LEGACY CONTENT. If you are looking for Voteview.com, PLEASE CLICK HERE

This site is an archived version of Voteview.com archived from University of Georgia on May 23, 2017. This point-in-time capture includes all files publicly linked on Voteview.com at that time. We provide access to this content as a service to ensure that past users of Voteview.com have access to historical files. This content will remain online until at least January 1st, 2018. UCLA provides no warranty or guarantee of access to these files.

How to Use Epsilon


These notes are written to help you learn the basics of Epsilon


Useful EPSILON Commands


  1. Moving the cursor around:

  2. Moving within a line:

  3. Moving up and down within a file:

  4. Deleting, Copying, and Pasting:



  5. Keyboard Macros

    1. C-X( -- Start Recording Key Strokes

    2. C-X) -- End Recording Key Strokes -- Keyboard Macro Now Defined

    3. C-Xe -- Execute Keyboard Macro

    4. C-X Alt-N -- Name Keyboard Macro -- (name-Kbd-Macro)

    5. C-F3 -- Write the State File -- Epsilon.Sta -- Saves Keyboard Macro as Epsilon Command

    6. Alt-X(name of Keyboard Macro) -- executes named Keyboard Macro

    7. C-UAlt-X(name of Keyboard Macro) -- executes named Keyboard Macro 4 Times




      Complete List of Epsilon Commands that can be use in Text Macros

  6. Running A Keyboard Macro Written as a Text File: Example 1



    1. Bring All three Files up in Epsilon so that all three are in buffers.

    2. Set up a Split Window and place KEITH.DAT in the top window and ELEC2000.DAT in the bottom window. It should look like this:



    3. Set the cursor in the bottom window at the beginning of the first line and then set the cursor in the top window at the beginning of the second line. When the macro is invoked it expects the cursor to be in the top window. When the macro moves into the bottom window the first time it expects to be at the top of the file. Note that the macro is using the "CASE #" of the top file to to match the corresponding row of the bottom file. The two files have different numbers of lines but all the "CASE #"s of the top file are in the bottom file. The macro uses this to search down the bottom file to find the correct row.

    4. Type ALT-X and then type load-buffer and you should see:



    5. Now hit Enter and you should see:



    6. Now type Macro_hw6a.txt and hit Enter and you should see:



    7. The 0 errors detected means that Epsilon accepted your Macro.

    8. To execute the macro one time type ALT-X and then type the name of the macro (this is not necessarily the name of the file containing the macro!). In this case the name of the macro is hw-test. You should see:



    9. Now hit Enter and you should see:



      Note that the cursor is now at the third line in the top window and the party ID code "4" from the first line of the bottom window is inserted into the coordinate file.

    10. To run the macro 5 times type: C-U and then 5 and you should see:



    11. Now type Alt-X and then hw-test and you should see:



    12. Now hit Enter and you should see:



    13. You can run the macro as many times as you want by using the C-U command as shown in step (j) above.

  7. Running A Keyboard Macro Written as a Text File: Example 2



    1. Bring All three Files up in Epsilon so that all three are in buffers. Your screen should look like this:



    2. Set the cursor in the bottom window at the beginning of the first line and then set the cursor in the top window at the beginning of the second line. When the macro is invoked it expects the cursor to be in the top window. When the macro moves into the bottom window the first time it expects to be at the top of the file. The macro picks up an integer from the numbers.txt file and then goes back up to the OC_2000_Cand.txt file. It then goes to the line corresponding to the integer picked up from OC_2000_Cand.txt and then the macro uses the run-with-argment feature. The integer picked up is 11 so that the effect is C-U11C-F -- move the cursor to the right 11 spaces. The macro then simply places the remainer of the line in the kill buffer and moves to the beginning of the next line.

    3. Type ALT-X and then type load-buffer and then type ALT-X and then cu_test and you should see:



  8. Running A Keyboard Macro Written as a Text File: Example 3

  9. Running A Keyboard Macro Written as a Text File: Example 4

  10. Running A Keyboard Macro Written as a Text File: Example 5

  11. Running A Keyboard Macro Written as a Text File: Example 6


Site Links

VOTEVIEW Blog
NOMINATE Data, Roll Call Data, and Software
Course Web Pages: University of Georgia (2010 - )
Course Web Pages: UC San Diego (2004 - 2010)
University of San Diego Law School (2005)
Course Web Pages: University of Houston (2000 - 2005)
Course Web Pages: Carnegie-Mellon University (1997 - 2000)
Analyzing Spatial Models of Choice and Judgment with R
Spatial Models of Parliamentary Voting
Recent Working Papers
Analyses of Recent Politics
About This Website
K7MOA Log Books: 1960 - 2017
Bio of Keith T. Poole
Related Links