 tar directory In this directory you ll see the mpg123 e1 file Copy this file into the usr shar emacs site lisp directory 6 Open your emacs file and add the following line autrolocea maqieas macqlastt a Trom cme to magia 34 r 7 Save and close your emacs file Then restart Emacs so that the changes will take effect UN eR To start playing mp3s use the command M x mpg123 You ll be asked for a file name to play Type in the name of the mp3 to play then press Return It should start playing immediately There are a number of commands that can be used with mpg123 a few of the more commonly used ones are listed below SPC Play or pause RET Play 8 3 Playing mp3s 24 Emacspeak User s Guide V Volume up v Volume down q Quit For a full list of mpg123 commands you can scroll up and down within the application to have them read aloud One note about volume in mpg123 in my tests I found that often the system volume would go way down when I started mpg123 to the point where I could barely hear
17. e form C x d Again the letter C followed by a hyphen denotes holding down the Control key However because the second letter of the sequence does not have a C in front of 1t you do not hold down the Control key while pressing the second letter Thus this command should be interpreted as Hold down the Control key and type x then release the Control key and type d Sometimes you may see commands with more than one letter after them such as C e d w The same rules apply you should hold down the Control key press e release the Control key then press d and w Finally you may see commands that use actual words such as M x emacspeak toggle word echo Fortunately most of these longer commands have a shorthand command in this case C e d w However should you opt to type the entire command you would hold down the Meta or Alt key type x release the Meta key then type emacspeak toggle word echo 3 3 Getting Help There are several different types of help you can get from within Emacs If you are unfamiliar with Emacs or Emacspeak refer to Getting Started with Emacs and Emacspeak in Getting started for information on several tutorials that can help get you up and running If you ve completed those tutorials and are looking for more in depth help on specific topics consider the following sources 3 3 1 Getting help in Emacs The most comprehensive source for Emacs is the GNU Emacs Manual available at http
18. ee if one exists for your application Whenever possible this HOWTO tells you specifically whether or not an application is Emacs native and if not where to get the special el wrapper files if they are available 4 2 2 Downloading your application Once you ve chosen a new application to install you ll need to download it Typically you ll use either FTP application or the wget application to download your new Linux application since most of them are distributed only on the Internet If you are unfamiliar with the FTP and wget applications refer to Downloading files for information on how to use these applications to get your files Usually the files you download will have some sort of extension the letters after the dot or period in the file name that denotes what type of file it is If your file has a gz or tar extension refer to _Uncompressing files If your file has a rpm extension refer to Installing RPMs 4 2 3 Uncompressing files Most files are compressed in at least one and sometimes multiple ways You can tell how a file was compressed and thus how to uncompress it by the extensions on the file The most common extensions are tar and gz though there are others If your downloaded file has multiple extensions you ll have to uncompress it one step at a time uncompressing the last extension first For example if the file is named foo tar gz complete the following steps 1 Start the Emacsshell using t
19. er for Euros TNT Lia 16 FARATA E AREE EE AE AE E SA IMTA S ATA pase A A PEN NA E E AE 16 ET eI EE E PE T OAE EAE E AOE ORE EEEE PAT OA EA 17 A O Meee ree Ser ree 17 o q aa 17 A are ee eae 18 ROU An A ieee au Lama iat 18 22 COSO PICO ia ia 18 FN TS TNE BO eC A 0 IA 18 122 o a a A aaa Ia era eee 18 Lo Reading Adote Acrobat ES a 19 E UE A pan 19 AA US CON OA 20 7 4 Scheduling appointments and calendar Events 0 1 0 ccc cccscesecseasenseonte coresdveenssvanseosdteracs sane nessuneenesense 20 Emacspeak User s Guide Table of Contents EA oo A EEE A 21 dol Pa tor prat POE Gr POS linia 21 La AE OE OU IS VENIN ada ada 22 Dh ILAE ATLE A A N A E LII ENOI ia 23 SL Buring AA AA 23 AE PA A ae O iaa 23 A PMA sch cen css suai ay Sepa captcha pane owen ansnudsiee ude pe eed oh Sheena Shee Ee ee 24 SP Poda 25 Y Acknowledgments A Rd 26 AV 1S het for veron da iia 27 1 Legal Notice This document is Copyright 2001 IBM Permission is granted to copy distribute and or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License Version 1 1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections no Front Cover Texts and no Back Cover Texts A copy of the license can be found at http www gnu org license fdl txt 1 Legal Notice 2 Introduction 2 1 What is Emacspeak Many users are familiar with Emacs as a text editor and have used it extensively in that c
