Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 14:33:06 +0300 (IDT) From: Eli Zaretskii X-Sender: eliz AT is To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: INFO usage in README.1ST Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Martin Str|mberg donated an addition to the README.1ST file that describes some basic usage of the INFO browser. The relevant part of the file is reproduced below. I would like to ask people who have comments about this addition to please post them herel. In particular, please state your opinions whether the text gives enough information to read the docs and look up a specific subject there, and whether the explanations are clear. Thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Reading the documentation, or A Crash Course in Info ---------------------------------------------------- The following is not supposed to be a complete guide to using Info, just a starting point, so you could move around the docs and search it for whatever you are looking for. To invoke Info to read a manual, type "info" followed by the manual name. For example: - type "info libc" to read the C library docs; - type "info libc alphabetical printf" to read the documentation of library function `printf'; - type "info gcc" to read the manual for GCC, the GNU C compiler; - type "info faq" to read the DJGPP FAQ list; - type "info make" to read the manual for the Make utility; To exit Info, press `q' (for Quit). Once inside Info, you can move around with the usual cursor motion keys: Up-arrow, Down-arrow, PageDown, PageUp, etc. To read the entire manual in an orderly fashion, press SPACE every time you've completed reading a screenful. This will take you through the entire sequence of chapters and sections of a manual. Menus are marked by a line that says "* Menu:". Each line below the menu marker that begins with a "* " is a menu item. To choose a menu item, position the cursor at the beginning of a line, right under the asterisk `*', and press [Enter]. Hypertext links are marked by "* Note". To follow the reference, position the cursor at the asterisk, then press [Enter]. To get back from the excursion, press `l' (that's a lower-case letter ell, not the digit one), for "Last". To quickly search for a certain subject in the index of a manual, press `i' (for Index), type the subject, then press [Enter]. You can type only part of the subject name and press TAB, to see whether the index includes any entries that begin with what you typed. TAB causes Info to try to complete what you typed using the avialable index entries; if Info beeps on you or flashes the screen colors, you know that there are no index entries which begin with what you typed; delete what you have typed (using the BackSpace key) and try a different name for what you are looking. If there are some index entries that begin with what you typed, Info will complete it. If the completed entry looks like what you are looking for, press [Enter] to go to the section of the manual that discusses it; if not, press TAB again to see all the possible completions. If any of the completions seem right, type enough text to make it uinque and press [Enter]. If none of the completions seem appropriate, delete what you typed and try a different subject name. For example, suppose you get the infamous message "ld.exe: cannot open -lstdcxx: No such file or directory" and you want to check what the FAQ has to say about that. You start Info ("info faq"), then press `i' and type "can TAB". The first TAB just capitalizes "can" into "Can", so you know there are some index entries which begin with "Can", and type TAB again. Now you will see a list of potential completions. Alas, none of them seems to be relevant for this problem, so you use BackSpace to delete "Can" and then type "-lstd" followed by TAB. Now the the info program only has one choice so it completes your search and this time it's exactly what you are looking for! Now press "RET" to go to that node and read what the FAQ has to say about this subject. If you prefer to look up the subject in the index yourself, page through the top-level menu of the manual until you find a menu entry that says something like "* Concept Index" or "* Command Index" or just "* Index", press [Enter] to go to the index, then browse it for any pertinent entries. An index is just a huge menu sorted in an alphabetical order, so whenever you find an entry you are looking for, position the cursor at that line and press [Enter] to go to the relevant section. Sometimes the index search isn't good enough (because the indices cannot list everything). In this case, press `s' (for Search) and type a string you want to find, then press [Enter]. Info will search the entire manual for this string and position you at the first occurrence. To search for the next occurrence, press `s' again and then [Enter]: Info will repeat the search. Info has many more commands and options. To find out, from the command line type "info info". To find out even more, type "info info-standalone".