26. Frames and Graphical Displays

When using a graphical display, you can create multiple windows at the system in a single Emacs session. Each system-level window that belongs to Emacs displays a frame which can contain one or several Emacs windows. A frame initially contains a single general-purpose Emacs window which you can subdivide vertically or horizontally into smaller windows. A frame normally contains its own echo area and minibuffer, but you can make frames that don't have these--they use the echo area and minibuffer of another frame.

To avoid confusion, we reserve the word "window" for the subdivisions that Emacs implements, and never use it to refer to a frame.

Editing you do in one frame affects the other frames. For instance, if you put text in the kill ring in one frame, you can yank it in another frame. If you exit Emacs through C-x C-c in one frame, it terminates all the frames. To delete just one frame, use C-x 5 0 (that is zero, not o).

Emacs compiled for MS-DOS emulates some windowing functionality, so that you can use many of the features described in this chapter. See section Mouse Usage on MS-DOS.

26.1 Killing and Yanking on Graphical Displays

This section describes facilities for selecting a region, killing, and yanking using the mouse.

26.1.1 Mouse Commands for Editing

The mouse commands for selecting and copying a region are mostly compatible with the xterm program. You can use the same mouse commands for copying between Emacs and other window-based programs. Most of these commands also work in Emacs when you run it under an xterm terminal.

If you select a region with any of these mouse commands, and then immediately afterward type the DELETE function key, it deletes the region that you selected. The BACKSPACE function key and the ASCII character DEL do not do this; if you type any other key in between the mouse command and DELETE, it does not do this.

Mouse-1

Move point to where you click (mouse-set-point). This is normally the left button.

Normally, Emacs does not distinguish between ordinary mouse clicks and clicks that select a frame. When you click on a frame to select it, that also changes the selected window and cursor position according to the mouse click position. On the X window system, you can change this behavior by setting the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t. Then the first click selects the frame, but does not affect the selected window or cursor position. If you click again in the same place, since that click will be in the selected frame, it will change the window or cursor position.

Drag-Mouse-1

Set the region to the text you select by dragging, and copy it to the kill ring (mouse-set-region). You can specify both ends of the region with this single command.

If you move the mouse off the top or bottom of the window while dragging, the window scrolls at a steady rate until you move the mouse back into the window. This way, you can select regions that don't fit entirely on the screen. The number of lines scrolled per step depends on how far away from the window edge the mouse has gone; the variable mouse-scroll-min-lines specifies a minimum step size.

If the variable mouse-drag-copy-region is nil, this mouse command does not copy the selected region into the kill ring.

Mouse-2

Yank the last killed text, where you click (mouse-yank-at-click). This is normally the middle button.

Mouse-3

This command, mouse-save-then-kill, has several functions depending on where you click and the status of the region.

The most basic case is when you click Mouse-1 in one place and then Mouse-3 in another. This selects the text between those two positions as the region. It also copies the new region to the kill ring, so that you can copy it to someplace else.

If you click Mouse-1 in the text, scroll with the scroll bar, and then click Mouse-3, it remembers where point was before scrolling (where you put it with Mouse-1), and uses that position as the other end of the region. This is so that you can select a region that doesn't fit entirely on the screen.

More generally, if you do not have a highlighted region, Mouse-3 selects the text between point and the click position as the region. It does this by setting the mark where point was, and moving point to where you click.

If you have a highlighted region, or if the region was set just before by dragging button 1, Mouse-3 adjusts the nearer end of the region by moving it to where you click. The adjusted region's text also replaces the old region's text in the kill ring.

If you originally specified the region using a double or triple Mouse-1, so that the region is defined to consist of entire words or lines, then adjusting the region with Mouse-3 also proceeds by entire words or lines.

If you use Mouse-3 a second time consecutively, at the same place, that kills the region already selected.

The simplest way to kill text with the mouse is to press Mouse-1 at one end, then press Mouse-3 twice at the other end. See section Killing and Moving Text. To copy the text into the kill ring without deleting it from the buffer, press Mouse-3 just once--or just drag across the text with Mouse-1. Then you can copy it elsewhere by yanking it.

To yank the killed or copied text somewhere else, move the mouse there and press Mouse-2. See section Yanking. However, if mouse-yank-at-point is non-nil, Mouse-2 yanks at point. Then it does not matter where you click, or even which of the frame's windows you click on. The default value is nil. This variable also affects yanking the secondary selection.

