2. Basic Usage

NOTE: Starting with Emacs/W3 4.0, form entry areas in a page can be typed directly into. This is one of the main differences in navigation from version 2.0. If you are used to using the f and b keys to navigate around a buffer, I suggest training yourself to always use tab and M-tab -- it will save time and frustration on pages with lots of form fields.

By default, hypertext links are surrounded by '[[' and ']]' on non-graphic terminals (VT100, DOS window, etc.). On a graphics terminal, the links are in shown in different colors. For information on how to change this, See section 4. Stylesheets.

There are approximately 50 keys bound to special Emacs/W3 functions. The basic rule of thumb regarding keybindings in Emacs/W3 is that a lowercase key takes an action on the current document, and an uppercase key takes an action on the document pointed to by the hypertext link under the cursor.

There are several areas that the keybindings fall into: movement, information, action, and miscellaneous.

2.1 Movement

All the standard Emacs bindings for movement are still in effect, with a few additions for convenience.

space

Scroll downward in the buffer. With prefix arg, scroll down that many screenfuls (w3-scroll-up).

M-space

Goes to next document.

M-del

Goes to previous document.

backspace, C-?

Scroll upward in the buffer. With prefix arg, scroll up that many screenfuls (scroll-down).

<

Goes to the start of document (w3-start-of-document).

>

Goes to the end of document (w3-end-of-document).

Meta-tab, Shift-tab, b

Attempts to move backward one link area in the current document (w3-widget-backward). Signals an error if no previous links are found.

tab, f, n

Attempts to move forward one link area in the current document (w3-widget-forward). Signals an error if no more links are found.

B, HB

Takes one step back along the path in the current history (w3-history-backward). Has no effect if at the beginning of the session history.

F, HF

Takes one step forward along the path in the current history (w3-history-forward). Has no effect if at the end of the session history.

l

Return to the last buffer shown before this buffer (w3-goto-last-buffer).

q

Kill this buffer (w3-quit).

Q, u

Bury this buffer, but don't kill it (w3-leave-buffer).

2.2 Information

These functions relate information about one or more links on the current document.

v

This shows the URL of the current document in the minibuffer (url-view-url).

V

This shows the URL of the hypertext link under point in the minibuffer (w3-view-this-url).

i

Shows miscellaneous information about the currently displayed document (w3-document-information). This includes the URL, the last modified date, MIME headers, the HTTP response code, and any relationships to other documents. Any security information is also displayed.

I

Shows information about the URL at point (w3-popup-info).

s

This shows the HTML source of the current document in a separate buffer (w3-source-document). The buffer's name is based on the document's URL.

S

Shows the HTML source of the hypertext link under point in a separate buffer (w3-source-document-at-point). The buffer's name is based on the document's URL.

k

This stores the current document's URL in the kill ring, and also in the current window-system's clipboard, if possible (w3-save-url).

K

Stores the URL of the document under point in the kill ring, and also in the current window-system's clipboard, if possible (w3-save-this-url).

2.3 Action

First, here are the keys and functions that bring up a new hypertext page, usually creating a new buffer.

m

Choose a link from the current buffer and follow it (w3-complete-link). A completing-read is done on all the links, so space and TAB can be used for completion.

return

Pressing return when over a hyperlink attempts to follow the link under the cursor (w3-follow-link).

Pressing return when over a form input field can cause auto-submission of the form. This is for Mosaic and Netscape compatibility. If there is only one item in the form other than submit or reset buttons, then the form will be submitted.

Middle Mouse Button

Attempt to follow a hypertext link under the mouse cursor (w3-follow-mouse). Clicking on a form input field will prompt in the minibuffer for the data to insert into the input field. Type checking is done, and the data is only entered into the form when data of the correct type is entered (ie: cannot enter 44 for 'date' field, etc).

Control Middle Mouse Button, Meta return

Tries to retrieve the inlined image that is under point (w3-follow-inlined-image). It ignores any form entry areas or hyperlinks, and blindly follows any inlined image. Useful for seeing images that are meant to be used as hyperlinks when not on a terminal capable of displaying graphics.

