Dash ( http://kapeli.com/ ) is an API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager. dash-at-point make it easy to search the word at point with Dash. Add the following to your .emacs: (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/dash-at-point") (autoload 'dash-at-point "dash-at-point" "Search the word at point with Dash." t nil) (global-set-key "\C-cd" 'dash-at-point) Run `dash-at-point' to search the word at point, then Dash is launched and search the word. To edit the search term first, use C-u to set the prefix argument for `dash-at-point'. Dash queries can be narrowed down with a docset prefix. You can customize the relations between docsets and major modes. (add-to-list 'dash-at-point-mode-alist '(perl-mode . "perl")) Additionally, the buffer-local variable `dash-at-point-docset' can be set in a specific mode hook (or file/directory local variables) to programmatically override the guessed docset. For example: (add-hook 'rinari-minor-mode-hook (lambda () (setq dash-at-point-docset "rails")))