HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Gunnar Teege)
Subject: Control-g makes emacs crash. Solution wanted!
Organization: Inst. fuer Informatik, TU Muenchen, Germany
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:27:03 GMT

Perhaps someone knows how to solve this problem:

I just installed the ebuttons package posted in alt.sources. It allows
to activate emacs functions via a menu-like X window (which always
sits on the desktop). To use it for commands with arguments, I
configured it to explicitly use the 'command-execute' function. This
worked fine until I used C-g to abort a command. Emacs crashed with
the usual gigantic core file.

What happens in detail:

The ebuttons program runs as a subprocess started by 'start-process'.
It uses an input filter associated with 'set-process-filter'.
The filter uses 'eval' to evaluate what is coming in.
The input is e.g. "(command-execute 'goto-line)".

Thus it results by doing
  (eval '(command-execute 'goto-line))
in the input filter of the process. This works fine. It displays the
usual prompt in the minibuffer and reads the line number. However,
when I enter C-g in the minibuffer, emacs crashes!

I tried 
  (eval '(let ((inhibit-quit t)) (command-execute 'goto-line)))
but it did not help.

I am using GNU Emacs 18.58 on a HP9000 under HP-UX 8.??, but I don't
think that matters a lot.

Thanks for any suggestion.

Gunnar Teege   Inst. fuer Informatik, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
               PO-Box 202420, 8000 Muenchen 2, Germany
teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de       Tel: +49 89 450552 25
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: martyg@bnr.ca (Martin Gallant)
Subject: Where is the FAQ for EMACS?
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Richardson, Tx.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:18:18 GMT

I require a recent copy of the FAQ list for emacs, however I have not
seen this posted in several months.  The news.answers group on my site
dates back to October 4th, and I can't find the files there.

Have other sites received this file since then?  I know this is a FAQ,
but where are these files archived?  Is the automated posting broken?
-- 
Martin Gallant <martyg@bnr.ca> 214-684-5532 (ESN 444)
The above opinions are my own, not necessarily those of my employer.
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: nick@osf.org (Nick Dokos)
Subject: Re: Horizantal scrol (how to get rid of $ and see what I am typing)
Organization: Open Software Foundation
	<TEEGE.92Dec15160754@unknown.informatik.tu-muenchen.de>
	<mcook.724548304@fendahl.dev.cdx.mot.com>
Date: 17 Dec 92 06:39:31 GMT

Since Wayne did not mention his hscroll.el package, let me put in a plug
for it. You can put a buffer in hscroll-mode and it will automatically scroll
left or right following the cursor. It's great. I have sent it to a bunch
of people already. If you would like a copy, drop me a note.

--
Nick Dokos	nick@osf.org	
OSF Systems Engineering

Member of the League for Programming Freedom - write to lpf@uunet.uu.net
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman)
Subject: Are the FSF & gnu still boycotting Apple?
Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 14:43:23 GMT

Apple still threatens the freedom of programmers generaly, so the
boycott continues.  For an explanation of the current status of the
lawsuit, see the September issue of CACM.

For more information on the danger of copyrighted interfaces,
ask lpf@uunet.uu.net for the LPF position papers.

Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: jma@ebt-inc.UUCP (Jim Apple)
Subject: problems sending mail ( aliases and vacation program )
Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:03:34 GMT


	If I use emacs to send mail to a mail alias ( YP ) the sender
gets a bounce msg like

"systems" user unknown

	however all the member of the systems alias get the
msg.

	Also if I use emacs to mail to a user who is using the vacation
program. The mail does not go through and I get a bounced mail msg
about not being able to mail to program.

Any Help would be great




 Jim Apple   (WB1DOG)            EBT Inc.
 jma@ebt.com                     One Richmond Square
 uunet!ebt-inc!jma               Providence, RI 02906
                                 401-421-9550


Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: hrue@sima.sintef.no (hrue)
Subject: Re: How to convert from Babyl (RMAIL) format back to Mail?  HELP!
Organization: SINTEF Industrial Mathematics, Trondheim, Norway
Distribution: gnu
Date: 12 Dec 92 10:39:41


something i picked up somewhere, sometime.
-hr

----------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
#
# usage:	rmail-to-mail file1 file2 ...
#
# result:	file1~     is the original Babyl file
#		file1      is an empty Babyl file
#		file1.mail is a UNIX mail file with the messages from file1

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    cat $0
    exit 
fi


cat > /tmp/$$.el << EOF
;;;
;;; Author:  Nathan Hess  (woodstock@hobbes.intel.com)
;;;
;;

