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<h2 class="chapter">12 Manipulating Variables</h2>

GNU Info uses several internal variables whose values are looked
at by various Info commands. You can change the values of these
variables, and thus change the behavior of Info, if desired.

There are three ways to set the value of a variable, listed here in
order of precedence:

<ol>
<li> interactively, using the <code>set-variable</code> command described below;
</li><li> on the command line, using the <samp>-v</samp> (<samp>--variable</samp>)
command line option (see <a href="Invoking-Info.html#variable_002dassignment">variable-assignment</a>);
</li><li> in the <code>#var</code> section of the <code>.infokey</code> file (see <a href="Custom-Key-Bindings.html">Custom Key Bindings</a>).
</li></ol>

<dl compact="compact">
<dt><kbd>M-x set-variable</kbd></dt>
<dd>

Read the name of a variable, and the value for it, in the echo area
and then set the variable to that value. Completion is available when
reading the variable name (see <a href="The-Echo-Area.html">The Echo Area</a>); completion is also
available when reading the value when that makes sense. 

</dd>
<dt><kbd>M-x describe-variable</kbd></dt>
<dd>

Read the name of a variable in the echo area and display its value and
a brief description.
</dd>
</dl>

Here is a list of the variables that you can set in Info.

<dl compact="compact">
<dt><code>automatic-footnotes</code>

</dt>
<dd>

When set to <code>On</code>, footnotes appear and disappear automatically;
else, they appear at the bottom of the node text. This variable is
<code>Off</code> by default. When a node is selected, a window containing
the footnotes which appear in that node is created, and the footnotes
are displayed within the new window. The window that Info creates to
contain the footnotes is called <code>*Footnotes*</code>. If a node is
selected which contains no footnotes, and a <code>*Footnotes*</code> window
is on the screen, the <code>*Footnotes*</code> window is deleted. Footnote
windows created in this fashion are not automatically tiled so that
they can use as little of the display as is possible.

</dd>
<dt><code>automatic-tiling</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>On</code>, creating or deleting a window resizes other
windows. This variable is <code>Off</code> by default. Normally, typing
&lsquo;<samp>C-x 2</samp>&rsquo; divides the current window into two equal parts. When
<code>automatic-tiling</code> is set to <code>On</code>, all of the windows are
resized automatically, keeping an equal number of lines visible in
each window. Any <code>*Completions*</code> and <code>*Footnotes*</code> windows
are exceptions to the automatic tiling; they retain their original
size.

</dd>
<dt><code>cursor-movement-scrolls</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>On</code>, when cursor movement commands reach the
top or bottom of a node, another node is loaded depending on the
value of <code>scroll-behavior</code> (see below). This is the default.
When this variable is set to <code>Off</code>, cursor movements stop at the
top or bottom of a node.

</dd>
<dt><code>errors-ring-bell</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>On</code> (the default), errors cause the bell to ring.

</dd>
<dt><code>follow-strategy</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>remain</code> (the default), Info tries to remain within the
directory containing the currently displayed Info file when following a
cross-reference to an external manual, before looking for the referenced
manual in the search path. The alternative value is <code>path</code>, which
means to look through the search path right away.

<code>remain</code> is intended to be useful for several Texinfo manuals that
all reference each other and whose versions should match each other.
(For example, various manuals relating to a particular version of
Emacs.)

The alternative behavior, with <code>path</code>, may be useful when your
Info file search path parallels your command shell&rsquo;s search path, and
you always want to find documentation of the version of the program that
the shell would execute.

</dd>
<dt><code>gc-compressed-files</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>On</code>, Info garbage collects files which had to be
uncompressed. The default value of this variable is <code>Off</code>.
Whenever a node is visited in Info, the Info file containing that node
is read into memory, and Info reads information about the tags and
nodes contained in that file. Once the tags information is read by
Info, it is never forgotten. However, the actual text of the nodes
does not need to be retained unless a particular Info window needs it.
For non-compressed files, node text is not remembered when it is no
longer in use. But de-compressing a file can be a time-consuming
operation, and so Info tries hard not to do it twice. This variable
tells Info it is okay to garbage collect the text of the nodes of a
file which was compressed on disk.

