General:

Use the ESC or META keys for some commands as indicated.
Emacs shows the line number in the buffer status line, along
with the name of the file being edited.
This will help you locate line numbers for compiler errors.

For many of the following commands there are natural uses of
the Menu-based commands.  Old EMACS hands tend to use the
keyboard rather than the mouse -- because it is faster once
you know the keys to use.

Creating a Shell within EMACS

To create a shell within EMACS (this can be very convenient
because it creates a fully scrollable terminal):
ESC X ==> shell <return>
The buffer *shell* can be treated like a normal EMACS buffer,
but you can also type commands to it!  You can, therefore, live
entirely inside an EMACS window as your primary interface to
UNIX.  This is useful when you are programming -- because you
need to see the output to different commands, and you can
scroll back to see what occurred.

Cursor Movement Commands:

To go to the beginning of the file: ESC <
To go to the end of the file: ESC >
Forward Character: ^F
Backward Character: ^B
Forward Word: ESC F
Backward Word: ESC B
Next line: ^N
Previous line: ^P
Next Page: ^V
Previous Page: ESC V

Working with Lots of Buffers:

EMACS is ideal to work with many files at the same time.  You can
see the contents of multiple files in different buffers of the same
EMACS window -- this will make things easier to manage when editing
lots of code files.

To manage a lot of files in the same EMACS:
Visiting Additional Files: ^X^F
Seeing all active buffers: ^X^B
Select a buffer by clicking mouse on that line, and type F
To switch to a buffer: ^XB ==> provide name of buffer

To split a single emacs buffer into 2: ^X 2
To go to the other window: use the mouse to click there, or ^X O

To save a file: when you are in the buffer: ^X^S
To go back to the disk version of a file (i.e., to abandon your
changes): ESC X ==> revert-buffer