(let ((file-to-be-converted (buffer-file-name))
      (message-count 0)
      (rmail-delete-after-output t)
      (unix-style-file-name (concat (buffer-file-name) ".mail")))
  (kill-buffer (current-buffer))
  (rmail file-to-be-converted)
  (rmail-show-message 1)
  (while (not (rmail-output unix-style-file-name))
    (setq message-count (1+ message-count)))
  (rmail-quit))
EOF

for f in "$@" ; do
    echo ">>> Doing $f"
    emacs -batch $f -l /tmp/$$.el -kill
    echo ">>> Done"
done

rm -f /tmp/$$.el
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
       |^^^^^^|        ___________________________________
       |      |       /                                    \
       |      |      | Haavard Rue                          |
       | (o)(o)      | The Norwegian Instiute of Technology |
      @      _)      | Department of Mathemathical Sciences |
       | ,___|     ,,| N-7034 Trondheim NTH, Norway         |
       |   /   ..''  | fax:+47-7-593524, hrue@imf.unit.no   |
      /____\          \____________________________________/
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: moore@src.bae.co.UK (Chris Moore)
Subject: combining major modes
Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 13:47:41 GMT


kendall@lds.loral.com (Colin Kendall) said:

> Ok, I have default-major-mode set to vip-mode, and that works fine for
> many files; i.e. when I visit a file called foo.bar, I'm in vip-mode. But
> when the major mode is determined from auto-mode-alist, it throws me into
> a combination of the chosen mode (e.g. c-mode if the file ends with .c)
> and *Emacs* mode;

> It is possible to C-z and get into vip-mode, but that's annoying. How can
> I get around this.

I solved the problem by littering my .emacs with things like this:

(setq bibtex-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
	(vip-change-mode-to-vi)))

(setq c-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
	(vip-change-mode-to-vi)))

(setq cl-shell-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
	(vip-change-mode-to-emacs)))

(setq emacs-lisp-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
	(vip-change-mode-to-vi)))

Whenever you find emacs dumping you into -Emacs: mode for a particular
mode, look at the source code or documentation for that mode, find the
appropriate hook, and set it up so that it changes to the appropriate vip
state.

Chris.
--
moore@src.bae.co.uk   /      Chris Moore      \
                     / Sowerby Research Centre \
                     \  British Aerospace PLC  /
tel: +44 272 363375   \      BRISTOL, UK      /
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: wmesard@cs.stanford.edu (Wayne Mesard)
Subject: Re: Horizantal scrol (how to get rid of $ and see what I am typing)
Organization: Distributed Systems Group, Stanford University
	<TEEGE.92Dec15160754@unknown.informatik.tu-muenchen.de>
Date: 15 Dec 92 13:27:09

teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Gunnar Teege) writes:
>> When I use split-window-horizontally, I get a dollar sign for lines
>> that are "too long" instead of the usual way emacs wraps lines by
>> using backslash.
> 
> This truncating feature can be controlled by setting the variable
> 'truncate-lines'.

Actually, in the case of horizontally split windows [which is what the
original post asked about], a seperate variable,
truncate-partial-width-windows, controls the behavior:

    truncate-lines's value is nil

    Documentation:
    [...]
    Note that this is overridden by the variable
    truncate-partial-width-windows if that variable is non-nil
    and this buffer is not full-screen width.
--
Wayne();
WMesard@cs.Stanford.edu
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: reissell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Juhani Reissell)
Subject: binding another key for ESC?
Organization: University of Helsinki
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:01:39 GMT

How can I change the binding for ESC-key? I read the manual and all but
I just don't get it. Please reply by e-mail as I don't follow this
newsgroup. Thanks,

jussi
From: sledge@rama.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Thomas Bueschgens)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Subject: Emacs 18.59 / X11R4 /ISC 3.0 on 486  Problem
Date: 17 Dec 92 16:00:46 GMT
Organization: Rechnerbetrieb Informatik - RWTH Aachen
NNTP-Posting-Host: rama.informatik.rwth-aachen.de

Hi out there,

after upgrading my box to 16 mb I compiled the newest available emacs-distrib
at home. after compiling and installing this stuff, everything went fine,
until started emacs _without_  -nw.
Popping up in his own window emacs looked fine, and all this mouse-features,
fantastic, but....
using my german keyboard I'd like to type   a  |  (pipe)  or a  @  (at),
so I have to press my  ALT-GR-Button. pressing this damned thing brings
just a   -1~    on my screen.

So the question is:   what's goin' wrong with emacs ??
Just a nifty xmodmap-thing or what ??

