Tutorial: Emacs UI (basic)

1.1.3 Tutorial: Emacs UI (basic)

The developers of CoCoA use the (GNU) emacs UI to CoCoA-5, so it is extensively tested. Other UIs may become available in the future.

Emacs is an extensible text editor with numerous functions. One of these extensions helps one edit files of CoCoA commands, and also run an interactive CoCoA-5 session. Many of the special functions for CoCoA-5 are available from a "drop-down" menu (under the title CoCoA-5).

We find the following approach convenient. Inside Emacs use the "Open File" function to open (or create) a file whose name must end in ".cocoa5". Type in your commands and function definitions into this file; then use "Source file into CoCoA-5" or "Source region into CoCoA-5". An advantage of this approach is that if you make a mistake, you can easily edit the file, and then send the corrected commands to CoCoA-5.

The functions can also be activated via suitable key-sequences; this is usually quicker than using the menus, but entails memorizing the most useful "key sequences". A key sequence usually looks cryptic: for example in the key sequence "C-M-\", the substring "M-" means to press and release the "Esc" key, while the substring "C-" means to press and hold the "Ctrl" key, finally you should press briefly the "\" (backslash) key.

Some more help for Emacs can be found online at the following link: http://cocoa.dima.unige.it/download/screenshots.shtml