Emacs Commandments: the SEVEN Commands You Must Know

By Xah Lee. Date: 2012-10-29

Thou shall know this concept: (1) everything is a command. (2) a command may have a keybinding.

Thou shall have met Adam and Eve:

execute-extended-command 【Alt+x】→ call a command by name
keyboard-quit 【Ctrl+g】 → cancel a command or key sequence

Thou shall know thy brethren:

describe-function
describe-key

Thou shall then know thy siblings:

describe-mode
describe-variable
describe-char (useful for Unicode)

Then, know thou this: apropos-command and apropos and universal-argument 【Ctrl+u】.

If you are not familiar with them, see: Tips on Long Term Emacs Productivity.

But when coding elisp or doing configuration, sometimes you have a value, and you want to know which variable possibly hold that value. The answer is: apropos-value. I learned my way from: [who holds this value? 2012-06-20 By Dirk-Jan C Binnema. At http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2012/06/who-holds-this-value.html , accessed on 2012-10-29 ]

Go forth and memorize them, every last single one of them. Then, you shall beat Darth Vader.