====== GNU Emacs Lisp Package Archive ======

The [[http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/|GNU Emacs Lisp Package Archive]] is a repository which the GNU Emacs Package Manager can use to simply install or update key emacs packages, such as [[emacs:org-mode|org-mode]]. Apparently, according to the [[http://orgmode.org/worg/org-faq.html#installing-via-elpa|Org-mode FAQs]] it is a standard part of the Emacs 24 distribution((where and since when is there an Emacs 24? Is it stable, beta, alpha? Today, 3 September 2011, it isn't in the mirrors in France)), available for easy installation in Emacs 23, too.

===== Fetching and placing the Package Manager =====

I followed their instructions, to check that it wasn't already installed:

  M-x list-packages 
  [No Match]
  
Downloaded it from their link, whence it arrives named [[http://repo.or.cz/w/emacs.git/blob_plain/1a0a666f941c99882093d7bd08ced15033bc3f0c:/lisp/emacs-lisp/package.el|lisp_emacs-lisp_package.el]]; this tells me to put it in my ''d:/usr/emacs-23/lisp/emacs-lisp'' folder and prune the name down to ''package.el''.

===== Adding load call to the init file =====

Their instructions then provide the lines to add to one's emacs initialization file to have the package manager loaded on start-up.

  ;; change "~/elisp/" as appropiate
  (setq load-path (cons "~/elisp" load-path))
  
  ;; Add the below lines *at the end* of your .emacs. This
  ;; ensures that packages installed with package manager
  ;; overrides other local installation
  (require 'package)
  (package-initialize)
  
==== init file on Windows system ====

However, I didn't know where to find my init file on my Windows XP system. I consulted the emacs documentation (not the first time, I assure y'all) to be reminded that emacs, on start up, looks for 
  ~/.emacs
  ~/.emacs.el
  ~/.emacs.d/init.el

in that order, using the first it finds (and not applying them in cascade). Decoding this, one needs to find where ''~/'' is. As explained in the //General Variables// section of the *info*, ''~/'' means ''HOME'' in *NIX systems and finds its equivalent location in Windows systems at ''c:/Documents and Settings/''//UserName//''/Application Data/''.

Sure enough, I found 

  c:/Documents and Settings/Maurice/Application Data/.emacs.d/
  
, a folder with no ''init.el'' (yet), just a sub-folder called ''auto-save-list''.

===== Successful Completion =====

Naturally, I added ''init.el'' with the code provided, changing it as instructed to suite my installation:

  (setq load-path (cons "d:/usr/emacs-23/lisp/emacs-lisp" load-path))
  
, restarted emacs, and this time the response to ''M-x list-packages'' was a buffer with a list of packages available from the repository, which now, after installing the current org, is :


  all		    1.0		available  Edit all lines matching a given regexp
  auctex	    11.86	available  Integrated environment for *TeX*
  company	    0.5		available  Flexible inline text and code completion
  debbugs	    0.2		available  SOAP library to access debbugs servers
  epoch-view	    0.0.1	available  Minor mode to visualize epoch timestamps
  js2-mode	    20090814	available  Improved JavaScript editing mode
  load-dir	    0.0.3	available  Load all Emacs Lisp files in a given directory
  markchars	    0.2.0	available  Mark chars fitting certain characteristics
  minimap	    1.0		available  Sidebar showing a "mini-map" of a buffer
  muse		    3.20	available  Authoring and publishing tool
  rainbow-mode	    0.1		available  Colorize color names in buffers
  register-list	    0.1		available  Interactively list/edit registers
  sisu-mode	    3.0.3	available  Major mode for SiSU markup text
  uni-confusables   0.1		available  Unicode confusables table
  windresize	    0.1		available  Resize windows interactively
  org		    20110903	installed  Outline-based notes management and organizer

How wonderful! This is much simpler than than building with a compatible ''make'' for my platform after locating and downloading from git (or a tarball). Thank you, emacs developers!
:-)