The Echo AreaContents|Index|Previous|Next The
echo area The
echo area is a one line window which appears at the bottom of the
screen. It is used to display informative or error messages, and to read
lines of input from you when that is necessary. Almost all of the commands
available in the echo area are identical to their Emacs counterparts, so
please refer to GNU Emacs Manual for greater depth of discussion
on the concepts of editing a line of text.
The following briefly details
the commands that are available while input is being read in the echo area.
C-f
(echo-area-forward)
Moves forward a character.
C-b
(echo-area-backward)
Moves backward a character.
C-a
(echo-area-beg-of-line)
Moves to the start of the input
line.
C-e
(echo-area-end-of-line)
Moves to the end of the input
line.
M-f
(echo-area-forward-word)
Moves forward a word.
M-b
(echo-area-backward-word)
Moves backward a word.
Cd
(echo-area-delete)
Deletes the character under
the cursor.
Del
(echo-area-rubout)
Deletes the character behind
the cursor.
C-g
(echo-area-abort)
Cancels or quits the current
operation. If completion is being read, C-g
discards the text of the input line which does not match any completion.
If the input line is empty, C-g
aborts the calling function.
RET
(echo-area-newline)
Accepts (or forces completion
of) the current input line.
C-q
(echo-area-quoted-insert)
Inserts the next character verbatim;
for example, so you can insert control characters into a search string.
printing character
(echo-area-insert)
Inserts the character.
M-Tab
(echo-area-tab-insert)
Inserts a Tab
character.
Ctrl-t
(echo-area-transpose-chars)
Transposes the characters at
the cursor.
The next
group of commands deal with killing and yanking text. For an in depth discussion
of killing and yanking, see Killing and Moving Text in the GNU
Emacs Manual.
M-d
(echo-area-kill-word)
Kills the word following the
cursor.
M-Del
(echo-area-backward-kill-word)
Kills the word preceding the
cursor.
C-k
(echo-area-kill-line)
Kills the text from the cursor
to the end of the line.
C-x,
Del
(echo-area-backward-kill-line)
Kills the text from the cursor
to the beginning of the line.
C-y
(echo-area-yank)
Yanks back the contents of the
last kill.
M-y
(echo-area-yank-pop)
Yanks back a previous kill,
removing the last yanked text first.
Sometimes when reading input
in the echo area, the command that needed input will only accept one of
a list of several choices. The choices represent the possible completions,
and you must respond with one of them. Since there are a limited number
of responses you can make, info
allows you to abbreviate what you type, only typing as much of the
response as is necessary to uniquely identify it. In addition, you can
request info
to fill in as much of the response as is possible; this is called
completion.
The following commands are
available when completing in the echo area.
Tab
(echo-area-complete)
SPACEBAR
Inserts as much of a completion
as is possible.
?
(echo-area-possible-completions)
Displays a window containing
a list of the possible completions of what you have typed so far. For example,
say the available choices are the following if you typed an f,
followed by ?.
bar foliate
food forget
Possible completions would contain
the choices which begin with f.
foliatefoodforget
Pressing Spacebar
or Tab
would result in fo
appearing in the echo area, since all of the choices which begin with f
continue with o.
Now, typing l
followed by pressing Tab
results in foliate
appearing in the echo area, since that is the only choice which begins
with fol.
Esc Ctrl-v
(echo-area-scroll-completions-window)
Scrolls the completions window,
if that is visible, or, if not, the other window.