20. ersion In addition to installing TNT you ll also need to set up an Instant Messenger account with AOL and you can do so at http www aol com aim homenew adp Once you ve signed up for an account and downloaded the files you ll need to complete the following steps 1 Open an Emacs command shell as root using the command M x emacspeak root 2 Change directories using the cd command to the directory containing the downloaded file 3 Unzip the file using the command gunzip tnt 2 3 2 tar gz then expand the resulting tarball using the command tar xvf tnt 2 3 2 tar 4 Change directories into the new tnt 2 3 2 directory The next several steps are covered in detail in the INSTALL file that can be found in the tnt 2 3 2 directory If you d like more details than are covered here please refer to that file 5 Copy all the el and elc files into a directory that is in your Emacs load path Typically this directory is emacs site 1lisp you should be able to see a number of other el and elc files in there 6 Open your emacs file and add the following lines STORM par CONSI UA aro o ad aca OS When you add these lines to your emacs file be sure to change the full path to tnt to the directory where you placed the el and elc files 7 Save and close your emacs file 8 Restart Emacs so that the changes take place To start TNT type M x tnt and follow the instructions You ll probably want to read the README file c
21. es even though an application wasn t designed specifically for Emacs you can install a special wrapper file that makes Emacs think the application is Emacs native These special files have a el or Emacs lisp extension After you ve downloaded and installed a new application if a el file exists for it you can download that file too Place it in the correct directory add the appropriate line to your emacs file so that Emacs will recognize the application and you ll be able to run the application as if it were native to Emacs As an Emacspeak user you ll also want to know which applications are Emacspeak enabled These Emacspeak enabled applications have a second special el wrapper file that contains Emacspeak specific commands that provide audio feedback just for that application For a complete list of Emacspeak enabled 4 System Administration 7 Emacspeak User s Guide applications see http emacspeak sourceforge net applications html All avaliable emacspeak el files are included with Emacspeak so you won t have to download them So when you install a new application you ll need the following three things e The application e A el file for that application if you want to run it directly from Emacs instead of from the Emacs shell command line e An emacspeak el file for the application if you want to run it directly from Emacs and have it Emacspeak enabled Check in the emacspeak lisp directory to s
22. etail in the INSTALL file included in the w3 4 Opre 46 directory If you d like more detailed instructions please refer to that file At the command prompt type configure Your makefile will be configured as is appropriate for your system When your machine has finished creating the makefile type make install at the command prompt The application will be compiled so that it can be executed W3 is a native Emacs application In addition W3 has already been speech enabled and the emacspeak w3 el file that provides speech was pre installed with Emacspeak into your emacs site lisp emacspeak lisp directory Once your machine has finished making the application open your emacs file located in your home directory and add the following line autoload w3 w3 Interface for w3 on Emacs t Including this line in your emacs file causes W3 to load automatically when you start an Emacs session Save and close your emacs file when you are finished editing To start using w3 type M x w3 fetch and press Return Supply the start URL When browsing you will find files that you want to download Although it is possible to download files 6 Working online 14 Emacspeak User s Guide using W3 by pressing D when the cursor is over a link the wget application is a much better way to do downloads Using the wget command to download files is discussed in Downloading files As a web browser W3 has many functions
