3.1.1 Go ahead, just try it

You can invoke emacs-w3m using three different commands, listed below. Try one of these commands: a web page is displayed in an Emacs buffer named "*w3m*", meaning that it is an emacs-w3m buffer. As you will probably notice, the major mode for an emacs-w3m buffer is w3m-mode, there are also minor modes (see section 3.4 That's a favorite with me!).

This section explains the most fundamental usage of these commands, see 12. Details of some emacs-w3m functions for more information on them. See also 5. Customizable variables for variables you can use to customize emacs-w3m's behavior.

w3m

Start emacs-w3m, displaying the homepage specified in the w3m-home-page variable. The default value for w3m-home-page is "about:". Set the w3m-quick-start variable to nil if you want to input a target URL every time you start emacs-w3m.

You can also use this as an Emacs batch command. Here's an example:

% emacs -f w3m

To specify a URL, you could also use:

% emacs -f w3m http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org/

w3m-find-file

Prompt for a local file name in the minibuffer, and display it in emacs-w3m.

w3m-browse-url

Prompt for a URL in the minibuffer, and display it in emacs-w3m. This command is provided, if anything, in order to start emacs-w3m from other application programs.

Moving in an emacs-w3m buffer won't be painful if you're an Emacs user already, since many of the standard keys work as intended. For instance, C-n, C-v and C-s (which are commonly used to move down one line, one page, or search downwards for a word) are valid keys in an emacs-w3m buffer.

To follow a link, use the RET key. You have to move the point to a link to do this; links are easily recognizable in a buffer because they are not displayed like ordinary text: they can be underlined, or have a different color. The face w3m-anchor-face controls how they are to be displayed (see section 5. Customizable variables).

RET

Display the page pointed by the link under point (w3m-view-this-url).

The exact behavior of this command depends on the properties of the link under point, and on whether you give it a prefix argument or not. See 12. Details of some emacs-w3m functions for details.

As mentioned above, you can be prompted for a URL when you use the command M-x w3m, by setting the w3m-quick-start variable to nil. In an emacs-w3m buffer, there are also two popular ways to go to new pages by entering their URLs, see below.

RET

In an emacs-w3m buffer, you can be prompted for a URL in the minibuffer and make emacs-w3m display the corresponding page by hitting RET after moving the point to the URL displayed in the `header-line'. This feature will feel familiar to you if you are used to GUI-based web browsers like Mozilla. Detailed explanations about this can be found in 12. Details of some emacs-w3m functions (w3m-view-this-url).

g

Prompt for a URL in the minibuffer and make emacs-w3m display the corresponding page (independently of the position of the point) in an emacs-w3m buffer. This binding will be familiar to you if you already use Gnus or Mew (w3m-goto-url).

G

Prompt for a URL in the minibuffer, and display it in a new session. This function works just like g(M-x w3m-goto-url), except that it opens a new session. When you use emacs-w3m on Emacs 21, 22 or XEmacs, opening a new session means displaying the page in a new tab. For more information about tabs, please refer to 3.5 Everybody likes tabs (w3m-goto-url-new-session).

c

Display the URL of the page being displayed in the echo area and put it in the kill-ring (w3m-print-current-url).

u

Display the target URL of the link under point in the echo area and put it in the kill-ring (w3m-print-this-url).

If the page you're reading is today's news or someone's diary, it may have been updated since you loaded it. You can refresh the page using the following command. (This command can also be useful to force a full redisplay of the page if it looks broken.)

R

Reload the page (w3m-reload-this-page).