how to interrupt emacs spell check (frozen) - emacs

I'm using emacs 23.1.1 (on linux) for editing of my software. I usually use the short-cut alt-shft-5 for replacing. However, if I accidently hit alt-shft-4, emacs freezes saying "Checking Spelling of CC..."
How can I interrupt/stop this to get back to my editing session?

Use C-g. It calls keyboard-quit.
C-g can unfreeze almost any hung up state. That's how people get months long
up-times for Emacs.

Related

running multiple "emacs -nw" in different terminals

When I'm coding I'm using multiple "emacs nowindow mode", each one oppened in different terminal. It is really annoying when you have the same file on multiple emacs. Is there a way to synchronize them on save? (to update the other instances of emacs?)
I know that the best solution is not to do this :), but it is hard to break old habbits :)
Cheers,
Stole
p.s I work on Linux systems
It sounds like the ultimate problem you want to solve is working with the common files across Emacs frames. Emacs allows multiple client frames for a single running instance of Emacs. Unless you have technical motivations for entirely isolated instances of Emacs (i.e. isolated global state) I would recommend using this feature. That way you entirely avoid issues arising from concurrent edits to files.
Start the Emacs server from the command line via:
$ emacs --daemon
Alternately you can start the server after emacs has started using M-x server-start.
Then you can create client frames as you need them. Instead of typing emacs -nw, use:
$ emacsclient -nw
Depending on how you work you may need to exit Emacs differently to preserve other clients. Use C-x 5 0 (delete-frame) to close a single client rather than C-x C-c (save-buffers-kill-terminal).
Start your emacs instance in background when your session starts and then use emacsclient -nw to open a new frame in each terminal session. It's not exactly what you're doing but it is the closest I can think of.

M-x not working for 2 days in Emacs

I do use Emacs for years, and in particular the Cygwin Emacs version (under Windows 10) for months.
Since 2 days, M-x combo key is not working anymore, well ESC x but I don't want to be forced to use Emacs à la Vi ;-)
First, I thought that the keyboard of my laptop could have a trouble, but the same effect is observed with an external keyboard connected by USB.
Second, I though it could be due to some changes I did in my own Emacs init file, or changes inherited from MELPA. To test that, I came back into time with Git, but that wasn't it: problem still observed; to test for MELPA packages, I used a minimal Emacs (emacs -q) and, once again, the problem still persists.
(And ESC x displays that M-x, translated from <escape> x, runs the command
execute-extended-command -- which is expected.)
Finally, what's weird, is that the key x alone is working, and so does C-x. On the other hand, M (meta) is working: M-c, M-w do work like expected.
So, to sum up, only the particular combination M-x is not working, and I really have no idea why.
Any smart test I could do to debug this (on Win 10)?
To sum up the answer in the comments:
If your key combination does not do what you expect - use C-h k to find out if it's a wrong mapping inside emacs, or something is grabbing this combination before emacs has a chance. If C-h k doesn't do anything in response to Alt-X - then you can be certain emacs doesn't see it at all.
If you want to confirm a key combination has been hijacked try to use some other application with it. Alt-X isn't used by regular Windows applications, but if you happen to have anything else that can have customized key bindings then try to map Alt-X to anything inside it. Eclipse, IntelliJ, Visual Studio, gvim. But seeing what happens with C-h k is a sufficient proof.
To find out what is stealing your Alt-X check what was installed or reconfigured lately. Disable startup programs if you can't recall. Additionally, from my experience a couple of nasty offenders: Intel video driver, and Windows language bar. (Not with Alt-X, with other key combinations.) Windows language bar is especially annoying when it steals C-S-) which I use for slurp.
Last thing. If you are running in a VM, your key combination may be stolen at either host or guest level (or both, as I've seen with the language bar.) So you may need to look around in both places.
I encountered the same problem. But I found that the problem was come up with the conflict of hotkey. On my Win10 OS, M-w is conflicted with the Tencent QQ software. So when I closed the QQ or changed the QQ's hotkey, the Emacs worked well.
I don't know why, but the problem is with Growl for windows v2.0.8. Close it and emacs will run normally.
Anyways, any new program setup could create conflicts. Stop all new (since the bug) process and check it.
(I don't want to change the keys configuration)

Emacs (Multi)Term vs Xterm vs Console & TMUX

I'm an Emacs user trying to learn a software tool that is best run from a terminal. The default set-up to get the most out of that tool is to use xterm for interaction and call Vim for editing. One could simply replace Vim with Emacs in this setup, but then one would spend most of the time working outside of Emacs in an Xterm.
I figured out there is (Multi)Term-mode in Emacs, but it is really hard to find out about its pros and cons. So I have the following questions:
[Without X11]: Why or when would anybody use Emacs (Mutli)Term instead of Console & TMUX (or GNU Screen)?
[With X11] How does Emacs (Multi)Term compare to Xterm?
Obviously speed is one criteria for comparison, but I'm sure there are other.
You'd use Emacs term over tmux/screen if you're more familiar with Emacs and already use it for many other things and/or if you spend more time in Emacs than in the terminal.
Emacs's Term is much less sophisticated and much less reliable than xterm. But it works within Emacs so if you live in Emacs, it might be a good option.
Note that you may also prefer to use Emacs's M-x shell functionality, which gives you a command line without giving you an actual terminal emulator. That means that the commands are edited in Emacs before being sent to the underlying command-line program, so all the usual Emacs editing can be used there (and the history manipulation as well as command completion is performed by Emacs as well, which can be great, or can be disappointing (e.g. if the completion needs info which Emacs does not have)).

What's the difference between "abort" and "terminate-thread" in emacs?

When I use emacs, I often meet some errors in my code.
When there are some errors in my code, emacs ask me whether I want to "abort" or "terminate-thread".
I want to know what the difference is between "abort" and "terminate-thread" in emacs.
Which one should I choose that will be better?
I don't think this question comes from Emacs. So please give us more information (OS in which you run Emacs, which processes you might be running within Emacs, what kind of error happens, where is the actual question displayed (within Emacs's minibuffer, or some popup dialog), ...
Are you using SLIME?
In that case, "abort" will just stop your program, whereas "terminate-thread" will also kill the Lisp thread that SLIME is talking to.

Emacs switches to old buffers when a stale command is quit

I must be in the habit of leaving the mini-buffer in the middle of a command. From there I will change buffers and continue working. Later (sometimes much later) I'll notice that I had a command dangling incomplete in the mini-buffer. If I go to cancel it with a C-g, Emacs will often swap buffers in my open windows to an earlier state.
I suppose this may be a feature, but in my flow of work I find it rather annoying. Is there a way to stop this behavior or prevent it from happening, such as a warning that There is an incomplete command?
I think that the answer to another question will help you solve this. It can be an annoying behavior, but the solution limits some of the flexibility found in Emacs.
The answer is: How can I prevent the mini-buffer from displaying previous commands in Emacs? (I call it stop-using-minibuffer).