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Manipulating
variables
GNU
info
contains several variables whose values are looked at by various info
commands. You can change the values of these variables, and thus change
the behavior of info
to more closely match your environment and info
file
reading manner.
-
M-x
set-variable
-
Reads
the name of a variable, and the value for it, in the echo area and then
sets the variable to that value. Completion is available when reading the
variable name; often, completion is available when reading the value to
give to the variable, but that depends on the variable itself. If a variable
does not supply multiple choices to complete over, it expects a numeric
value.
-
M-x
describe-variable
-
Reads the name of a variable
in the echo area and then displays a brief description of what the variable
affects.
What follows
is a list of the variables that you can set in info.
-
automatic-footnotes
-
When set to On,
footnotes appear and disappear automatically. This variable is On
by default. When a node is selected, a window containing the footnotes
which appear in that node is created, and the footnotes are displayed within
the new window. The window that info
creates to contain the footnotes is called *Footnotes*.
If a node is selected which contains no footnotes, and a *Footnotes*
window is on the screen, the *Footnotes*
window is deleted. Footnote windows created in this fashion are not automatically
tiled so that they can use as little of the display as is possible.
-
automatic-tiling
-
When set to On,
creating or deleting a window resizes other windows. This variable
is Off
by default. Normally, typing Ctrl-x,
2
divides the current window into two equal parts. When automatic-tiling
is set to On,
all of the windows are resized automatically, keeping an equal number of
lines visible in each window. There are exceptions to the automatic tiling;
specifically, the windows *Completions*
and *Footnotes*
are not resized through automatic tiling; they remain their original
size.
-
visible-bell
-
When set to On,
GNU info
attempts to flash the screen instead of ringing the bell. This variable
is Off
by default.
-
Of course, info
can only flash the screen if the terminal allows it; in the case
that the terminal does not allow it, the setting of this variable has no
effect.
-
However, you can set the errors-ring-bell
variable to Off
to make Info perform quietly.
-
errors-ring-bell
-
When set to On,
errors cause the bell to ring. The default setting of this variable is
On.
-
gc-compressed-files
-
When set to On,
info
garbage collects files which had to be uncompressed. The default
value of this variable is Off.
Whenever a node is visited in info,
the info
file containing that node is read into core, and info
reads information about the tags and nodes contained in that file.
Once the tags information is read by info,
it is never forgotten. However, the actual text of the nodes does not need
to remain in core unless a particular info
window needs it. For non-compressed files, the text of the nodes
does not remain in core when it is no longer in use. But decompressing
a file can be a time consuming operation, and so info
tries hard not to do it twice. gc-compressed-files
tells info
it is okay to garbage collect the text of the nodes of a file which
was compressed on disk.
-
show-index-match
-
When set to On,
the portion of the matched search string is highlighted in the message
which explains where the matched search string was found. The default value
of this variable is On.
When info
displays the location where an index match was found, (see next-index-match
in Searching
an info
file),
the portion of the string that you had typed is highlighted by displaying
it in the inverse case from its surrounding characters.
-
scroll-behaviour
-
Controls
what happens when forward scrolling is requested at the end of a node,
or when backward scrolling is requested at the beginning of a node. The
default value for this variable is Continuous.
There are three possible values for this variable:
-
Continuous
-
Tries to get the first item
in this nodes menu, or failing that, the Next
node, or failing that, the Next
of the Up.
This behavior is identical to using the ]
(global-next-node)
and [
(global-prev- node)
commands.
-
Next Only
-
Only tries to get the Next
node.
-
Page Only
-
Simply gives up, changing nothing.
If scroll-behaviour
is Page Only,
no scrolling command can change the node that is being viewed.
-
scroll-step
-
The number of lines to scroll
when the cursor moves out of the window. Scrolling happens automatically
if the cursor has moved out of the visible portion of the node text when
it is time to display. Usually the scrolling is done so as to put the cursor
on the center line of the current window. However, if the variable scroll-step
has a nonzero value, info
attempts to scroll the node text by that many lines; if that is
enough to bring the cursor back into the window, that is what is done.
The default value of this variable is 0,
thus placing the cursor (and the text it is attached to) in the center
of the window. Setting this variable to 1
causes a kind of smooth scrolling which some people prefer.
-
ISO-Latin
-
When set
to On,
info
accepts and displays ISO Latin characters. By default, Info assumes an
ASCII character set. ISO-Latin
tells info
that it is running in an environment where the European standard character
set is in use, and allows you to input such characters to info,
as well as display them.
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