10.6. Finding Emacs Lisp Packages

Emacs contains lots of Lisp code; in fact, as we will see in Chapter 11, the majority of Emacs' built-in functionality is written in Lisp. Emacs also comes with several extra Lisp packages (also known as libraries) that you can bring in (or load) to add more features. Lisp packages are being added to Emacs all the time, and sometimes your system administrator will add packages obtained from sources other than the Free Software Foundation.

Appendix B lists the most useful built-in Lisp packages, along with explanations of how to use them. You can also get information about which packages are available on your system by typing C-h p (for finder-by-keyword). Briefly, the built-in packages do the following kinds of things:

• Support programming in C, Lisp, Perl, Java, and several other languages (see Chapter 9).

• Support text processing with TEX, LATEX, XML, and HTML (see Chapter 8).

• Emulate other editors (vi, EDT, and Gosling Emacs).

• Interface to operating system utilities, such as the shell (see Chapter 5).

• Provide editing support functions, such as spell checking (see Chapter 3) and outline editing (see Chapter 7) as well as text sorting, command history editing, Emacs variable setting (see Appendix A), and much more.

• Play various games and provide other forms of amusement.

See Appendix B for more details.