Confusion about Ports and options framework

[Zachary Kline]

"RW" <fbsd06 at mlists.homeunix.com> wrote in message 
news:44079.9636221074$1196053676 at news.gmane.org...
> On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 16:24:32 -0800
> "Zachary Kline" <Z_kline at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>     I've read through the sections of the handbook quite carefully,
>> and haven't quite found what I'm looking for.
>>     To be specific, I've no plans to install X11 or anything like it
>> on this machine yet.  I may do so in the future merely to see how
>> accessible Gnome and such are, but not now.
>>     I note that /usr/ports/editors/emacs has several environment
>> variables which can be set, such as WITHOUT_X11.
>
    Call me dense, if you like.  I'm not quite sure how to do that.  Would a 
simple WITHOUT_X11=YES or similar pull it off?  I got the impression those 
were environment variables, and not something specific to make.  But my 
software development knowledge in this area is next to nothing.
    I guess I have to get used to reading manpages.  Looking through the one 
on make.conf left me imperfectly edified.  It's hard to know when I'd 
actually need to change anything in there for practical use.
Any help would be much appreciated,
Zack.