Ok I have been using Aquamacs and want to do a bit of customizing. So I know that I have to create a .emacs file and add my changes in that file. So I created a text file and named it .emacs in my home directory but since it's .emacs it is hidden and permission is denied to the file. In order to edit it and start adding and customizing my set up how do I access the file? Should I change the read/write permissions or something more? Thank you in advance.
Probably the easiest way to get started is to edit your .emacs file directly from Emacs. Thus, start your Aquamacs and type C-x C-f ~/.emacs RET.
Then - just to make that everything works as expected - add e.g. the following line to the file:
(message "works!")
Save the file with C-x C-s, then restart Emacs. You should see "works!" in the status line right after startup.
Open the .emacs file again as described above and start customizing.