How do I get to the menu in Emacs in console mode?

Question

If you launch Emacs using the -nw flag to force a console session (rather than an X session if you have X windows running), how do you get to the menu?

There are some items held in the menus that are infrequently-enough used on my part that I don't recall the escape or control sequence to do them.

score 94 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 10 '08 at 13:53

94

M-x menu-bar-open, which is usually bound to F10. This works with and without menu-bar-mode (which just shows the names of the menus at the top of the screen).

answered Oct 10 '08 at 13:53

Chris Conway

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Also, in case you're on Mac and have F10 bound to Expose, you can use Ctrl+F10 to get the same effect. Tested with a vanilla install of Emacs 23 from homebrew. – michael.bartnett Dec 08 '10 at 16:04
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But, this way, we can not display menu bar of special buffer mode, isn't ? That is, in SVN buffer, we can not open SVN menu. – swdev Mar 01 '11 at 13:06
@swdev - This is my experience too. – malcook Jan 17 '14 at 18:35
F10 works in 2021 with Emacs 27.1 ([built from source](https://pmortensen.eu/world2/2020/11/11/building-emacs-from-source-on-ubuntu-20-04/)) on Linux ([Ubuntu MATE 20.04](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_MATE#Releases) (Focal Fossa) with [Cinnamon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon_(desktop_environment))). – Peter Mortensen Mar 10 '21 at 20:29

score 16 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:44

16

On my computer (with openSUSE), it is not F10 but M-` which allows to access menu items. More information is available here:

http://linux.about.com/od/emacs_doc/a/emacsdoc317.htm

edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:44

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 14 '08 at 09:07

stephanea

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Worked on my Mac terminal and opens in a new buffer where you use simple key commands to move around and go to the menu items you want. e.g., `3` – pjammer Aug 05 '14 at 13:42
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M-` calls tmm-menubar (text-mode-menu), which shows the menu options in a buffer, while F10 calls menu-bar-open, which lets you navigate the menubar in place. But if the menubar is off, F10 runs tmm-menubar. – Brian Burns Jan 03 '15 at 07:27
link is broken. – Philip Kirkbride May 25 '17 at 12:18
The link is broken (404). – Peter Mortensen Mar 10 '21 at 20:45

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:46

7

F10 is inaccessible for ssh to a remote host over a Mac terminal.

How to get to the menu:

C-h b to get all the key bindings.

Use C-s to incrementally search on "menu" in the key bindings help. Hit C-s to find next and next occurrences.

See the ESC `?

Type ESC ` on the Mac and it will work.

edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:46

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 21 '12 at 20:08

Richard

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score 7 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:43

7

The F10 key will access the menus for me in both Windows versions and a console version in Red Hat Linux (RHEL) 4.

edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:43

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 10 '08 at 13:49

crashmstr

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Drew · Answer 5 · 2013-11-30T02:33:34.413

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La Carte (library lacarte.el) --------

It lets you execute menu commands from the keyboard, using completion:

ESC M-x
Menu command:
Menu command: t [TAB]
Menu command: Tools > 
Menu command: Tools > Compa [TAB]
Menu command: Tools > Compare (Ediff) > Two F [TAB]
Menu command: Tools > Compare (Ediff) > Two Files... [RET]

edited Nov 30 '13 at 02:33

answered Sep 05 '11 at 07:08

Drew

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score 4 · Answer 6 · edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:48

4

For my Emacs and Mac setup, I found that Command + Fn + F10 creates a buffer showing Emacs menu-content selectable by a further keystroke.

edited Mar 10 '21 at 20:48

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 26 '12 at 15:43

msudder

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score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 10 '08 at 13:46

3

M-x menu-bar-mode

answered Oct 10 '08 at 13:46

JesperE

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That looks like it turns the menu on and off – crashmstr Oct 10 '08 at 13:50

How do I get to the menu in Emacs in console mode?

7 Answers7