BTW, you can run "killall -CONT emacs" instead of having to use a mouse and expand the window (which is hack anyway).
You could also use cua-mode, which makes Ctrl-Z work like in other applications. Or you could use an "Emacs starter kit" which includes it (I started with "Emacs Prelude", although that doesn't include cua-mode if that's what you're after).
Other answers are given here, including a one-liner to disable Ctrl-Z completely:
Of course, this "frustrating behaviour" goes the other way too. I've lost count how many times I've made a selection in some application, then pressed Ctrl-W to cut it, only to have the document/program close!
I don't think it's fair to blame this kind of mis-match on Emacs though, since it's been around for 30 years and pre-dates the "standard" conventions by quite a bit. Emacs shouldn't have to change based on current trends, and as I've already mentioned, changing the default behaviour is a job better suited to Emacs starter kits than Emacs itself.
I don't blame the convention for not being Emacs-compatible either. It's just another unfortunate case of standardising on a sub-optimal solution. An "optimal" solution wouldn't need to work across every application, it would just minimise the chances of accidental data loss, crashes, etc. when used across as many popular applications as possible. Accidentally selecting text, or moving to the end of a line, is better than accidentally closing an application ;)
To be clear, I'm not blaming Emacs. I find it mind boggling incredible. It's computer science not an ad-supported app built about culled Creative Commons content. I've written the one liner - which just maps C-z to 'undo. Got the tee-shirt the first time. I just find myself thinking about it as a manifestation of the nature of Emacs because I seem to install some version of Linux over another a few times a year and wind up redoing the defaults because I'm too lazy in the wrong way to set up a central init.el somewheres.
Emacs takes a long time to learn and I think that's a good thing. The fact I grab the mouse after hitting C-z shows that I don't know the OS's underlying hotkeys for managing windows. It shows that I've been trained to use the mouse rather than actually control my computer. I love that Emacs points this out to me regularly.
Speaking of SuperUser, did you know that there's an Emacs site in beta on StackExchange?
You could also use cua-mode, which makes Ctrl-Z work like in other applications. Or you could use an "Emacs starter kit" which includes it (I started with "Emacs Prelude", although that doesn't include cua-mode if that's what you're after).
Other answers are given here, including a one-liner to disable Ctrl-Z completely:
http://superuser.com/questions/349943/how-to-awake-emacs-gui...
Of course, this "frustrating behaviour" goes the other way too. I've lost count how many times I've made a selection in some application, then pressed Ctrl-W to cut it, only to have the document/program close!
I don't think it's fair to blame this kind of mis-match on Emacs though, since it's been around for 30 years and pre-dates the "standard" conventions by quite a bit. Emacs shouldn't have to change based on current trends, and as I've already mentioned, changing the default behaviour is a job better suited to Emacs starter kits than Emacs itself.
I don't blame the convention for not being Emacs-compatible either. It's just another unfortunate case of standardising on a sub-optimal solution. An "optimal" solution wouldn't need to work across every application, it would just minimise the chances of accidental data loss, crashes, etc. when used across as many popular applications as possible. Accidentally selecting text, or moving to the end of a line, is better than accidentally closing an application ;)