</dd>
<dt><code>hide-note-references</code>

</dt>
<dd>By default, Info displays the contents of Info files mostly verbatim,
including text that is used by Info readers for navigation (for example,
marking the location of menus or cross-references). If you set this
variable to <code>On</code>, some of this text is hidden, in a similar way to
the <code>Info-hide-note-references</code> variable in Emacs
(see <a href="../info/Emacs-Info-Variables.html#Emacs-Info-Variables">Emacs Info Variables</a> in <cite>Info</cite>).

</dd>
<dt><code>highlight-searches</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>On</code>, highlight matches from searching commands
(see <a href="Searching-Commands.html">Searching Commands</a>).

</dd>
<dt><code>infopath-no-defaults</code>

</dt>
<dd>Used in conjunction with the <code>INFOPATH</code> environment variable
(see <a href="Invoking-Info.html#INFOPATH">INFOPATH</a>). When set to <code>On</code>, the default documentation
directory defined when Info was built (e.g., <samp>/usr/share/info</samp>)
is not added to the search path for Info files.

</dd>
<dt><code>ISO-Latin</code>

</dt>
<dd>

The default is <code>On</code>, which means that Info accepts and displays
characters represented by bytes with values 128 and above, such as
characters in the UTF-8 encoding or in various 8-bit ISO Latin
characters, as well as allowing you to input such characters.

The only reason to set this variable to <code>Off</code> would be if your
terminal set the eighth bit of a byte to represent the Meta key being
pressed.

</dd>
<dt><code>key-time</code>

</dt>
<dd>
Length of time in milliseconds to wait for the next byte of a byte
sequence generated by a key (or key chord) on the keyboard. For
example, if the <kbd>down</kbd> key generates the byte sequence
<kbd>ESC O B</kbd>, and the two bytes <kbd>ESC O</kbd> have been
received, then a <kbd>B</kbd> byte would have to be received within this
length of time for a key press of <kbd>down</kbd> to be registered. You
may wish to set this variable to a larger value for slow terminals or
network connections.

If you set this variable to 0, it&rsquo;s unspecified whether a recognized
byte sequence representing a key takes precedence over another
recognized sequence representing a key that is an initial subsequence of
the first sequence. In some cases, you may be able to make pressing a
special key on the keyboard that Info doesn&rsquo;t know about (for example, a
function key) cause a command to be executed by setting this variable to
0, and giving the byte sequence the key sends in <samp>.infokey</samp>.
(See <a href="Custom-Key-Bindings.html">Custom Key Bindings</a>.)

</dd>
<dt><code>min-search-length</code>

</dt>
<dd>Minimum length of a search string (default 1). Attempts to initiate a
search for a string (or regular expression) shorter than this value,
result in an error.

</dd>
<dt><code>mouse</code>

</dt>
<dd>What method to use to get input from a mouse device. The default value is
&lsquo;<samp>Off</samp>&rsquo;. Set this variable to <code>normal-tracking</code> to make Info use
&ldquo;normal tracking mode&rdquo; if it detects that the terminal supports it. This 
enables you to scroll the contents of the active window with a mouse 
scrollwheel.



On terminal emulators running under the X Window System, such as
<code>xterm</code>, you can usually select text with the mouse. However,
mouse tracking mode may interfere with this. When this happens, you may
be able to select text by holding down the <kbd>Shift</kbd> key while
clicking and dragging.

</dd>
<dt><code>nodeline</code>

</dt>
<dd>
How to print the node header line that appears at the top of each node.
By default only the pointers to neighbouring nodes are displayed
(the &ldquo;Next&rdquo;, &ldquo;Prev&rdquo;, and &ldquo;Up&rdquo; pointers): this corresponds to
the <code>pointers</code> value for this variable. To print the entire line,
set <code>nodeline</code> to the value <code>print</code>, which will include the
filename and name of the node. To not display the header line at all,
use the value <code>no</code>.

