The environment has a text editor which is designed specifically to make writing Lisp source code easier. It is very similar to the EMACS text editor, and you should refer to the Editor User Guide supplied with your software, for a full description of the extensive range of functions and commands available.
The editor features a comprehensive set of menus, as well as a number of different views, and it has an interface which is completely consistent with all the other tools in the environment. This chapter gives a complete description of these aspects of the editor, as well as giving you a general overview of how the editor is used. If you have not used EMACS before, this chapter tells you all you need to know to get started.
The advantage of the editor is its ability to perform a wide range of operations by using menu commands, as well as the keyboard commands described in more detail in the Editor User Guide . These operations range from simple tasks such as navigating around a file, to more complex actions which have been specifically designed to ease the task of writing Lisp code.
By becoming familiar with the menu commands available, you can learn to use the editor effectively in a very short space of time, before moving on to more advanced operations.
Like other tools, the editor offers a number of different views, which you can switch between using the tabs at the top of the editor window. Unlike other tools, one view in particular is used more often than any other.
You can create an editor using any of the following methods:
Ctrl+X Ctrl+F . Type in the name of a file that you want to edit, including the full pathname if it is not in the current directory.Notice that when you create an editor from the Tools menu, you are not actually editing a file immediately.