If anyone has any idea (really _any_), so please answer via email,
cause I don't wanna lose this great emacs!!

		Thomas


-- 
		   We want a 1.000.000 helicopters and a $
				       |   HAMMER !!!	
 Bueschgens, Thomas                    |   Trust me, I know what I'm doing !!
 sledge@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de |         - Sledge Hammer & Susie -
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs.gnus,comp.emacs
From: jop@kytkin.oulu.fi (Janne Puustinen)
Subject: Re: How if I don't want to append .sig in gnus?
Organization: University of Oulu, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, FINLAND
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 13:00:07 GMT

In article <FREN1027.92Dec5043937@wc18.yorku.ca> fren1027@wc18.yorku.ca (Ming He) writes:

   As title, what do I do?

Try following line in your .emacs file
(setq gnus-signature-file nil)

Works for me ;)

	Janne

   --
   Ming He					fren1027@reader.yorku.ca
   "What is your fivourate thing?...Me?  Dreaming -- in the daytime."

This following signature doesn't appear automatically :)

--- Janne Puustinen ----------------- Phone: +358 81 361 268 -------
--- Yliopistokatu 14/312 ------------ Email: jop@kytkin.oulu.fi ----
--- 90570 OULU, FINLAND -------------------- jop@phoenix.oulu.fi ---
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Gunnar Teege)
Subject: Re: Horizantal scrol (how to get rid of $ and see what I am typing)
Organization: Inst. fuer Informatik, TU Muenchen, Germany
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:07:54 GMT

>>>>> On Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:36:17 GMT, yusuf@ils.nwu.edu (Yusuf
> Pisan) said:


> When I use split-window-horizontally, I get a dollar sign for lines
> that are "too long" instead of the usual way emacs wraps lines by
> using backslash.

> When I open a file as read only the only way to see the rest of the
> line is by enalrging the window :-(.

This truncating feature can be controlled by setting the variable
'truncate-lines'. In my .emacs i define the following command:

(defun toggle-truncate ()
  (interactive)
  (setq truncate-lines (not truncate-lines)))

and bind it to a key sequence. Thus I can easily toggle between
truncated lines and wrapped lines. After toggling it is sometimes
necessary to force a redisplay by C-l to see the effects.

Hope that helps

Gunnar Teege   Inst. fuer Informatik, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
               PO-Box 202420, 8000 Muenchen 2, Germany
teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de       Tel: +49 89 450552 25
From: sal8@po.cwru.edu (Steve Luzynski)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Subject: OS/2 GNU Emacs tutorial?
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:44:14 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
NNTP-Posting-Host: b61442.student.cwru.edu

I installed the OS/2 emacs port and while everything seems to be working 
just fine (i.e. I can struggle through a session with lots of paging 
through the manual), emacs claims it can't find the tutorial when I try to 
run it. It does seem like it would be a good way to learn the thing, so I 
ask: 1) Is the tutorial included with the OS/2 distribution, and if so, what 
do I need to do to make it work?  2) If not, where can I find one and how do 
I use it?

emacs looks like it will be nice for running emx/gcc once I figure out all 
the keys...I'll probably even write some software after I get it going. :)

Thanks,

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
steve luzynski @ case western reserve university in cleveland, oh
sal8@po.cwru.edu             | voice calls cheerlessly accepted at x2153.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
happy people are deluding themselves that there is nothing wrong.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
life is but a series of bitter dissapointments.
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: keister@poincare.phys.cmu.edu (Bradley D. Keister)
Subject: isearch in demacs
Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 12:17:07 GMT

Speaking of isearch, when I mis-type a search string in DEMACS and
use the backspace key to rub the characters out, DEMACS terminates the
search and erases characters in my edit buffer.  This doesn't happen
on my workstation, where what gets rubbed out are the rightmost
characters of the string to search on.  I know that I had to make some
adjustments to the backspace key assignment, but I'm not sure how to
make isearch perform as it does on other machines.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Brad Keister				OFFICE: (412) 268-2772
Department of Physics			FAX:    (412) 681-0648
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

internet: keister@poincare.phys.cmu.edu
BITNET:   keister%poincare.phys.cmu.edu@CARNEGIE
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: wmesard@cs.stanford.edu (Wayne Mesard)
Subject: Re: Horizantal scroll (and Elisp Archive status)
Organization: Distributed Systems Group, Stanford University
	<mcook.724548304@fendahl.dev.cdx.mot.com>
	<NICK.92Dec17013931@alphaville.osf.org>
	<1992Dec18.022352.24083@math.ufl.edu>
Date: 20 Dec 92 21:35:57

wang@math.ufl.edu (ForYourEyesOnly) writes:
> In article <NICK.92Dec17013931@alphaville.osf.org> nick@osf.org (Nick Dokos) writes:
>>Since Wayne did not mention his hscroll.el package, let me put in a plug
>>for it. You can put a buffer in hscroll-mode and it will automatically scroll
>>left or right following the cursor.
> Could  you post it here so that anyone who is interested in can have a
> chance to try it?