Many graphical applications follow the convention that insertion while text is selected deletes the selected text. You can make Emacs behave this way by enabling Delete Selection mode--with M-x delete-selection-mode or using Custom. Another effect of this mode is that DEL, C-d and some other keys, when a selection exists, will kill the whole selection. It also enables Transient Mark mode (see section Transient Mark Mode).

26.1.2 Cut and Paste with Other Window Applications

To copy text to another windowing application, kill it or save it in the kill ring. Then use the "paste" or "yank" command of the other application to insert the text.

To copy text from another windowing application, use its "cut" or "copy" command to select the text you want. Then yank it in Emacs with C-y or Mouse-2.

When Emacs puts text into the kill ring, or rotates text to the front of the kill ring, it sets the primary selection in the window system. This is how other windowing applications can access the text. On the X Window System, emacs also stores the text in the cut buffer, but only if the text is short enough (the value of x-cut-buffer-max specifies the maximum number of characters); putting long strings in the cut buffer can be slow.

The commands to yank the first entry in the kill ring actually check first for a primary selection in another program; after that, they check for text in the cut buffer. If neither of those sources provides text to yank, the kill ring contents are used.

The standard coding system for X Window System selections is compound-text-with-extensions. To specify another coding system for selections, use C-x RET x or C-x RET X. See section Coding Systems for Interprocess Communication.

26.1.3 Mouse Commands for Words and Lines

These variants of Mouse-1 select entire words or lines at a time.

Double-Mouse-1

This key sets the region around the word which you click on. If you click on a character with "symbol" syntax (such as underscore, in C mode), it sets the region around the symbol surrounding that character.

If you click on a character with open-parenthesis or close-parenthesis syntax, it sets the region around the parenthetical grouping which that character starts or ends. If you click on a character with string-delimiter syntax (such as a singlequote or doublequote in C), it sets the region around the string constant (using heuristics to figure out whether that character is the beginning or the end of it).

Double-Drag-Mouse-1

This key selects a region made up of the words you drag across.

Triple-Mouse-1

This key sets the region around the line you click on.

Triple-Drag-Mouse-1

This key selects a region made up of the lines you drag across.

26.1.4 Secondary Selection

The secondary selection is another way of selecting text using the X Window System. It does not use point or the mark, so you can use it to kill text without setting point or the mark.

M-Drag-Mouse-1

Set the secondary selection, with one end at the place where you press down the button, and the other end at the place where you release it (mouse-set-secondary). The highlighting appears and changes as you drag. You can control the appearance of the highlighting by customizing the secondary-selection face (see section Customizing Faces).

If you move the mouse off the top or bottom of the window while dragging, the window scrolls at a steady rate until you move the mouse back into the window. This way, you can mark regions that don't fit entirely on the screen.

This way of setting the secondary selection does not alter the kill ring.

M-Mouse-1

Set one endpoint for the secondary selection (mouse-start-secondary).

M-Mouse-3

Make a secondary selection, using the place specified with M-Mouse-1 as the other end (mouse-secondary-save-then-kill). This also puts the selected text in the kill ring. A second click at the same place kills the secondary selection just made.

M-Mouse-2

Insert the secondary selection where you click (mouse-yank-secondary). This places point at the end of the yanked text.

Double or triple clicking of M-Mouse-1 operates on words and lines, much like Mouse-1.

If mouse-yank-at-point is non-nil, M-Mouse-2 yanks at point. Then it does not matter precisely where you click, or even which of the frame's windows you click on. See section Mouse Commands for Editing.

26.1.5 Using the Clipboard

Apart from the primary and secondary selection types, Emacs can handle the clipboard selection type which is used by some applications, particularly under OpenWindows and Gnome.

The command M-x menu-bar-enable-clipboard makes the Cut, Paste and Copy menu items, as well as the keys of the same names, all use the clipboard.

You can customize the variable x-select-enable-clipboard to make the Emacs yank functions consult the clipboard before the primary selection, and to make the kill functions to store in the clipboard as well as the primary selection. Otherwise they do not access the clipboard at all. Using the clipboard is the default on MS-Windows and Mac, but not on other systems.

26.2 Following References with the Mouse

Some read-only Emacs buffers include references you can follow, or commands you can activate. These include names of files, of buffers, of possible completions, of matches for a pattern, as well as the buttons in Help buffers and customization buffers. You can follow the reference or activate the command by moving point to it and typing RET. You can also do this with the mouse, using either Mouse-1 or Mouse-2.