23. give credit to other authors when referring to their work If I missed a citation please let me know and I will be sure to correct it If you did the work you certainly deserve the credit 9 Acknowledgments 26 10 Wish list for version 2 0 The following is a list of suggestions in no particular order that I did not have time to implement for this version of the User s Guide I hope to include these items in a future release e New section on remote Emacspeak e New section on getting Emacspeak and Speakup to work together e New section on using Real Audio e New section on the Emacs configuration customization wizard M x customize Applications group e Section on using the enriched package for working with RTF files e Information on what to add to your emacs file for rmail or vm to know your smtp pop3 settings Also information on how to tell W3 to work with a proxy server e Add information on using M x rpm to manipulate RPM files e Add information on using jide java ide e New sections on using calc and bbdb e New section on spell checking using ispell e Add information on using M x tar to manipulatetar files e Discuss the outline and folding mode featuresof Emacs e Include key bindings along with the Emacs Emacspeak command names e List or reference the Emacspeak specific commands available in various Emacs applications like vm W3 etc 10 Wish list for version 2 0 27
24. h p Lists all the packages available in Emacs Packages are defined by the applications they contain for example hypermedia games tools for programming etc C h n Opens a history of user visible changes to Emacs C h F Displays the Emacs frequently asked questions Should you have questions about or problems with Emacs you are urged to review the FAQ in an effort to cut down on noise in the Emacs related newsgroups Note that this FAQ is only for Emacs and not Emacspeak 3 3 2 Getting help on Emacspeak commands When you install Emacspeak additional Emacspeak specific help is also installed In general Emacspeak commands begin with C e The more commonly used help commands are listed below C h C e Lists the Emacspeak commands that are available C e F Opens the Emacspeak FAQ C e C h Enters a special mode where every key stroke you type is spoken but nothing actually happens You can use this mode if you re new to Emacspeak and want to test out a few keystrokes When you re finished you can exit this mode using C g 3 3 2 Getting help on Emacspeak commands Emacspeak User s Guide In addition to the general Emacs commands that are Emacspeak enabled many applications have their own Emacspeak enabled commands To get a list of these commands invoke the application of choice for example W3 for viewing web sites and then type C h k for a list of key bindings or C h m to list the commands associated with the
25. he command M x shell 2 If necessary use the cd change directory command to move to the directory that contains your downloaded file 3 At the Emacs shell command prompt type gunzip foo tar gz The file will be unzipped leaving you with a file called foo tar in your directory Files with a tar extension are commonly known as tarballs 4 At the command prompt type tar xvf foo tar The tarball will be uncompressed usually leaving either a single file or a new directory that contains a number of files Some recent versions of the tar command will both uncompress and untar a file if you add the z option Thus the command tar xvfz foo tar gz would both uncompress and untar the file 4 2 2 Downloading your application 8 Emacspeak User s Guide If you ended up with a new directory after you uncompressed your files it probably contains files with names like INSTALL NOTES or README among others These files usually include instructions for installing that specific application As each application may have a different installation process you should read these files carefully and follow any instructions they may provide You ll probably need to be the root user to actually install any applications as only root usually has the necessary permissions If you ended up with a single file after uncompressing it probably has either a rpm extension or some other type of extension such as el If it has a rpm extens
26. ion refer to Installing RPMs If the file has some other extension refer to the website where you downloaded it for more information 4 2 4 Installing RPMs If you downloaded or uncompressed a file that has a rpm extension you re in luck It is a Red Hat Package Manager file that contains all the information it needs to install itself automatically Assuming that your distribution supports RPMs you can install the file as follows 1 Open a root shell using the command M x emacspeak root which is bound to C e C r 2 At the command prompt type rpm xfv foo rpm A number of messages will scroll by and you ll be returned to the command prompt once RPM finishes installing the files For additional information on RPMs refer to Red Hat s official website http www redhat com or the official Red Hat Linux reference guide at http www redhat com support manuals RHL 7 Manual ref guide ch rpm html 4 2 4 Installing RPMs 9 5 Working with files In addition to performing common file manipulation tasks such as moving copying and deleting you ll also want to download files from the Internet search for files in your directories and FTP files Some of these functions are built into Emacs while some of these tasks require additional applications that can be downloaded 5 1 Downloading files Once you know the URL of the file to download you can use the wget command from within the Emacs shell to retrieve the file If you d
