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