Then, to start it, just type:

gnuclient

I’ve added some more stuff in my ~/.xemacs/init.el to configure the behavior of GnuClient:

; gnuclient lets you open files in a running xemacs process, but only
; if the existing process is associated with a gnuserv server. So
; start it:
(load "gnuserv")
(gnuserv-start)

; set some gnuserv options
; gnuserv-frame nil means open a new frame for every gnuclient
; gnuserv-frame t means open gnuclient in exisiting frame
(setq gnuserv-frame nil)
; don't ask for confirm when killing gnuclient buffers:
(setq gnuserv-kill-quietly t)

;;; Instead of closing XEmacs, just close a frame.  Or if the frame
;;; was opened by gnuserv, use gnuserv to close it.
(defun exit-from-screen-or-xemacs ()
  "Close the screen and if we're on the last screen, close XEmacs"
  (interactive)
  (cond ((and (featurep 'gnuserv) (gnuserv-buffer-p (current-buffer)))
         (gnuserv-edit))
        ((= (length (frame-list)) 1)
         (save-buffers-kill-emacs))
        (t
         (delete-frame)))) 

; then, we bind it to C-x C-c:
(global-set-key "\C-x\C-c" 'exit-from-screen-or-xemacs)
    

Another alternative for quick file editing if you’re used to XEmacs key bindings is JED.

For me, the default is set to 70 in ~/.xemacs/init.el by this line:
(setq default-fill-column 70).

If you want to change fill-column temporarily for the current buffer, you’ll figure out quickly enough that you can use M-x set-fill-column or C-x f. However, if you’re hoping to use that and then just enter a number, it doesn’t work, but instead XEmacs complains:

set-fill-column requires an explicit argument

You need to give that first using C-u.

For example, to change fill-column to 80:

C-u 80<RET>C-x f<RET>

To change fill-column to where point currently is, omit the argument to C-u:

C-u<RET>C-x f<RET>

Addendum

Maybe I made a mistake, or maybe things are different with Emacs, which I am now using. In any case, on Emacs, you should not hit enter between C-u (and its argument, if any) and the C-x f. So the commands to type would be:

C-u 80 C-x f

and

C-u C-x f

respectively.

Addendum

Make sure you get the development version.

env

in a terminal window (where the file displayed correctly). This gives a list of all environment variables that are set, and one of them was:

LANG=en_GB.UTF-8

I was able to fix this by adding the following three lines to the file ~/.xemacs/init.el (then you have to load that file with M-x load-file or restart XEmacs):

(require 'un-define)
(set-coding-priority-list '(utf-8))
(set-coding-category-system 'utf-8 'utf-8)


I needed all three lines. The first was needed to even make UTF-8 available when setting the encoding for the current buffer (with C-x C-m f, something I found via the “Edit → Multilingual” menu). But with only the first line, the buffer still didn’t get detected correctly, and even when I set the encoding manually to UTF-8, it didn’t display the umlauts correctly.

The three lines don’t change the default encoding of new files. For me, this is “ISO8 — iso-2022-8″. Even if I manually set a new file to UTF-8 encoding, the next time I open it it opens in ISO8 unless it contains something like an umlaut.

It ‘works’ now, but I still have some questions:

• Why doesn’t XEmacs use the default coding system that is used by my terminal window and set to UTF-8?
• Should I try to change the default coding system for XEmacs, either to UTF-8 or to ISO-8859-1?
• What’s the difference between ISO-2022-8 and ISO-8859-1? Does it matter?