1 @c This is part of the Emacs manual.
2 @c Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 @c See file emacs.texi for copying conditions.
4 @node Mac OS, MS-DOS, Antinews, Top
5 @appendix Emacs and the Mac OS
9 Emacs built on the Mac OS supports many of its major features:
10 multiple frames, colors, scroll bars, menu bars, use of the mouse,
11 fontsets, international characters, input methods, coding systems, and
12 synchronous subprocesses (@code{call-process}). Much of this works in
13 the same way as on other platforms and is therefore documented in the
14 rest of this manual. This section describes the peculiarities of using
15 Emacs under the Mac OS.
17 The following features of Emacs are not yet supported on the Mac:
18 unexec (@code{dump-emacs}), asynchronous subprocesses
19 (@code{start-process}), and networking (@code{open-network-connection}).
20 As a result, packages such as Gnus, Ispell, and Comint do not work.
22 Since external Unix programs to handle commands such as
23 @code{print-buffer} and @code{diff} are not available on the Mac OS,
24 they are not supported in the Mac OS version.
27 * Mac Input:: Keyboard input on the Mac.
28 * Mac International:: International character set support on the Mac.
29 * Mac Environment Variables:: Setting environment variables for Emacs.
30 * Mac Directories:: Volumes and directories on the Mac.
31 * Mac Font Specs:: Specifying fonts on the Mac.
32 * Mac Functions:: Mac specific Lisp functions.
37 @section Keyboard Input on the Mac
38 @cindex Meta (under Mac OS)
39 @cindex Mac keyboard coding
40 @vindex mac-command-key-is-meta
41 @vindex mac-keyboard-text-encoding
43 On the Mac, Emacs can use either the @key{option} key or the
44 @key{command} key as the @key{META} key. If the value of the variable
45 @code{mac-command-key-is-meta} is non-@code{nil} (its default value),
46 Emacs uses the @key{command} key as the @key{META} key. Otherwise it uses the
47 @key{option} key as the @key{META} key.
49 Most people should want to use the @key{command} key as the @key{META} key,
50 so that dead-key processing with the @key{option} key will still work. This is
51 useful for entering non-ASCII Latin characters directly from the Mac
52 keyboard, for example.
54 Emacs recognizes the setting in the Keyboard control panel and
55 supports international and alternative keyboard layouts (e.g., Dvorak).
56 Selecting one of the layouts from the keyboard layout pull-down menu
57 will affect how the keys typed on the keyboard are interpreted.
59 The Mac OS intercepts and handles certain key combinations (e.g.,
60 @key{command}-@key{SPC} for switching input languages). These will not
63 The Mac keyboard ordinarily generates characters in the Mac Roman
64 encoding. To use it for entering ISO Latin-1 characters directly, set
65 the value of the variable @code{mac-keyboard-text-encoding} to
66 @code{kTextEncodingISOLatin1}. Note that that not all Mac Roman
67 characters that can be entered at the keyboard can be converted to ISO
70 To enter ISO Latin-2 characters directly from the Mac keyboard. Set
71 the value of @code{mac-keyboard-text-encoding} to
72 @code{kTextEncodingISOLatin2}. Then let Emacs know that the keyboard
73 generates Latin-2 codes by typink @kbd{C-x RET k iso-latin-2 RET}. To
74 make this setting permanent, put this in your @file{.emacs} init file:
77 (set-keyboard-coding-system 'iso-latin-2)
80 @node Mac International
81 @section International Character Set Support on the Mac
82 @cindex Mac Roman coding system
83 @cindex Mac clipboard support
85 The Mac uses a non-standard encoding for the upper 128 single-byte
86 characters. It also deviates from the ISO 2022 standard by using code
87 points in the range 128-159. The coding system @code{mac-roman} is used
88 to represent this Mac encoding. It is used for editing files stored in
89 this native encoding, and for displaying filenames in Dired mode.
91 Any native (non-symbol) Mac font can be used to correctly display
92 characters in the @code{mac-roman} coding system.
94 The fontset @code{fontset-mac} is created automatically when Emacs is
95 run on the Mac by the following expression. It displays characters in
96 the @code{mac-roman} coding system using 12-point Monaco.
98 To insert characters directly in the @code{mac-roman} coding system,
99 type @kbd{C-x RET k mac-roman RET}, or put this in your @file{.emacs}
103 (set-keyboard-coding-system 'mac-roman)
107 This is useful for editing documents in native Mac encoding.
109 You can use input methods provided either by LEIM (@pxref{Input
110 Methods}) or the Mac OS to enter international characters.
112 To use the former, see the International Character Set Support section
115 To use input methods provided by the Mac OS, set the keyboard coding
116 system accordingly using the @kbd{C-x RET k} command
117 (@code{set-keyboard-coding-system}). For example, for Traditional
118 Chinese, use @samp{chinese-big5} as keyboard coding system; for
119 Japanese, use @samp{sjis}, etc. Then select the desired input method in
120 the keyboard layout pull-down menu.
