I use emacs, a text editor, on my MacBook. I have a question about emacs, but there’s no chance that anyone at the Apple Store could answer it nowadays, so I think I need a Stack Overflow account. This appears to be the account creation site for individuals:
https://stackoverflow.com

Correct? Is there a one-time or annual fee?

Any comments or suggestions about the Stack Overflow forum?

I just used my Google Account (not my business email) and it automatically signed me up.
It was instant and no mention of pricing.
YMMV

There are many many Emacs old timers around who could answer any question you might have. Try Google Groups, the successor to usenet. Google "bought" the public domain usenet infrastructure back in the 90's, before then it was pretty much the main Internet discussion forum as well as used for file sharing. Most of the usenet sub-groups still exist within the Google Groups facility. Looks like there are 114 various emacs-related discussion groups, so the biggest effort may be in selecting which group in which to post a query.

Like many long-established support forums, you could probably also find something on IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

Or, simply post your question here, as SF has a wealth of knowledgeable members of pretty much any category.

Stackoverflow can be a useful resource, but drom what I've seen, its members are generally youthful and don't seem to have a broad and deep knowledge of their subjects. It is very good if you are looking for step-by-step instructions on how to do something, less so on why you might want to do it, or how otherwise to accomplish a similar result.

I just opened a Stack Overflow account. Can’t hurt, might help.

Pretty easy except for the “I am not a robot” test. Identifying all (very fuzzy) pictures with cars.

And again, I’m so thankful to have a password manager. Would hate to be without it in this day and age.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I just opened a Stack Overflow account. Can’t hurt, might help.

Pretty easy except for the “I am not a robot” test. Identifying all (very fuzzy) pictures with cars.

And again, I’m so thankful to have a password manager. Would hate to be without it in this day and age.

Could not agree more about the password manager. After I started using it, I realized it was the equivalent of continually hitting your shin against the coffee table and finally stopping. What a relief!

OK, you can consider yourself a real Emacs user when you have coded your very own password manager in Emacs Lisp. I suspect there are several out there already.

What is your emacs question?

Don’t claim to be an expert, but I have been using almost* continuously since 1981.

*I say almost because I was briefly stuck doing stuff on a stand-alone PC running DOS and had to make do with Mince, whose name is an acronym for “Mince Is Not Complete Emacs”.

Thanks ensigmatic. Unfortunately, you already offered the only suggestion I’d have. Sorry Pipe Smoker.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
Thanks ensigmatic. Unfortunately, you already offered the only suggestion I’d have. Sorry Pipe Smoker.

slosig, could you show me what your ~/.emacs looks like WRT tab controls? Mine are seen at the top of the thread that ensigmatic linked. (And I thank you for that, ensigmatic)
Thanks in advance.

P. S. – are you still using Apple-supplied emacs (pre Catalina), or emacs from Homebrew? Or maybe something else…

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
slosig, could you show me what your ~/.emacs looks like WRT tab controls? Mine are seen at the top of the thread that ensigmatic linked. (And I thank you for that, ensigmatic)
Thanks in advance.

P. S. – are you still using Apple-supplied emacs (pre Catalina), or emacs from Homebrew? Or maybe something else…

I don't change the tabs, just use the standard 8 character tab.

I'm still using Apple supplied emacs. I was finally ready to bite the bullet and deal with the loss of some non-64 bit apps when I read that Apple had removed the standard unix apps that came with FreeBSD. That put the kibosh on that. I didn't know about homebrew, but I use enough command line apps that I can't see letting Apple take them away.