27. it If I exited mpg123 the volume in Emacspeak would continue to be extremely low regardless of how it was set before I started mpg123 However if I turned up the volume while in mpg123 not only was it at an acceptable level in mpg123 it was also loud after I quit mpg123 Another problem that I noticed when using mpg123 is that sometimes when you quit the application it doesn t seem to relinquish control of the sound card You ll see evidence of this behavior if you try to play a CD or restart mpg123 you ll get an error message saying that your sound card is busy or that it s not installed correctly If you check the list of open Emacs buffers you ll see that mpg123 is still there although it s apparently in a questionable state I have not yet figured out how to remedy this problem if anyone has any suggestions please let me know so it can be added to the HOWTO If you find yourself listening to a lot of MP3s there is an mp3 jukebox written by Karl Dahlke available at http www eklhad net linux app jukebox and a sample config file for the jukebox at http www eklhad net linux app sample jukerc At the time of writing the jukebox was in version 1 0 If you want to rip your own MP3s under Linux it is a two step process The first step is to convert the tracks on an audio CD to wav format then convert the wav files to MP3s There is a great web page by Nathan Robertson on how to do this located at http www nathanr net thisout ar
28. ite dk auctex www auctex You can download AUC Tex from ftp sunsite dk packages auctex auctex tar gz Once you ve downloaded the file you ll need to install it as follows Open an Emacs command shell as root using the command M x emacspeak root Change directories to where the downloaded file auctex tar gz is located Unzip the file using the command gunzip auctex tar gz Unpack the resulting tarball using the command tar xvf auctex tar Change directories into the new auctex 10 0g directory then type the command make AB YN The next several steps are covered in greater detail in the INSTALLATION file included in the auctex 10 0g directory 7 5 Writing text in Emacs 21 Emacspeak User s Guide 6 When the Makefile is finished building type the command make lispdir usr local share emacs site lisp install If the Emacs path defined as lispdir in this command is not correct for your machine supply the correct path to your Emacs installation 7 Check to make sure the tex e1 files were placed in the directory specified in the lispdir command above If not copy them there 8 Add the following line to your emacs file require tex site When you are finished save and close your emacs file 9 To invoke the AUC Tex editing mode create a new file with a tex extension You ll probably also want to install the online documentation This is located in the doc directory within the auctex 10 0g
29. le with Emacspeak The first option is to generate a text version of the PDF using Xpdf then read the text version The second option is the use Adobe s PDF to HTML converter then read the HTML file 7 3 1 Using Xpdf To generate a text version of the PDF you ll need to download the Xpdf package The main website is at http www foolabs com xpdf and you can download a precompiled binary unless of course you re interested in playing with the source code in which case you d download the source from ftp ftp foolabs com pub xpdf xpdt 0 92 linux2 0 tgz Assuming that you downloaded the binary file xpdf 0 92 1inux2 0 tgz to install and runXpdf 1 Open an Emacs command shell using M x shell 2 Change to the appropriate directory where the xpdf 0 92 1inux2 0 tgz file is located then unzip the file using gunzip xpdf 0 92 linux2 0 tgz 3 Decompress the resulting xpdf 0 92 linux2 0 tar file using the command tar xvf xpdf 0 92 linux2 0 tar 7 3 Reading Adobe Acrobat files 19 Emacspeak User s Guide The resulting directory will be called xpdf 0 92 linux2 0 Within this directory are a number of applications including pdfimages pdfinfo pdftopbm pdftops pdftotext and xpdf You can find out what each of these applications does from the README file also included in the director the Emacs command shell as follows 1 Open an Emacs shell window using the command M x shell 2 At the prompt type pdftotext filename pdf