Okay, I'm about to [re-]post it to gnu.emacs.sources.

Incidently, I've been trying to get this (and a couple of other things)
added to the Elisp Archive at archive.cis.ohio-state.edu since early
November.  I've sent several messages to de5@ornl.gov, brennan@hal.com
and elisp-archive@cis.ohio-state.edu.  I've received no response
whatsoever.

Being so insecure, I'm starting to take it personally.  Does anyone know
what the deal is?  Please tell me if you know anything.

 -   %=-    %=-    %=-    %=-    %=-      < Tanks in advance.
-  (oxo)  (oxo)  (oxo)  (oxo)  (oxo)      < (Get it?)
--
Wayne();
WMesard@cs.Stanford.edu
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: bashford@scripps.edu (Don &)
Subject: Re: emacs display in X11R5
Organization: The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 05:33:30 GMT

>>>>> In article <1992Dec13.030227.12401@seas.smu.edu>, pedersen@seas.smu.edu (Ted Pedersen) writes:

TP> I am using emacs 18.59.1 and having some difficulty. When I use an X
TP> terminal (we run X11R5) my emacs window has little bitty type in it.
TP> When I expand the window I get a bigger window but the type remains
TP> the same very small size. Is there a way to make the emacs type size
TP> larger? Otherwise emacs works fine in this setup. 

In your ~/.Xdefaults file put:
emacs.Font:            lucidasanstypewriter-bold-12

or 14 or 18.

Alternatively, you could start emacs with the command line,
emacs -font lucidasanstypewriter-bold-12

This is explained in the emacs man page, I think.

Don Bashford
bashford@scripps.edu
From: alaw@ap1seq.us.oracle.com (Alvin W. Law)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Subject: Help with rmail
Date: 17 Dec 92 19:44:27 GMT
Reply-To: alaw@oracle.com
Organization: Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores, California.
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

I've got a simple problem with rmail which I think is not included in the FAQ:
is it possible to use the local time zone instead of GMT in the message date
field?

Please reply by email.  Any help/hint will be most appreciated.

Thanks.

 Alvin W. Law ........................................... Oracle Corporation
 Senior Applications Engineer ............... 300 Oracle Parkway, Box 659306
 Oracle Manufacturing ............................. Redwood Shores, CA 94065
 Email: alaw@oracle.com ....... Voice: 415.506.3390 ...... Fax: 415.506.7299
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman)
Subject: Flashing cursor in emacs under X
Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 16:10:55 GMT

Is your question a personal one, or is it for Apple business?

If the machine you want to do this on is at Apple, and if the reason
you want to do this is to help do work for Apple, then I think it is
in the interest of all programmers if we do not help you
while Apple continues trying to create a monopoly on aspects of GUIs.

For more information on the issue of interface copyright and how to
work against it, please contact lpf@uunet.uu.net.
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs
From: kevin@traffic.den.mmc.com (Kevin Rodgers)
Subject: Re: reserved keybindings (was: Re: anyone got a way to cycle through buffers with a keystroke?)
Organization: Martin Marietta Western Internal Systems, Technical Operations
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 16:33:01 GMT

In article <1992Dec9.194402.6510@den.mmc.com> I write:
>Well, this package P could just use C-c C-p as a prefix, binding C-c C-p
>LETTER and C-c C-p C-LETTER; in fact, the next release of Vince
>Tessier's sccs.el package will probably use C-c C-s as the default (it's
>configurable!) prefix key.