122 The Mac clipboard and the Emacs kill ring (@pxref{Killing}) are
123 connected as follows: the most recent kill is copied to the clipboard
124 when Emacs is suspended and the contents of the clipboard is inserted
125 into the kill ring when Emacs resumes. The result is that you can yank
126 a piece of text and paste it into another Mac application, or cut or copy
127 one in another Mac application and yank it into a Emacs buffer.
129 The encoding of text selections must be specified using the commands
130 @kbd{C-x RET x} (@code{set-selection-coding-system}) or @kbd{C-x RET X}
131 (@code{set-next-selection-coding-system}) (e.g., for Traditional
132 Chinese, use @samp{chinese-big5-mac} and for Japanese,
133 @samp{sjis-mac}). @xref{Specify Coding}, for more details.
136 @node Mac Environment Variables
137 @section Environment Variables and Command Line Arguments.
138 @cindex Mac environment variables
140 Environment variables and command line arguments for Emacs can be set
141 by modifying the @samp{STR#} resources 128 and 129, respectively. A common
142 environment variable that one may want to set is @samp{HOME}.
144 The way to set an environment variable is by adding a string of the
152 to resource @samp{STR#} number 128 using @code{ResEdit}. To set up the
153 program to use unibyte characters exclusively, for example, add the
161 @node Mac Directories
162 @section Volumes and Directories on the Mac
163 @cindex file names under Mac OS
165 The directory structure in the Mac OS is seen by Emacs as
168 /<volumename>/<pathname>
171 So when Emacs requests a file name, doing filename completion on
172 @file{/} will display all volumes on the system. As in Unix, @file{..}
173 can be used to go up a directory level.
175 To access files and folders on the desktop, look in the folder
176 @file{Desktop Folder} in your boot volume (this folder is usually
177 invisible in the Mac @code{Finder}).
179 Emacs creates the Mac folder @file{:Preferences:Emacs:} in the
180 @file{System Folder} and uses it as the temporary directory. The Unix
181 emulation code maps the Unix directory @file{/tmp} to it. Therefore it
182 is best to avoid naming a volume @file{tmp}. If everything works
183 correctly, the program should leave no files in it when it exits. You
184 should be able to set the environment variable @code{TMPDIR} to use
185 another directory but this folder will still be created.
189 @section Specifying Fonts on the Mac
190 @cindex font names under Mac OS
192 Fonts are specified to Emacs on the Mac in the form of a standard X
196 -FOUNDRY-FAMILY-WEIGHT-SLANT-WIDTH--PIXELS-POINTS-
197 HRES-VRES-SPACING-AVEWIDTH-CHARSET
200 where the fields refer to foundry, font family, weight, slant, width,
201 pixels, point size, horizontal resolution, vertical resolution, spacing,
202 average width, and character set, respectively.
204 Wildcards are supported as they are on X.
206 Native Apple fonts in Mac Roman encoding has foundry name @code{apple}
207 and charset @code{mac-roman}. For example 12-point Monaco can be
208 specified by the name @samp{-apple-monaco-*-12-*-mac-roman}.
210 Native Apple Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and
211 Korean fonts have charsets @samp{big5-0}, @samp{gb2312-0},
212 @samp{jisx0208.1983-sjis}, and @samp{ksc5601-1}, respectively.
214 Single-byte fonts converted from GNU fonts in BDF format, which are not
215 in the Mac Roman encoding, have foundry, family, and character sets
216 encoded in the names of their font suitcases. E.g., the font suitcase
217 @samp{ETL-Fixed-ISO8859-1} contains fonts which can be referred to by
218 the name @samp{-ETL-fixed-*-iso8859-1}.
222 @section Mac Specific Lisp Functions
223 @cindex Lisp functions on the Mac OS
225 @findex do-applescript
226 The function @code{do-applescript} takes a string argument,
227 executes it as an AppleScript command, and returns the result as a
230 @findex mac-filename-to-unix
231 @findex unix-filename-to-mac
232 The function @code{mac-filename-to-unix} takes a Mac pathname and
233 returns the Unix equivalent. The function @code{unix-filename-to-mac}
234 performs the opposite conversion. They are useful for constructing
235 AppleScript commands to be passed to @code{do-applescript}.