Can I change the emacs fancy-startup-text?

Question

i would like to change the emacs fancy-startup-text (the splash screen that shows up, i know how to close it but not how to replace it with my own). idea is to build my own startup page that fetches some things from the web (news items, sport fixtures, word of the day etc) for emacs.

Answer 1

You can use a startup hook to do whatever you want after Emacs starts up:

(add-hook 'emacs-startup-hook 'my-startup-fcn)
(defun my-startup-fcn ()
  "do fancy things"
  (let ((my-buffer (get-buffer-create "my-buffer")))
    (with-current-buffer my-buffer
      ;; this is what you customize
      (insert "some stuff\nmore stuff"))
    (switch-to-buffer my-buffer)))

Answer 2

User Option: initial-buffer-choice

This variable, if non-nil, determines a file or buffer for Emacs to display after starting up, instead of the startup screen. If its value is t, Emacs displays the ‘scratch’ buffer. If its value is a string, that specifies the name of a file for Emacs to visit.

– Emacs Manual

Answer 3

In your .emacs file, write code that sets the initial-scratch-message variable, which controls the text that appears in the *scratch* buffer.