</dd>
<dt><code>scroll-behavior</code>

</dt>
<dt><code>scroll-behaviour</code>

</dt>
<dd>The two variable names are synonymous. Control what happens when
scrolling commands are used at the end or beginning of a node
(see <a href="Scrolling-Commands.html">Scrolling Commands</a>). The default value for this variable is
<code>Continuous</code>. Possible values:

<dl compact="compact">
<dt><code>Continuous</code></dt>
<dd>Try to get the first item in this node&rsquo;s menu, or failing that, the
&lsquo;<samp>Next</samp>&rsquo; node, or failing that, the &lsquo;<samp>Next</samp>&rsquo; of the &lsquo;<samp>Up</samp>&rsquo;
node. This behavior is identical to using the &lsquo;<samp>]</samp>&rsquo;
(<code>global-next-node</code>) and &lsquo;<samp>[</samp>&rsquo; (<code>global-prev-node</code>)
commands.

</dd>
<dt><code>Next Only</code></dt>
<dd>Only try to get the &lsquo;<samp>Next</samp>&rsquo; node.

</dd>
<dt><code>Page Only</code></dt>
<dd>Just stop, changing nothing. With this value, no scrolling command
can change the node that is being viewed.
</dd>
</dl>

This variable also affects cursor movement commands (see <a href="Cursor-Commands.html">Cursor Commands</a>) unless the <code>cursor-movement-scrolls</code> variable is set to
<code>Off</code>. See <a href="#cursor_002dmovement_002dscrolls">cursor-movement-scrolls</a>.

</dd>
<dt><code>scroll-last-node</code>

</dt>
<dd>Control what happens when a scrolling command is issued at the end of
the last node. Possible values are:

<dl compact="compact">
<dt><code>Stop</code></dt>
<dd>Do not scroll. Display the &lsquo;<samp>No more nodes within this document</samp>&rsquo;
message. This is the default.

</dd>
<dt><code>Top</code></dt>
<dd>Go to the top node of the document.
</dd>
</dl>

This variable is in effect only if <code>scroll-behavior</code> is set to
<code>Continuous</code>.

</dd>
<dt><code>scroll-step</code>

</dt>
<dd>The number of lines to scroll to bring the cursor back into the window.
The default value of this variable is 1, which causes a kind of &ldquo;smooth
scrolling&rdquo; which some people prefer. Scrolling happens automatically
if the cursor has moved out of the visible portion of the node text.

If the variable <code>scroll-step</code> is 0, the cursor (and the
text it is attached to) is placed in the centre of the window.

</dd>
<dt><code>search-skip-screen</code>

</dt>
<dd>Set the starting point of repeated searches (see <a href="Searching-Commands.html#repeated_002dsearch">repeated-search</a>).
When set to <code>Off</code> (the default), repeated searches start at the
position immediately following (when searching in forward direction),
or immediately preceding (when searching backwards) the cursor. When
set to <code>On</code>, repeated searches omit lines visibly displayed on
the screen. In other words, forward searches (<kbd>}</kbd>) start at the
beginning of the next page, and backward searches (<kbd>{</kbd>) start at
the end of the previous page.

</dd>
<dt><code>show-index-match</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>On</code> (the default), the portion of the matched search
string that you typed is indicated (by displaying it in the
&ldquo;opposite&rdquo; case) in the result message (see <a href="Searching-Commands.html"><code>next-index-match</code></a>).

</dd>
<dt><code>visible-bell</code>

</dt>
<dd>When set to <code>On</code>, Info attempts to flash the screen instead of
ringing the bell. This variable is <code>Off</code> by default. If the
terminal does not allow flashing, this variable has no effect. (But
you can still make Info perform quietly by setting the
<code>errors-ring-bell</code> variable to <code>Off</code>; or using an external
command to mute the bell, e.g., <code>xset b 0 0 0</code>.)

</dd>
</dl>

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