Since yanking text into a read-only buffer is not allowed, these buffers generally define Mouse-2 to follow a reference or activate a command. For example, if you click Mouse-2 on a file name in a Dired buffer, you visit that file. If you click Mouse-2 on an error message in the `*Compilation*' buffer, you go to the source code for that error message. If you click Mouse-2 on a completion in the `*Completions*' buffer, you choose that completion.

However, most applications use Mouse-1 to do this sort of thing, so Emacs implements this too. If you click Mouse-1 quickly on a reference or button, it follows or activates. If you click slowly, it moves point as usual. Dragging, meaning moving the mouse while it is held down, also has its usual behavior of setting the region.

Normally, the Mouse-1 click behavior is performed on links in any window. The variable mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows controls whether Mouse-1 has this behavior even in non-selected windows, or only in the selected window.

You can usually tell when Mouse-1 and Mouse-2 have this special sort of meaning because the sensitive text highlights when you move the mouse over it. The variable mouse-highlight controls whether to do this highlighting always (even when such text appears where the mouse already is), never, or only immediately after you move the mouse.

In Emacs versions before 22, only Mouse-2 follows links and Mouse-1 always sets point. If you prefer this older behavior, set the variable mouse-1-click-follows-link to nil. This variable also lets you choose various other alternatives for following links with the mouse. Type C-h v mouse-1-click-follows-link RET for more details.

26.3 Mouse Clicks for Menus

Several mouse clicks with the CTRL and SHIFT modifiers bring up menus.

C-Mouse-1

This menu is for selecting a buffer.

The MSB ("mouse select buffer") global minor mode makes this menu smarter and more customizable. See section Customizing Buffer Menus.

C-Mouse-2

This menu is for specifying faces and other text properties for editing formatted text. See section Editing Formatted Text.

C-Mouse-3

This menu is mode-specific. For most modes if Menu-bar mode is on, this menu has the same items as all the mode-specific menu-bar menus put together. Some modes may specify a different menu for this button.(4) If Menu-bar mode is off, this menu contains all the items which would be present in the menu bar--not just the mode-specific ones--so that you can access them without having to display the menu bar.

S-Mouse-1

This menu is for specifying the frame's default font.

26.4 Mode Line Mouse Commands

You can use mouse clicks on window mode lines to select and manipulate windows.

Some areas of the mode line, such as the buffer name and the major mode name, have their own special mouse bindings. These areas are highlighted when you hold the mouse over them, and information about the special bindings will be displayed (see section Tooltips). This section's commands do not apply in those areas.

Mouse-1

Mouse-1 on a mode line selects the window it belongs to. By dragging Mouse-1 on the mode line, you can move it, thus changing the height of the windows above and below. Changing heights with the mouse in this way never deletes windows, it just refuses to make any window smaller than the minimum height.

Mouse-2

Mouse-2 on a mode line expands that window to fill its frame.

Mouse-3

Mouse-3 on a mode line deletes the window it belongs to. If the frame has only one window, it buries the current buffer instead, and switches to another buffer.

C-Mouse-2

C-Mouse-2 on a mode line splits the window above horizontally, above the place in the mode line where you click.

Using Mouse-1 on the divider between two side-by-side mode lines, you can move the vertical boundary left or right. Using C-Mouse-2 on a scroll bar splits the corresponding window vertically. See section Splitting Windows.

26.5 Creating Frames

The prefix key C-x 5 is analogous to C-x 4, with parallel subcommands. The difference is that C-x 5 commands create a new frame rather than just a new window in the selected frame (see section Displaying in Another Window). If an existing visible or iconified frame already displays the requested material, these commands use the existing frame, after raising or deiconifying as necessary.

The various C-x 5 commands differ in how they find or create the buffer to select:

C-x 5 2

Create a new frame (make-frame-command).

C-x 5 b bufname RET

Select buffer bufname in another frame. This runs switch-to-buffer-other-frame.

C-x 5 f filename RET

Visit file filename and select its buffer in another frame. This runs find-file-other-frame. See section Visiting Files.

C-x 5 d directory RET

Select a Dired buffer for directory directory in another frame. This runs dired-other-frame. See section Dired, the Directory Editor.

C-x 5 m

Start composing a mail message in another frame. This runs mail-other-frame. It is the other-frame variant of C-x m. See section Sending Mail.

