For example, if you open a file called foo.c, a menu appears containing commands particular to the C programming language. If you open and HTML file, several menus give you a host of options for editing HTML mark-up. XEmacs has modes for dozens if not hundreds of different languages and file types, including shell scripts, C, HTML, SGML, Python, Perl, LaTeX, Texinfo, nroff, the list goes on and on. The modes that specify the language are called Major Modes, and only one can be active at a time for any one buffer. There are also Minor Modes that can specify behavior of XEmacs while in a particular buffer.
Many minor modes can be active at the same time.
See Figure 1 for an example. Ispell mode can be invoked to spell check each word as you type it. In proprietary software, these features would be found only in expensive word processors. INFO Documentation That should be enough to get you started with XEmacs. The only other thing you'll need to know is how to get help and learn more.