File, Edit, Options, etc. menus don't work on Emacs 23, any ideas?

Question

I upgraded to Emacs 23 a while back and when I did the File, Edit, Options, and other menu options are not available on OS X Snow Leopard. Any ideas how to get them back?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I hit this problem and found the following root cause. I don't have a fix yet but thought I'd post to see if this matches the original poster's issue.

I am using Synergy to share a keyboard and mouse across multiple side-by-side machines. My Macbook is running OS X 10.6.3, and is a Synergy "client". Using the shared mouse, the Emacs 23.3 menus do not work; however, using the touchpad on the Macbook, the menus do work. I'm using Synergy v1.3.1 on the Mac.

The only work-around I've found is to use either the Macbook touchpad or a mouse connected directly to the Macbook.

Answer 2

Just a note that you can access the menus in emacs by menu-bar-open F10 by default. This allows you to navigate the menu even when you have opened emacs in no-window mode (-nw command line switch).

menu-bar-open will attempt to open the menu depending on the frame's terminal device. If all else fails it will open the text mode menu tmm-menubar.

You could try F10 to see if the native menu appears. If nothing happens you could make an interactive call to tmm-menubar like so: M-xtmm-menubar. Does the text menu work?

Even if this does not solve your problem it is useful knowledge to help you navigate the menu when you haven't got a visible frame.