C-x 5 .

Find a tag in the current tag table in another frame. This runs find-tag-other-frame, the multiple-frame variant of M-.. See section Tags Tables.

C-x 5 r filename RET

Visit file filename read-only, and select its buffer in another frame. This runs find-file-read-only-other-frame. See section Visiting Files.

You can control the appearance of new frames you create by setting the frame parameters in default-frame-alist. You can use the variable initial-frame-alist to specify parameters that affect only the initial frame. See (elisp)Initial Parameters section `Initial Parameters' in The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, for more information.

The easiest way to specify the principal font for all your Emacs frames is with an X resource (see section Font Specification Options), but you can also do it by modifying default-frame-alist to specify the font parameter, as shown here:

(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(font . "10x20"))

Here's a similar example for specifying a foreground color:

(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(foreground-color . "blue"))

By putting such customizations in your `~/.emacs' init file, you can control the appearance of all the frames Emacs creates, including the initial one.

26.6 Frame Commands

The following commands let you create, delete and operate on frames:

C-z

Iconify the selected Emacs frame (iconify-or-deiconify-frame). When typed on an Emacs frame's icon, deiconify instead.

The normal meaning of C-z, to suspend Emacs, is not useful under a graphical display that allows multiple applications to operate simultaneously in their own windows, so Emacs gives C-z a different binding in that case.

C-x 5 0

Delete the selected frame (delete-frame). This is not allowed if there is only one frame.

C-x 5 o

Select another frame, raise it, and warp the mouse to it so that it stays selected. If you repeat this command, it cycles through all the frames on your terminal.

C-x 5 1

Delete all frames except the selected one.

To make the command C-x 5 o work properly, you must tell Emacs how the system (or the window manager) generally handles focus-switching between windows. There are two possibilities: either simply moving the mouse onto a window selects it (gives it focus), or you have to click on it in a suitable way to do so. On X, this focus policy also affects whether the focus is given to a frame that Emacs raises. Unfortunately there is no way Emacs can find out automatically which way the system handles this, so you have to explicitly say, by setting the variable focus-follows-mouse. If just moving the mouse onto a window selects it, that variable should be t; if a click is necessary, the variable should be nil.

The window manager that is part of MS-Windows always gives focus to a frame that raises, so this variable has no effect in the native MS-Windows build of Emacs.

26.7 Speedbar Frames

The speedbar is a special frame for conveniently navigating in or operating on another frame. The speedbar, when it exists, is always associated with a specific frame, called its attached frame; all speedbar operations act on that frame.

Type M-x speedbar to create the speedbar and associate it with the current frame. To dismiss the speedbar, type M-x speedbar again, or select the speedbar and type q. (You can also delete the speedbar frame like any other Emacs frame.) If you wish to associate the speedbar with a different frame, dismiss it and call M-x speedbar from that frame.

The speedbar can operate in various modes. Its default mode is File Display mode, which shows the files in the current directory of the selected window of the attached frame, one file per line. Clicking on a file name visits that file in the selected window of the attached frame, and clicking on a directory name shows that directory in the speedbar (see section Following References with the Mouse). Each line also has a box, `[+]' or `<+>', that you can click on to expand the contents of that item. Expanding a directory adds the contents of that directory to the speedbar display, underneath the directory's own line. Expanding an ordinary file adds a list of the tags in that file to the speedbar display; you can click on a tag name to jump to that tag in the selected window of the attached frame. When a file or directory is expanded, the `[+]' changes to `[-]'; you can click on that box to contract the item, hiding its contents.

You navigate through the speedbar using the keyboard, too. Typing RET while point is on a line in the speedbar is equivalent to clicking the item on the current line, and SPC expands or contracts the item. U displays the parent directory of the current directory. To copy, delete, or rename the file on the current line, type C, D, and R respectively. To create a new directory, type M.

Another general-purpose speedbar mode is Buffer Display mode; in this mode, the speedbar displays a list of Emacs buffers. To switch to this mode, type b in the speedbar. To return to File Display mode, type f. You can also change the display mode by clicking mouse-3 anywhere in the speedbar window (or mouse-1 on the mode-line) and selecting `Displays' in the pop-up menu.

Some major modes, including Rmail mode, Info, and GUD, have specialized ways of putting useful items into the speedbar for you to select. For example, in Rmail mode, the speedbar shows a list of Rmail files, and lets you move the current message to another Rmail file by clicking on its `<M>' box.

