Xah Lee, 2010-12-20
Emacs has extensive documentation. The doc format is called “info”, and is a tree structure, very similar to how you browse a website.
To view the complete documentation index, press 【Ctrl+h i】. Once you are in the Info doc, you can use the mouse to navigate, or using keyboard.
Here's the most important navigation keys:
| Purpose | Emacs Key | Web Browser key |
|---|---|---|
| Back | l | Backspace or 【Alt+←】 |
| Forward | r | 【Shift+Backspace】 or 【Alt+→】 |
| Go Up | u | ◇ |
| Focus on Next Link | Tab | Tab |
| Visit Link | Enter | Enter |
Web browsers use the Backspace for moving to last viewed page. If you have 5 button mouse, by default the 4th and 5th button acts as backward and forward buttons
These keys don't work in emacs. If you use emacs in a graphical window, using the mouse's 4th and 5th button are very convenient. Here's how to add to emacs. Put the following in your emacs init file.
(defun browser-nav-keys () "Add some browser styled nav keys for Info-mode. The following keys and mouse buttons are added: 【Backspace】 and <mouse-4> for `Info-history-back' 【Shift+Backspace】 and <mouse-5> for `Info-history-forward'." (local-set-key (kbd "<backspace>") 'Info-history-back) (local-set-key (kbd "<S-backspace>") 'Info-history-forward) (local-set-key (kbd "<mouse-4>") 'Info-history-back) (local-set-key (kbd "<mouse-5>") 'Info-history-forward) ) (add-hook 'Info-mode-hook 'browser-nav-keys)