30. lightly less sophisticated but built in e mail application Both are speech enabled and discussed in this section 6 3 1 VM Although VM is Emacs native it does not come with Emacs You can download it from the VM homepage at http www wonderworks com vm This page also contains links to the VM user s manual FAQ and a list of sites where you can download VM depending on your location If you want to modifying source code download one of the sources otherwise download one of the binaries as it will be easier to install Assuming that you downloaded a binary it s probably named vm elc gz To install follow these steps 1 Open an Emacs shell using the command M x shell 2 Unzip the file using the command gunzip vm elc gz You should be left with a file named vm elc 3 Move the file vm elc to a directory specified in your Emacs load path such as usr share emacs site lisp 4 Open your emacs file and add the following line ameolece um ua Star WM en your prineri Wook w 5 Save and close your emacs file Then restart Emacs so that the changes will take effect If you decide to install the source files instead of the binary you ll download vm tar gz Installation instructions are in the README file included in the download Once you ve installed VM you can start it using the command M x vm 6 3 2 Rmail An alternative to VM is Rmail a built in Emacs mail reader As such you don t need to download or install any
31. nd line from an Emacs shell and the other is to use dired Both methods are discussed in this section 5 4 1 Using the command line If you are familiar with Unix command line arguments you may prefer to use the command line to manipulate files To use the command line open an Emacs command shell using M x shell The following list shows some basic file manipulation commands and what they do cp filel file2 Copies filel to a new filenamed file2 mv sourcetarget Moves a file from the source directory to the target directory rm file Deletes a file mkdir directoryname 5 3 FTPing a file 11 Emacspeak User s Guide Creates a directory with the name directoryname rmdir directoryname Deletes the directorym directoryname if it is empty ls Lists all the files in th ecurrent directory You can find more information on any of these commands most can be run with various options that allow for more user control by looking them up in the online man pages Since the list presented here covers only the most basic commands you may want to consult the Linux user s guide available at http www ibiblio org pub Linux docs linux doc project users guide for more information 5 4 2 Using the directory editor Although many Linux users use the command line to manipulate files Emacs provides a powerful alternative called dired Dired is the Emacs directory editor and is great for manipulating files if you d rather not use the comman
32. o not know the URL of the file to download use the W3 application to browse the web and find the URL of the file refer to Browsing the Internet for information on using the W3 application Then use the command wget to download it For more information on the wget command refer to the wget man page To download a file 1 From inside Emacs type M x shell to start the shell 2 Since the wget command places the downloaded file into your current directory change directories to the desired directory 3 When you are in the appropriate directory type wget url then press Enter Remember that you can copy and paste the URL of the file to download from the W3 web browser application As the file is being downloaded one dot appears on the screen for each kilobyte of data received The wget command lets you know when the download is complete Another option for downloading or uploading a file is via FTP Refer to FTPing a file for more information 5 2 Finding a file There are several ways you can find a file This section discusses two options If you know the name of the file or at least remember part of it you can use the find file command 1 In Emacs type M x find file Result You will be prompted for the name of the file in the default working directory 2 Type the name of the file or use wildcards you wish to find Alternatively you may want to browse your directories to lookfor a file You can do this using the Emacs directo
33. of these options are located at the html helper mode website at http www gest unipd it saint hth html If you re authoring larger documents or want to author in SGML the PSGML mode for Emacs is recommended The home page for PSGML is located at http www lysator liu se projects about_psgml html There s also an XML editor for Emacs called sxml mode The home page is located at http koala ilog fr plh sxml html You must have a Java Virtual Machine as well as PSGML 1 0 1 or better to run sxml mode Complete instructions for downloading and installing are available on the web site 7 5 2 Writing for online viewing 22 8 Entertainment While Emacs provides lots of applications and functionality to help get work done it also provides a medium to play games listen to music and do other fun activities 8 1 Burning a CD It s become almost necessary to have a CD burner these days especially if you want to download iso images to install new versions of Linux The cdrecord application is the recommended tool for burning both audio and data CDs and it is included in many distributions However if you d like to get the latest version go to http www fokus gmd de research cc glone employees joerg schilling private cdrecord html cdrecord is a command line application so you ll need to open an Emacs command shell M x shell to use it The complete directions on how to use cdrecord burn a CD are beyond the scope of this