For more details on using and programming the speedbar, See Speedbar: (speedbar)Top section `Top' in Speedbar Manual.

26.8 Multiple Displays

A single Emacs can talk to more than one X display. Initially, Emacs uses just one display--the one specified with the DISPLAY environment variable or with the `--display' option (see section Initial Options). To connect to another display, use the command make-frame-on-display:

M-x make-frame-on-display RET display RET

Create a new frame on display display.

A single X server can handle more than one screen. When you open frames on two screens belonging to one server, Emacs knows they share a single keyboard, and it treats all the commands arriving from these screens as a single stream of input.

When you open frames on different X servers, Emacs makes a separate input stream for each server. This way, two users can type simultaneously on the two displays, and Emacs will not garble their input. Each server also has its own selected frame. The commands you enter with a particular X server apply to that server's selected frame.

Despite these features, people using the same Emacs job from different displays can still interfere with each other if they are not careful. For example, if any one types C-x C-c, that exits the Emacs job for all of them!

26.9 Special Buffer Frames

You can make certain chosen buffers, which Emacs normally displays in "another window," appear in special frames of their own. To do this, set the variable special-display-buffer-names to a list of buffer names; any buffer whose name is in that list automatically gets a special frame, when an Emacs command wants to display it "in another window."

For example, if you set the variable this way,

(setq special-display-buffer-names
      '("*Completions*" "*grep*" "*tex-shell*"))

then completion lists, grep output and the TeX mode shell buffer get individual frames of their own. These frames, and the windows in them, are never automatically split or reused for any other buffers. They continue to show the buffers they were created for, unless you alter them by hand. Killing the special buffer deletes its frame automatically.

More generally, you can set special-display-regexps to a list of regular expressions; then a buffer gets its own frame if its name matches any of those regular expressions. (Once again, this applies only to buffers that normally get displayed for you in "another window.")

The variable special-display-frame-alist specifies the frame parameters for these frames. It has a default value, so you don't need to set it.

For those who know Lisp, an element of special-display-buffer-names or special-display-regexps can also be a list. Then the first element is the buffer name or regular expression; the rest of the list specifies how to create the frame. It can be an association list specifying frame parameter values; these values take precedence over parameter values specified in special-display-frame-alist. If you specify the symbol same-window as a "frame parameter" in this list, with a non-nil value, that means to use the selected window if possible. If you use the symbol same-frame as a "frame parameter" in this list, with a non-nil value, that means to use the selected frame if possible.

Alternatively, the value can have this form:

(function args...)

where function is a symbol. Then the frame is constructed by calling function; its first argument is the buffer, and its remaining arguments are args.

An analogous feature lets you specify buffers which should be displayed in the selected window. See section Forcing Display in the Same Window. The same-window feature takes precedence over the special-frame feature; therefore, if you add a buffer name to special-display-buffer-names and it has no effect, check to see whether that feature is also in use for the same buffer name.

26.10 Setting Frame Parameters

You can specify the font and colors used for text display, and the colors for the frame borders, the cursor, and the mouse cursor, by customizing the faces default, border, cursor and mouse. See section Customizing Faces. You can also set a frame's default font through a pop-up menu. Press S-Mouse-1 to activate this menu.

These commands are available for controlling the window management behavior of the selected frame.

M-x auto-raise-mode

Toggle whether or not the selected frame should auto-raise. Auto-raise means that every time you move the mouse onto the frame, it raises the frame.

Some window managers also implement auto-raise. If you enable auto-raise for Emacs frames in your window manager, it will work, but it is beyond Emacs' control, so auto-raise-mode has no effect on it.

M-x auto-lower-mode

Toggle whether or not the selected frame should auto-lower. Auto-lower means that every time you move the mouse off the frame, the frame moves to the bottom of the stack on the screen.

The command auto-lower-mode has no effect on auto-lower implemented by the window manager. To control that, you must use the appropriate window manager features.

In Emacs versions that use an X toolkit, the color-setting and font-setting functions don't affect menus and the menu bar, since they are displayed by their own widget classes. To change the appearance of the menus and menu bar, you must use X resources (see section X Resources). See section Window Color Options, regarding colors. See section Font Specification Options, regarding choice of font.

Colors, fonts, and other attributes of the frame's display can also be customized by setting frame parameters in the variable default-frame-alist (see section Creating Frames). For a detailed description of frame parameters and customization, see (elisp)Frame Parameters section `Frame Parameters' in The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual.

