My FAQ

• Download Emacs (windows version) and extract the zip file to a directory.
• Create .emacs file in that directory.
• Create an environment variable with name = HOME and value = ~/path/to/that/directory
• Or, try EmacsW32.

Use XKeymacs.

• Download the flyspell.el and copy it into the directory of the Emacs load path.
• Declare the flyspell-mode function as auto-load by adding the following expression to .emacs file.

(autoload 'flyspell-mode "flyspell" "On-the-fly spelling checker." t)
(autoload 'flyspell-delay-command "flyspell" "Delay on command." t)
(autoload 'tex-mode-flyspell-verify "flyspell" "" t)

Add the following expression for spell check in \({\LaTeX}\) editing.

(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook 'flyspell-mode)

• Download aspell installer and english dictionary and install them.
• Add ~/path/to/Aspell/bin to environment variable "PATH".

• Firstly, a clip on YouTube for how doc-view mode works.
• Install Cygwin.
• Visit this website.
• The ghostscript program comes with CTeX bundle seems not to work. Instead, set doc-view-ghostscript-program to c:/cygwin/bin/gs.exe

C-5 M-! date

• Add the following to .emacs. Now when you "exit" Emacs with the familiar key sequence, what actually happens is that the server buffers (from emacsclientw) are saved and deleted and then the frame (Emacs window) is made invisible. You can check the task manager to see that Emacs is indeed still running. (See here)

(require 'server)
(defun my-done ()
    (interactive)
    (server-edit)
    (make-frame-invisible nil t))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x C-c") 'my-done)

• Invoke emacsclientw in a proper way. See here.
• Change Desktop to some frequently used directory.
• Setting up Emacs Daemon is not easy in Windows.

• EmacsWiki
• Planet Emacsen
• emacs-fu
• Emacser (in Chinese)
• Wang, Yin's blog (in Chinese)

• Install MikTeX or CTeX bundle.
• Download the zip file and extract it to the load path of Emacs.
• Add the following to .emacs.

(autoload 'reftex-mode "reftex" "RefTeX Minor Mode" t)
(autoload 'turn-on-reftex "reftex" "RefTeX Minor Mode" nil)
(autoload 'reftex-citation "reftex-cite" "Make citation" nil)
(autoload 'reftex-index-phrase-mode "reftex-index" "Phrase mode" t)
(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook 'turn-on-reftex)       ;; with AUCTeX LaTeX mode
(setq preview-scale-function 1.7)                 ;; enlarge equation preview
(setq preview-auto-cache-preamble t)              ;; auto cache preamble
(setq preview-image-type (quote pnm)))            ;; image type for preview (not sure of why)

• AUCTeX makes \(\LaTeX\) editing in Emacs much simpler, see a clip on YouTube.

• Download cdlatex.el and put it to the load path of Emacs.
• Add the following to .emacs to autoload cdlatex for AUCTeX mode.

(autoload 'cdlatex-mode "cdlatex" "CDLaTeX Mode" t)
(autoload 'turn-on-cdlatex "cdlatex" "CDLaTeX Mode" nil)
(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook 'turn-on-cdlatex) ;with AUCTeX LaTeX mode

• Add the following to .emacs to make math typing more comfortable.

(setq cdlatex-env-alist
 '(("equation*" "\\begin{equation*}\n?\n\\end{equation*}" nil)
   ("frame" "\\begin{frame}\n\\frametitle{?}\n\\end{frame}\n" nil)
   ("alignsplit" "\\begin{align*}\n&\\hspace{3ex} ?\n\\end{align*}\n" nil)
   ("ex" "\\begin{ex}\n?\n\\end{ex}" nil)
  )
)   ;; define several frequently-used environments

(setq cdlatex-command-alist
'(("eq" "Insert equation* env"   "" cdlatex-environment ("equation*") t nil)
  ("fm" "Insert frame env"   "" cdlatex-environment ("frame") t nil)
  ("al" "Insert alignsplit env" "" cdlatex-environment ("alignsplit") t nil)
  ("ex" "Insert example env" "" cdlatex-environment ("ex") t nil)
 )
)  ;; define alias of environment, type alias [TAB] to get the structure of environment

(setq cdlatex-math-symbol-alist
 '((?\; ("\\ldots"))
   (?h ("\\hat{?}"))
   (?T ("\\tilde{?}"))
   (?j ("\\{? \\}"))
   (?x ("\\text{?\}"))
   (?p ("o_P\\left(?\\right)"))
   (?P ("O_P\\left(?\\right)"))
   )
) ;; define several frequently math symbols, type `symbol to input symbol

• cdlatex simplifies math typing in \(\LaTeX\) editing. e.g., type `h`s to get \(\hat{\sigma}\), type `P to get \(O_P()\). Type `h`m[TAB]-`m=`Pfr1[TAB]sq[TAB]n. (a total of 21 keystrokes) to get \[\hat{\mu}-\mu=O_P\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}\right).\] Without using cdlatex, the above expression needs 50 keystrokes: \hat{\mu}-\mu=O_P\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}\right).

• Download the package from CRAN.
• Extract the .zip file to get .dtx and .ins
• latex *.ins to get .sty
• Create a folder in /usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex and move .sty to the new folder by using root permission (M-F2 gksu nautilus).
• Refresh the package tree by sudo texhash.

rm(list=ls(all=TRUE))

• Download ess-tracebug.el and put it into emacs load-path.
• Put the following in .emacs.

(require 'ess-tracebug)
(add-hook 'ess-post-run-hook 'ess-tracebug t)

• Use the following keybings.

  M-c b	set break point
  M-c w	watch window
  print(n)	show the value of "n"
  n	next line
  c	continue
  q	exit debugging

• For more information, see ess-tracebug google code.

nohup /unsup/R/bin/R CMD BATCH script.R output_name.out&
nohup matlab -nodisplay <script.m> output_name.out&

• Add the following to .emacs, by default org-mode only enables emacs-lisp code evaluation.

(org-babel-do-load-languages
 'org-babel-load-languages
 '((R . t)
   (emacs-lisp . t)))

• Add /path/to/R.exe to system environment variable "path", so that org-mode knows where to find R.
• C-c C-c to evaluate R code chunk and insert result to .org file. C-' to edit the current code chunk in a R major-mode edit buffer.

• See an org-mode demo.
• The following header arguments are useful.

  argument	value	function
  :exports	code/results/both/none	control which part to export
  :results	vector/latex/code	specify how they will incorporated into the Org-buffer
  :file	filename	results are saved to the named file
  :cache	yes/no	"yes" ensures the code chunk are only re-run when inputs changed

• Refer to org-mode manual for more header arguments.