Vince has asked me about this alleged person with the same name as him
and so has brought me out of my stupor, if only long enough to apologize
to him and Jonathan Vail, the actual author of the sccs.el package that
I was referring to.
-- 
Kevin Rodgers				kevin@traffic.den.mmc.com
Martin Marietta MS A16401		(303) 790-3971
116 Inverness Dr. East
Englewood CO 80112 USA			GO BUFFS!
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: kendall@lds.loral.com (Colin Kendall)
Subject: emacs-11
Keywords: info missing 
Reply-To: kendall@lds.loral.com
Organization: Loral Data Systems
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:24:30 GMT

I recently installed GNU Emacs 18.57.6 on berkeley-unix, but am missing some 
data for the info documentation reader. Requests to go to certain menus, e.g. Key 
Binding, or perform
certain searches lead to:

Search failed: "^J^_"

I suspect this is because one of the distribution files, namely .../info/emacs-11,
is empty.
I have tried to obtain the missing information by ftp'ing to prep.ai.mit.edu, but
I can't seem to find it; it's not in GNUinfo, and not in texinfo*. 
Can someone send it or point me to it? Thanks


---
Warmest regards,
Colin Kendall.
Phone (813) 371-0811 extension 6842

Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: alex@math.idbsu.edu (Alex Feldman)
Subject: keybindings as in Auc-TeX
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: 15 Dec 92 10:11:15

I would like to bind some macros to keys similarly to the way things
are bound in the LaTeX-math-mode of Auc-TeX.  Specifically, in there I
can type `a (that's supposed to be a backquote followed by an a; I did
not mistype `a') and it will expand in the buffer to \alpha.  No
control or meta sequences or anything else to worry about.

I would like to do this for a completely different, personalized mode,
but I can't seem to extract the germ of the procedure for doing so.
If it is possible to do this in a few lines of lisp, would some kind
soul send me the code that does it?  The expansion shown above would
be fine, or just a generic keymap for the extended command "mymacro"
to the (two) key sequence ";c".

Thanks.
--
	--alex			alex@math.idbsu.edu
From: kendall@lds.loral.com (Colin Kendall)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Subject: Meta key in shelltool
Date: 18 Dec 92 14:14:36 GMT
Reply-To: kendall@lds.loral.com
Organization: Loral Data Systems

It would be nice to run emacs in a shelltool or cmdtool because then I can cut and
paste to/from it. But the normal (for me) Meta key, namely the keys with diamonds
on on either side of the space bar on a Sun keyboard do not seem to be recognized
as Meta, or anything else for that matter, when shelltool is in charge. Is there
a fix for this? 

---
Warmest regards,
Colin Kendall.
Phone (813) 371-0811 extension 6842
From: kgallagh@digi.lonestar.org (Kevin Gallagher)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Subject: Re: binding cntrl-SPC to set-mark-command
Date: 18 Dec 92 22:22:42 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <DLA.92Dec16224504@se05.wg2.waii.com> dla@se05.wg2.waii.com (Doug Acker) writes:
>I'm  trying  to  bind  cntrl-spc  to  set-mark-command  (its  bound to
>self-insert-command right now), so I put this in my .emacs:
>
>(global-set-key "\C-\020" 'set-mark-command)
>
>but this doesn't seem to help .. what am I doing wrong?

Some terminals/keyboards ignore the state of the control key and simply
generate a space character when the spacebar is pressed.  Other
terminals/keyboards generate a NUL character (C-@, x0) when CTRL-Spacebar is
pressed.

It appears that, on your keyboard, CTRL-Spacebar generates a space character.
This means you are out of luck, unless your operating system and/or terminal
drivers support keyboard queries which can report back the state of the
control key on the terminal you are using.  If so, with a little work, you
should be able to hack the source code to GNU Emacs to return a NUL character,
instead of a space, when such an event takes place.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Gallagher        kgallagh@digi.lonestar.org OR ...!uunet!digi!kgallagh
DSC Communications Corporation   Addr: MS 152, 1000 Coit Rd, Plano, TX 75075
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
From: wmesard@cs.stanford.edu (Wayne Mesard)
Subject: Re: DIRED Help
Organization: Distributed Systems Group, Stanford University
Distribution: usa
Date: 14 Dec 92 12:19:27

theobald@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Allen M. Theobald) writes:
> What i'd like to know is if there is a[n]... option to run dired
> when [find-file] is given a wildcard in the filename.

Well, you could load something like this:

  (defun wsm-find-file (filename)
    "Just like find-file, except use dired if FILENAME contains wildcards 
  and specifies a file that doesn't exist."
    (interactive "FFind file: ")
    (if (and (string-match "[*?]" filename) (not (file-exists-p filename)))
	(dired filename)
      (find-file filename)))

and bind it in your ~/.emacs file:

  (global-set-key "\C-x\C-f" 'wsm-find-file)

You may want to add more characters to the reg-exp above depending on
how generously you want to define "wildcard".

Disclaimer: minimally tested.  caveat emptor, bonus agricola, etc.
--
Wayne();
WMesard@cs.Stanford.edu