info-stnd: The Echo Area
1
1 9.3 The Echo Area
1 =================
1
1 The "echo area" is a one line window which appears at the bottom of the
1 screen. It is used to display informative or error messages, and to
1 read lines of input from you when that is necessary. Almost all of the
1 commands available in the echo area are identical to their Emacs
1 counterparts, so please refer to that documentation for greater depth of
1 discussion on the concepts of editing a line of text. The following
1 table briefly lists the commands that are available while input is being
1 read in the echo area:
1
1 'C-f' ('echo-area-forward')
1 <RIGHT> (an arrow key)
1 Move forward a character.
1
1 'C-b' ('echo-area-backward')
1 <LEFT> (an arrow key)
1 Move backward a character.
1
1 'C-a' ('echo-area-beg-of-line')
1 Move to the start of the input line.
1
1 'C-e' ('echo-area-end-of-line')
1 Move to the end of the input line.
1
1 'M-f' ('echo-area-forward-word')
1 'C-<RIGHT>' (DOS/Windows only)
1 Move forward a word.
1
1 On DOS/Windows, 'C-<RIGHT>' moves forward by words.
1
1 'M-b' ('echo-area-backward-word')
1 'C-<LEFT>' (DOS/Windows only)
1 Move backward a word.
1
1 On DOS/Windows, 'C-<LEFT>' moves backward by words.
1
1 'C-d' ('echo-area-delete')
1 Delete the character under the cursor.
1
1 <DEL> ('echo-area-rubout')
1 Delete the character behind the cursor.
1
1 On some keyboards, this key is designated <BS>, for 'Backspace'.
1 Those keyboards will usually bind <DEL> in the echo area to
1 'echo-area-delete'.
1
1 'C-g' ('echo-area-abort')
1 Cancel or quit the current operation. If completion is being read,
1 this command discards the text of the input line which does not
1 match any completion. If the input line is empty, it aborts the
1 calling function.
1
1 <RET> ('echo-area-newline')
1 Accept (or forces completion of) the current input line.
1
1 'C-q' ('echo-area-quoted-insert')
1 Insert the next character verbatim. This is how you can insert
1 control characters into a search string, for example, or the '?'
1 character when Info prompts with completion.
1
1 PRINTING CHARACTER ('echo-area-insert')
1 Insert the character. Characters that have their 8th bit set, and
1 not bound to 'M-' commands, are also inserted verbatim; this is
1 useful for terminals which support Latin scripts.
1
1 'M-TAB' ('echo-area-tab-insert')
1 'Shift-<TAB>' (on DOS/Windows only)
1 Insert a TAB character.
1
1 On DOS/Windows only, the 'Shift-<TAB>' key is an alias for
1 'M-<TAB>'. This key is sometimes called 'BackTab'.
1
1 'C-t' ('echo-area-transpose-chars')
1 Transpose the characters at the cursor.
1
1 The next group of commands deal with "killing", and "yanking" text.
1 (Sometimes these operations are called "cut" and "paste", respectively.)
11 For an in-depth discussion, see ⇒Killing and Deleting
(emacs)Killing.
1
1 'M-d' ('echo-area-kill-word')
1 Kill the word following the cursor.
1
1 'M-<DEL>' ('echo-area-backward-kill-word')
1 'M-<BS>'
1 Kill the word preceding the cursor.
1
1 On some keyboards, the 'Backspace' key is used instead of 'DEL', so
1 'M-<Backspace>' has the same effect as 'M-<DEL>'.
1
1 'C-k' ('echo-area-kill-line')
1 Kill the text from the cursor to the end of the line.
1
1 'C-x <DEL>' ('echo-area-backward-kill-line')
1 Kill the text from the cursor to the beginning of the line.
1
1 'C-y' ('echo-area-yank')
1 Yank back the contents of the last kill.
1
1 'M-y' ('echo-area-yank-pop')
1 Yank back a previous kill, removing the last yanked text first.
1
1 Sometimes when reading input in the echo area, the command that
1 needed input will only accept one of a list of several choices. The
1 choices represent the "possible completions", and you must respond with
1 one of them. Since there are a limited number of responses you can
1 make, Info allows you to abbreviate what you type, only typing as much
1 of the response as is necessary to uniquely identify it. In addition,
1 you can request Info to fill in as much of the response as is possible;
1 this is called "completion".
1
1 The following commands are available when completing in the echo
1 area:
1
1 <TAB> ('echo-area-complete')
1 <SPC>
1 Insert as much of a completion as is possible.
1
1 '?' ('echo-area-possible-completions')
1 Display a window containing a list of the possible completions of
1 what you have typed so far. For example, if the available choices
1 are:
1
1 bar
1 foliate
1 food
1 forget
1
1 and you have typed an 'f', followed by '?', Info will pop up a
1 window showing a node called '*Completions*' which lists the
1 possible completions like this:
1
1 3 completions:
1 foliate food
1 forget
1
1 i.e., all of the choices which begin with 'f'. Pressing <SPC> or
1 <TAB> would result in 'fo' appearing in the echo area, since all of
1 the choices which begin with 'f' continue with 'o'. Now, typing
1 'l' followed by 'TAB' results in 'foliate' appearing in the echo
1 area, since that is the only choice which begins with 'fol'.
1
1 <ESC C-v> ('echo-area-scroll-completions-window')
1 Scroll the completions window, if that is visible, or the "other"
1 window if not.
1