Question

I’m learning Emacs after over two years of using Notepad++ as my default editor. I’m still hung up on a few things, but I find myself kind of enjoying working with it.

My question is simple: in Notepad++, when I wanted to go to a specific line of my file, I used CTRL+G. Emacs, for some perplexing reason, requires me to do M-x goto-line [enter] $linenumber [enter].

I can’t believe there isn’t a shortcut for that. I must be googling wrong, surely?

Answer 1

M-g g or M-g M-g are the default bindings for goto-line.

And, the easiest way to find this is either M-x where-is RET goto-line RET which will list the bindings for the command goto-line, or you can type C-h b which lists all the bindings for the current buffer (and then you can peruse the bindings to see if goto-line is there, or to discover other useful commands & bindings.