FAQ - Barry's Emacs

General

Why should I choose Barry's Emacs?

Barry's Emacs is easy to use and accessable yet powerful.

You can start using Barry's Emacs as a notepad replacement. Then, at your own speed use more advanced features.

Its user interface uses familiar Windows style user interface, key bindings, menus, toolbar and dialogs. Barry's Emacs is integrated with the windows explorer.

Which Operating Systems are supported?

There are three Barry's Emacs kits.

• Barry's Emacs for Windows. Supports Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7.
• Barry's Emacs for Mac OS X
• Barry's Emacs for Unix like systems, *BSD, Fedora, Ubuntu etc.

Is Barry's Emacs based on GNU Emacs?

No. Barry's Emacs has been in existence in one form or another since 1980, GNU Emacs came along a few years later.

Can I get the source of Barry's Emacs?

Source code is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/barry-scott/BarrysEmacs.

User Interface

Dark mode

Barry's Emacs tries to automatically detect dark mode and switch its UI to use Dark mode.

This does not always work, typically becuase the OS dark mode support is new and the GUI tool kits have not added support yet.

However you can use the Preferences/Colours tab to force Barry's Emacs into dark mode.

Use the "Reset all colours to the theme's colours" to update the custom colours to the defaults for the mode you have choosen.

How do I use Ctrl-X for Cut and Emacs Ctrl-X commands?

Traditionally Emacs like editors use Ctrl-X as a keyboard command prefix. This conflicts with the normal use of Ctrl-X as the Cut operation.

By default Barry's Emacs allows both uses of Ctrl-X. If you have highlighted a selection Ctrl-X will Cut it into the clip board. Otherwise Barry's Emacs uses the Ctrl-X as a first key of a Ctrl-X command.

To add the default behaviour to your emacsinit.ml place the following line at the top of the file.

(default-emacs-init "windows,windows-extended")

Programming

What languages can I program Barry's Emacs in?

Barry's Emacs is usually programmed in MLisp, its own simplified version of Lisp.

The Python language can also be used to program Barry's Emacs. However the Python integration with Barry's Emacs is still experimental.

Intergating Emacs with other tools

Visual Studio

This is how to add Barry's Emacs to the Visual Studio Tools menu.

1. From the "Tools" menu select "Customize..."
2. Select the "Tools" tab in the customize dialog.
3. Add a new command "&Barry's Emacs"
   Command: c:\Program Files\Barry Scott\Barry's Emacs\bemacs.exe(
   Arguments: +$(CurLine) "$(FilePath)"

Now type ALT-T-B to have BEmacs edit the current file from Visual Studio.

Configuring WinGrep to use BEmacs as the editor.

Use the following command line in the Options/Preferences... dialog box.

"C:\Program Files\Barry Scott\Barry's Emacs\BEmacs.exe" /package=wingrep $f $l

Create the file emacs$user:wingrep.mlp with the following contents:

(defun
    (wingrep-com
	(visit-file (argv 1))
	(goto-line (argv 2))
    )
)