Configuring XEmacs for UTF-8

XEmacs has built-in Unicode support since version 21.5. It is recommended to start XEmacs from within a UTF-8 locale which will control the default coding system.

If automatic character set detection on files is not working properly, here are three commands that can help.

• set-buffer-file-coding-system (C-x RET f) changes the coding system for the current file.
• set-default-buffer-file-coding-system (C-x RET F) sets the default for unsaved buffers and ASCII-looking files that have no obvious character set markers for autodetection.
• universal-coding-system-argument (C-x RET c) lets you set the coding system for the next command, so issuing this from a dired window immediately before opening a problematic file is a tactic that can be of use when autodetection gets things pathologically wrong.

The current coding system will be displayed near the left edge of the status line.