D

Download the URL at point (w3-download-url-at-point).

d

Download the current URL (w3-download-this-url).

m

Selects a destination from a list of all the hyperlinks in the current buffer (w3-complete-link). Use space and tab to complete on the links.

r, g

Reloads the current document (w3-reload-document). The position within the buffer remains the same (unless the document has changed since it was last retrieved, in which case it should be relatively close). This causes an unconditional reload from the remote server --- the locally cached copy is not consulted.

R

Redraws the buffer without reloading document (w3-refresh-buffer).

C-o

Prompts for a URL in the minibuffer, and attempts to fetch it (w3-fetch). If there are any errors, or Emacs/W3 cannot understand the type of link requested, the errors are displayed in a hypertext buffer.

o

Opens a local file, interactively (w3-open-local). This prompts for a local file name to open. The file must exist, and may be a directory. If the requested file is a directory and url-use-hypertext-dired is nil, then a dired-mode buffer is displayed. If nonnil, then Emacs/W3 automatically generates a hypertext listing of the directory. The hypertext mode is the default, so that all the keys and functions remain the same.

M-s

Save a document to the local disk as HTML Source, Formatted Text, LaTeX Source, or Binary (w3-save-as).

Hv, C-c C-b

Show the current session's history list (w3-show-history-list). This takes all the links that are in that internal list, and formats them as hypertext links in a list, 3.7 Global History

And here are the commands to move around between Emacs/W3 buffers:

l

Goes to the last WWW buffer seen (w3-goto-last-buffer).

p

Prints the current document (w3-print-this-url). Choose from several different formats to print: formatted text, HTML source, PostScript (with ps-print), or by using LaTeX and dvips). 11.2 Printing.

P

Prints out the URL under point in a variety of formats (w3-print-url-under-point). 11.2 Printing.

q

Quits WWW mode (w3-quit). This kills the current buffer and goes to the most recently visited buffer.

u, Q

This (w3-leave-buffer) is similar to w3-quit, but the buffer is not killed, it is moved to the bottom of the buffer list (so it is the least likely to show up as the default with switch-to-buffer). This is different from w3-goto-last-buffer in that it does not return to the last WWW page visited -- it is the same as using switch-to-buffer -- the buffer left in the window is fairly random.

2.4 Miscellaneous

?

Shows help for Emacs/W3 (w3-help).

C-c C-v

Show what version of Emacs/W3 you're running (w3-version).

M-m

Mails the current document to someone (w3-mail-current-document). Choose from several different formats to mail: formatted text, HTML source, PostScript, or LaTeX source. When the HTML source is mailed, then an appropriate <base> tag is inserted at the beginning of the document so that relative links may be followed correctly by whoever receives the mail.

M-M

Mails the document pointed to by the hypertext link under point to someone (w3-mail-document-under-point). Choose from several different formats to mail: formatted text, HTML source, PostScript, or LaTeX source. When the HTML source is mailed, then an appropriate <base> tag is inserted at the beginning of the document so that relative links may be followed correctly by whoever receives the mail.

M-t, A-t

gdj1: bound to url-list-processes. What does this do?

c

Send a mail to the author of the current document (w3-mail-document-author).

M-x w3-insert-formatted-url

Insert a fully formatted HTML link into another buffer (w3-insert-formatted-url). This gets the name and URL of either the current buffer, or, with a prefix arg, of the link under point, and construct the appropriate <a...>...</a> markup and insert it into the desired buffer.

M-tab

Inserts the URL of the current document into another buffer (w3-insert-this-url'). Buffer is prompted for in the minibuffer. With prefix arg, uses the URL of the link under point.

U

Selects one of the <LINK> tags from this document and fetch it (w3-use-links). Links are attributes of a specific document, and can tell such things as who made the document, where a table of contents is located, etc.

Link tags specify relationships between documents in two ways. Normal (forward) relationships (where the link has a REL="xxx" attribute), and reverse relationships (where the link has a REV="xxx" attribute). This first asks what type of link to follow (Normal or Reverse), then does a completing-read on only the links that have that type of relationship.

This document was generated by XEmacs shared group account on December, 19 2009 using texi2html 1.65.