EmacsMovies.org

Tutorial screencasts for Emacs

Where to Begin?

If you’re a first time visitor to Emacs Movies or a new comer to Emacs in general, the material on the site can get confusing. This page is an attempt to give you a step by step guide to decide which videos you want to watch and in what order.

This page is not automatically updated and so might be a little out of date. The archives page is a list of all the posts on the site in reverse chronological order (oldest last). The movies are made from basic to advanced so if you watch them in that order (oldest first), you’ll get everything in according to my original plan. The archives page is automatically generated when I post a new video so if you find that this page is and the archive page disagree, the latter is the authoritative source.

The whole series, as I have them planned is divided into four sections. This is a high level list with a list of links to the videos in the order you should watch them if you’re an absolute newcomer. Experienced users can skip the ones that they’re already familiar with.

Section 1: Basics

How to use the editor and how to get your daily work done.

  1. Terminology
    Discussing the Emacs interface and terms which we will use in subsequent screencasts.
  2. Navigation
    Explains how to move around in the editor.
  3. Editing
    Explains how to move around in the editor.
  4. The region
    Emacs’ mechanisms to mark areas of text and how to cut/paste stuff.
  5. Buffers
    What buffers are and how to manage them.
  6. Registers and bookmarks
    How to use registers and bookmarks.
  7. Minor modes
    What minor modes are and a few examples of commonly used ones.
  8. Customisation : Part 1
    A super quick introduction to elisp to customise Emacs.
  9. Customisation : Part 2
    Practical things to put into your `.emacs` file. This is based on stuff that we learnt in Customisation : Part 1.
  10. Keyboard macros
    Explores Emacs’ ability to record and playback a series of keystrokes so that you can automate little tasks during your editing session.

Section 2: Applications

Applications written in elisp that allow you to do things like manage email, read news, manage todo lists and a lot of other things from within Emacs.

  1. Dired
    Discusses the Emacs file navigator - Dired.
  2. Gnus
    The Emacs email and news reader - Gnus.

Section 3: Programming

Various major modes and utilities that make programming easier. Integration with version control systems, compiling and running programs, debuggers etc.

Section 4: Elisp

An introduction to programming in Emacs lisp.