Useful Packages
===============
Some Emacs packages are mentioned here as an aid to the new Viper
user, to indicate what Viper is capable of. A vast number comes with
the standard Emacs distribution, and many more exist on the net and on
the archives.
This manual also mentions some Emacs features a new user should know
about. The details of these are found in the GNU Emacs Manual.
The features first. For details, look up the Emacs Manual.
`Make'
Makes and Compiles can be done from the editor. Error messages
will be parsed and you can move to the error lines.
`Shell'
You can talk to Shells from inside the editor. Your entire shell
session can be treated as a file.
`Mail'
Mail can be read from and sent within the editor. Several
sophisticated packages exist.
`Language Sensitive Editing'
Editing modes are written for most computer languages in
existence. By controlling indentation, they catch punctuation
errors.
The packages, below, represents a drop in the sea of special-purpose
packages that come with standard distribution of Emacs.
`Transparent FTP'
`ange-ftp.el' can ftp from the editor to files on other machines
transparent to the user.
`RCS Interfaces'
`vc.el' for doing RCS commands from inside the editor
`Directory Editor'
`dired.el' for editing contents of directories and for navigating
in the file system.
`Syntactic Highlighting'
`font-lock.el' for automatic highlighting various parts of a buffer
using different fonts and colors.
`Saving Emacs Configuration'
`desktop.el' for saving/restoring configuration on Emacs
exit/startup.
`Spell Checker'
`ispell.el' for spell checking the buffer, words, regions, etc.
`File and Buffer Comparison'
`ediff.el' for finding differences between files and for applying
patches.
Emacs Lisp archives exist on `archive.cis.ohio-state.edu' and
`wuarchive.wustl.edu'