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Ok I have been using Aquamacs and want to do a bit of customizing. So I know that I have to create a .emacs file and add my changes in that file. So I created a text file and named it .emacs in my home directory but since it's .emacs it is hidden and permission is denied to the file. In order to edit it and start adding and customizing my set up how do I access the file? Should I change the read/write permissions or something more? Thank you in advance.

Gmenfan83
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  • What do you mean, permission is denied? Since you created it you obviously have (had?) write permission. All you really need in addition is read permission. – Thomas Jan 13 '12 at 09:39
  • I did not know that creating it actually granted me write permissions. Good to know. But it's exactly as I said, permission denied. I can go to my home directory and see it listed but if I attempt to cd into it I get permission denied. – Gmenfan83 Jan 13 '12 at 13:16
  • There might be some confusion here: for customization, you may either use a *file* `.emacs` or a *directory* called `.emacs.d` (see http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Init-File.html). If you choose the former, there is nothing to `cd` into since all you have is a file. Further, creating a file does not grant you write permission. Rather, it's the other way around: if you didn't have write permission in the first place, you wouldn't be able to create the file! – Thomas Jan 14 '12 at 07:45

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Probably the easiest way to get started is to edit your .emacs file directly from Emacs. Thus, start your Aquamacs and type C-x C-f ~/.emacs RET.

Then - just to make that everything works as expected - add e.g. the following line to the file:

(message "works!")

Save the file with C-x C-s, then restart Emacs. You should see "works!" in the status line right after startup.

Open the .emacs file again as described above and start customizing.

Thomas
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