34. on the screen and also speaks it aloud However Emacspeak adds a line to your emacs file that keeps Emacs from echoing your password either visually or orally Of course it s still a good idea to change your password in a secure area where no one is likely to watch you type it in To change your password 1 From inside Emacs type M x shell to launch an Emacs shell 2 At the prompt type passwd You will be prompted for both your current password and your new password Note that some systems require passwords to be a certain length or contain certain characters such as numbers If your password entry is rejected for some reason keep trying In general most 6 8 letter passwords that contain at least one number work well Of course be sure it s easy for you to remember 4 2 Installing applications 4 2 1 About Emacs applications As an Emacs user you can mentally divide applications into two categories those that are native to Emacs that is those applications written specifically for Emacs and those that are not for example command line applications If an application is not Emacs native you can still run it from the Emacs shell command line To run the application type the command M x shell to start the shell then the appropriate command to start the application If the application is native to Emacs you can type M x name of application to start the application The application will run directly in the Emacs buffer Sometim
35. ontained in the tnt 2 3 2 directory as it contains excellent descriptions of all the commands used by TNT 6 2 2 ERC ERC is an IRC Internet Relay Chat client written especially for Emacs The main site for ERC is located at http sourceforge net projects erc and you can download and install the appropriate files as follows 1 Go to http prdownloads sourceforge net erc erc el Save the page it is the ERC application into a new file called erc el 2 Place the new file in your Emacs load path typically in the directory usr share emacs site lisp 3 Open your emacs file andn add the following line require erc 4 Save and close your emacs file 5 Exit and restart Emacs so that the changes take place You won t need to download any Emacspeak enabled e1 files as those are already included in your 6 2 1 AOL Instant Messenger for Emacs TNT 16 Emacspeak User s Guide emacspeak lisp directory Once you have installed ERC it can be started from Emacs using the command M x erc select to select an IRC server For more documentation refer to the erc el file It contains installation and usage instructions in the comments at the top of the file 6 3 Using e mail There are multiple mail programs available for e mail purposes One that is recommended is VM View Mail an Emacs native application that allows you to do all the things you d expect of an e mail application Alternatively you can use Rmail a s
36. orial is organized by task and sub task For example the Internet section contains sub sections on browsing the Internet using email chatting online and other tasks The File Manipulation section contains information on downloading and installing files finding files etc For a complete listing of the available tasks refer to the table of contents Within this tutorial you will find references to a number of Emacspeak enabled applications some that are included within the Emacs application and some that are add ons and must be downloaded Please note that the applications listed in this tutorial should not be considered a complete collection of applications but only a small subset The complete list of Emacspeak enabled applications is available at http emacspeak sourceforge net applications html 2 Introduction 3 Before you begin 3 1 Getting started with Emacs and Emacspeak Before you get started with Emacs and Emacspeak you must install both Most distributions come with Emacs or you can download it from the Emacs home page at http www gnu org software emacs emacs html If you have not already installed Emacspeak you can download it from http emacspeak sourceforge net For Emacspeak installation information please refer to the Emacspeak Installation HOWTO available at the Emacspeak home page http emacspeak sourceforge net If you ve never used Emacs or Emacspeak before you ll probably want to try some of