26.11 Scroll Bars

On graphical displays, Emacs normally makes a scroll bar at the left of each Emacs window.(5) The scroll bar runs the height of the window, and shows a moving rectangular inner box which represents the portion of the buffer currently displayed. The entire height of the scroll bar represents the entire length of the buffer.

You can use Mouse-2 (normally, the middle button) in the scroll bar to move or drag the inner box up and down. If you move it to the top of the scroll bar, you see the top of the buffer. If you move it to the bottom of the scroll bar, you see the bottom of the buffer.

The left and right buttons in the scroll bar scroll by controlled increments. Mouse-1 (normally, the left button) moves the line at the level where you click up to the top of the window. Mouse-3 (normally, the right button) moves the line at the top of the window down to the level where you click. By clicking repeatedly in the same place, you can scroll by the same distance over and over.

You can also click C-Mouse-2 in the scroll bar to split a window vertically. The split occurs on the line where you click.

You can enable or disable Scroll Bar mode with the command M-x scroll-bar-mode. With no argument, it toggles the use of scroll bars. With an argument, it turns use of scroll bars on if and only if the argument is positive. This command applies to all frames, including frames yet to be created. Customize the variable scroll-bar-mode to control the use of scroll bars at startup. You can use it to specify that they are placed at the right of windows if you prefer that. You have to set this variable through the `Customize' interface (see section Easy Customization Interface), or it will not work properly.

You can also use the X resource `verticalScrollBars' to control the initial setting of Scroll Bar mode. See section X Resources.

To enable or disable scroll bars for just the selected frame, use the command M-x toggle-scroll-bar.

You can control the scroll bar width by changing the value of the scroll-bar-width frame parameter.

26.12 Scrolling With "Wheeled" Mice

Some mice have a "wheel" instead of a third button. You can usually click the wheel to act as either Mouse-2 or Mouse-3, depending on the setup. You can also use the wheel to scroll windows instead of using the scroll bar or keyboard commands. Mouse wheel support only works if the system generates appropriate events; whenever possible, it is turned on by default. To toggle this feature, use M-x mouse-wheel-mode.

The two variables mouse-wheel-follow-mouse and mouse-wheel-scroll-amount determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled. The variable mouse-wheel-progressive-speed determines whether the scroll speed is linked to how fast you move the wheel.

26.13 Drag and Drop

Emacs supports drag and drop using the mouse. For instance, dropping text onto an Emacs frame inserts the text where it is dropped. Dropping a file onto an Emacs frame visits that file. As a special case, dropping the file on a Dired buffer moves or copies the file (according to the conventions of the application it came from) into the directory displayed in that buffer.

Dropping a file normally visits it in the window you drop it on. If you prefer to visit the file in a new window in such cases, customize the variable dnd-open-file-other-window.

The XDND and Motif drag and drop protocols, and the old KDE 1.x protocol, are currently supported.

26.14 Menu Bars

You can turn display of menu bars on or off with M-x menu-bar-mode or by customizing the variable menu-bar-mode. With no argument, this command toggles Menu Bar mode, a minor mode. With an argument, the command turns Menu Bar mode on if the argument is positive, off if the argument is not positive. You can use the X resource `menuBarLines' to control the initial setting of Menu Bar mode. See section X Resources.

Expert users often turn off the menu bar, especially on text-only terminals, where this makes one additional line available for text. If the menu bar is off, you can still pop up a menu of its contents with C-Mouse-3 on a display which supports pop-up menus. See section Mouse Clicks for Menus.

See section The Menu Bar, for information on how to invoke commands with the menu bar. See section X Options and Resources, for how to customize the menu bar menus' visual appearance.

26.15 Tool Bars

The tool bar is a line (or lines) of icons at the top of the Emacs window, just below the menu bar. You can click on these icons with the mouse to do various jobs.

The global tool bar contains general commands. Some major modes define their own tool bars to replace it. A few "special" modes that are not designed for ordinary editing remove some items from the global tool bar.

Tool bars work only on a graphical display. The tool bar uses colored XPM icons if Emacs was built with XPM support. Otherwise, the tool bar uses monochrome icons (PBM or XBM format).

You can turn display of tool bars on or off with M-x tool-bar-mode or by customizing the option tool-bar-mode.

