Re: Shell based text editor for writing prose

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

On Wednesday 02 April 2003 10:23 pm, Tom Massey wrote:
> * John Griffiths <johnboy@the-riotact.com> [2003-04-03 13:09]:
> > what I'm after is a recommendation from others who might have used
> > something like this to write 5,000 word plus english language
> > documents.
>
> I've written a couple of 50,000 word novels, a 10,000 word Honours
> thesis, and numerous short stories using Emacs. I find Emacs more
> comfortable to use than vi/vim for longer works. The switching
> between command and edit modes in vi tends to break my concentration.
> In Emacs, I find it easier to stay focused on the writing rather than
> the commands needed to control the editer. But it's really a personal
> thing, which one you prefer.

I've never looked at Emacs (actually I have, but the guide I was looking 
at was rather poor).  Is it easy to re-program control keys?  How about 
margins?  Is there anything in Emacs like the ability to set (and 
easily change) paragraph margins?  Can you recommend a good guide for 
someone who has never used Emacs, but does quite well with a 
wordprocessor with a GUI?

Thanks!

Hal