37. peech rate may be too slow or fast for your tastes so you can customize it in your emacs file To do so add the following lines to your emacs file setq dtk default speech rate 410 setq outloud default speech rate 90 The numerical values in these commands are the speech rate in words per minute The examples above are for the Dectalk Express and the ViaVoice Outloud synthesizers 7 2 2 Auditory Icons for Emacspeak Ann Parsons wrote a great explanation of the Emacspeak desktop and auditory icons that you can read at http www cs vassar edu priestdo emacspeak msg00256 html In a nutshell auditory icons provide you with feedback when you perform different tasks in Emacs You can get audible feedback when you change buffers quit a program enter the buffers list edit C code etc If you want to use auditory icons and ViaVoice is your speech synthesizer check to see whether or not you have a multi channel sound card try playing a CD and a au file at the same time if it works you have a multi channel card If your card is not multi channel you must install the application stdiom as follows 1 Download the application stdiosynth from http www leb net pub blinux emacspeak blinux stdiom tar gz 7 Productivity 18 Emacspeak User s Guide 2 Log in to your machine as root then change to the directory where you placed the downloaded file stdiom tar gz 3 Unzip the file using the command gunzip stdiom tar gz
38. ry editor dired To start dired 1 In Emacs type C x d or M x dired You will be prompted for the name of the file You can type the name or part of the name of the file to find using the Tab key to complete the file name dired will list any files that match the name you entered Alternatively you can view a full listing of the 5 Working with files 10 Emacspeak User s Guide directory by providing a directory name or pressing Return to view the current directory when prompted For more information on using the directory editor refer to Using the directory editor For a complete listing of dired s features and capabilities refer to http www delorie com gnu docs emacs emacs_360 html 5 3 FTPing a file Emacs contains a built in file transfer protocol or FTP application The FTP application can be used to upload and download files to and from other machines In order to use FTP you will need to know the hostname of the machine to contact To invoke the FTP application 1 Within Emacs type M x ftp Result You will be prompted for an ftp hostname Alternatively you can start an Emacs shell using M x shell and use FTP from the command line There is a short tutorial on using the command line FTP at Focus on Unix 5 4 Manipulating files This section contains information on moving copying and deleting files from within Emacs In general there are two ways you can go about these tasks One option is to use the comma
39. thing to make it work To start Rmail use the command M x rmail There is a chapter about Rmail in the GNU Emacs documentation available at http www gnu org manual emacs 20 3 html_chapter emacs 31 html This chapter includes all the information and commands you might need to use Rmail 6 3 Using e mail 17 7 Productivity Emacs provides many applications that can help you get your work done From coding to writing a dissertation to scheduling appointments you can do just about anything from within Emacs 7 1 Coding in Emacs Emacs has major modes essentially editors for Lisp Scheme Awk C C FORTRAN Icon Java Objective C Pascal Perl and Tcl You can invoke a major mode by creating and or opening a file with the appropriate extension For example to invoke the c major mode create a file with a cpp extension and then open that file You can also download additional major modes such as SGML Because of the breadth of coding options it is beyond the scope of this document to cover them all However there is an extensive section in the Gnu Emacs Manual on coding available at http www delorie com gnu docs emacs emacs_238 html 7 2 Customizing Emacspeak Emacspeak contains many options for customization The most commonly requested options are covered here but if there s something else that should be included please do not hesitate to suggest it 7 2 1 Changing the speech rate The default Emacspeak s
40. ticles linux mp3 8 4 Playing games Emacs has a number of popular games built into it including Solitaire Tetris Dunnet a text based adventure game and Gomoku For a complete listing of games 1 Type C h p A list of the available Emacs packages opens in the buffer 2 Scroll down to the games entry then press Enter A list of all the available games is displayed To start a game 1 Type M x then the name of the game you want to play For example to play Dunnet the text based adventure game you would type M x dunnet But only do this if you have plenty of time to spare 8 4 Playing games 25 9 Acknowledgments As with any effort for the Linux project there are a number of people who contributed to this HOWTO in a roundabout way Without their help this document would not exist Dr T V Raman who not only suggested a task oriented HOWTO but who always answered my Emacspeak questions no matter how odd Mr James Van Zandt the original author of the Emacspeak HOWTO who graciously allowed me maintainership of the original HOWTO from which this document stemmed Robert J Chassell Saqib Shaikh Doug Smith Tyler Spivey Kristin Thomas and Jason White for their comments suggestions and excellent proofreading skills All the folks on the Emacspeak and blinux mailing lists who contributed suggestions answered my questions and gently showed me the errors in my ways Throughout this document I have tried to
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