26.16 Using Dialog Boxes

A dialog box is a special kind of menu for asking you a yes-or-no question or some other special question. Many Emacs commands use a dialog box to ask a yes-or-no question, if you used the mouse to invoke the command to begin with.

You can customize the variable use-dialog-box to suppress the use of dialog boxes. This also controls whether to use file selection windows (but those are not supported on all platforms).

A file selection window is a special kind of dialog box for asking for file names. You can customize the variable use-file-dialog to suppress the use of file selection windows, even if you still want other kinds of dialogs. This variable has no effect if you have suppressed all dialog boxes with the variable use-dialog-box.

For Gtk+ version 2.4 and newer, Emacs use the Gtk+ file chooser dialog. Emacs adds a toggle button that enables and disables showing of hidden files (files starting with a dot) in that dialog. The variable x-gtk-show-hidden-files controls whether to show hidden files by default.

For Gtk+ versions 2.4 through 2.10, you can select the old file dialog (gtk-file-selector) by setting the variable x-gtk-use-old-file-dialog to a non-nil value. If it is nil, Emacs uses gtk-file-chooser. If Emacs is built with a Gtk+ version that has only one file dialog, this variable has no effect.

Emacs adds help text to the Gtk+ file chooser dialog. The variable x-gtk-file-dialog-help-text specifies the text to add; if it is nil, that disables the added text.

26.17 Tooltips

Tooltips are small windows that display text information at the current mouse position. They activate when there is a pause in mouse movement. There are two types of tooltip: help tooltips and GUD tooltips.

Help tooltips typically display over text--including the mode line--but are also available for other parts of the Emacs frame, such as the tool bar and menu items.

You can toggle display of help tooltips (Tooltip mode) with the command M-x tooltip-mode. When Tooltip mode is disabled, the help text is displayed in the echo area instead.

GUD tooltips show values of variables. They are useful when you are debugging a program. See section Debugger Operation.

The variables tooltip-delay specifies how long Emacs should wait before displaying a tooltip. For additional customization options for displaying tooltips, use M-x customize-group RET tooltip RET. See section X Options and Resources, for information on customizing the windows that display tooltips.

26.18 Mouse Avoidance

Mouse Avoidance mode keeps the mouse pointer away from point, to avoid obscuring text you want to edit. Whenever it moves the mouse, it also raises the frame. To use Mouse Avoidance mode, customize the variable mouse-avoidance-mode. You can set this to various values to move the mouse in several ways:

banish

Move the mouse to the upper-right corner on any key-press;

exile

Move the mouse to the corner only if the cursor gets too close, and allow it to return once the cursor is out of the way;

jump

If the cursor gets too close to the mouse, displace the mouse a random distance & direction;

animate

As jump, but shows steps along the way for illusion of motion;

cat-and-mouse

The same as animate;

proteus

As animate, but changes the shape of the mouse pointer too.

You can also use the command M-x mouse-avoidance-mode to enable the mode.

26.19 Non-Window Terminals

On a text-only terminal, Emacs can display only one Emacs frame at a time. However, you can still create multiple Emacs frames, and switch between them. Switching frames on these terminals is much like switching between different window configurations.

Use C-x 5 2 to create a new frame and switch to it; use C-x 5 o to cycle through the existing frames; use C-x 5 0 to delete the current frame.

Each frame has a number to distinguish it. If your terminal can display only one frame at a time, the selected frame's number n appears near the beginning of the mode line, in the form `Fn'.

`Fn' is in fact the frame's initial name. You can give frames more meaningful names if you wish, and you can select a frame by its name. Use the command M-x set-frame-name RET name RET to specify a new name for the selected frame, and use M-x select-frame-by-name RET name RET to select a frame according to its name. The name you specify appears in the mode line when the frame is selected.

26.20 Using a Mouse in Terminal Emulators

Some terminal emulators support mouse clicks in the terminal window.

In a terminal emulator which is compatible with xterm, you can use M-x xterm-mouse-mode to give Emacs control over simple use of the mouse--basically, only non-modified single clicks are supported. The normal xterm mouse functionality for such clicks is still available by holding down the SHIFT key when you press the mouse button. Xterm Mouse mode is a global minor mode (see section Minor Modes). Repeating the command turns the mode off again.

In the console on GNU/Linux, you can use M-x t-mouse-mode. You need to have the gpm package installed and running on your system in order for this to work.

This document was generated by Mark Kaminski on July, 3 2008 using texi2html 1.70.