I know there's some questions that are kind of related to this already, and I know you can do stuff like
(defun term-send-esc ()
"Send ESC in term mode."
(interactive)
(term-send-raw-string "\e"))
but it would be very convenient if there was kind of a univerisal override keybinding. For example, I just ssh:ed into a remote server and tried to nano a file and couldn't figure out how to exit because Ctl-x listens for emacs bindings. Is there such a thing?
There are two term sub modes, term-char-mode (C-x C-k) and term-line-mode (C-x C-j). Char mode is closer to a terminal, line mode is closer to a regular buffer. IIRC, multiterm starts in char mode, but it rebinds some keys to make it more Emacs-like. Look at the keys that multiterm rebinds; it has some alists that are used to modify the existing term-mode keymaps instead of using its own keymap. Or use sane-term, which is not much more than some commands to create new term buffers (no mucking with key bindings).
Ctl-x listens for emacs bindings.
Not in the default term-char-mode it doesn't, so your problem is most likely with your own config.
Run a terminal in emacs -Q to confirm the standard behaviour.
Related
Is it possible to configure emacs term to send everything (maybe exception M-x) as raw commands. This will allow for instance run emacs -nw inside terminal and every command will work for emacs inside terminal now the one outside.
I want something like this because I sometimes run nano from terminal or screen, I also use ssh and this will alow me to run emacs on the server. Right now when I run nano I need to call C-c x that send C-x.
I'd first suggest using tramp to edit remote files. I prefer it to opening an editor on the remote machine. If you try to run emacs inside a term-mode buffer, you're going to be fighting it all the time.
If you must run emacs inside a term-mode buffer, you can use term-send-raw and term-send-raw-string. For example:
(defun term-send-backward-word ()
"Move backward word in term mode."
(interactive)
(term-send-raw-string "\eb"))
<Escape> b is what the terminal (which is eterm-color) expects when you press C-<left>. This is not necessarily the same as binding C-<left> to term-send-raw. The best thing to do is probably to try binding whatever key to term-send-raw, and if that doesn't work, make a function with term-send-raw-string and bind that. You can figure out what the string should be if you have a shell in the term-mode buffer, send a quote, and then type the key. You can send a quote with
(defun term-send-quote ()
"Quote the next character in term-mode.
Similar to how `quoted-insert' works in a regular buffer."
(interactive)
(term-send-raw-string "\C-v"))
It's just like typing C-v in a normal terminal.
Finally, I'll mention multi-term. It's available in melpa. It provides the functions I listed above, and has better defaults than term-mode IMO. But it's probably further from what you want, because it tries to integrate term-mode with the rest of emacs instead of just passing things through.
I am trying to set [Ctrl]-[;] as a keybinding in my .emacs like this
(global-set-key "\C-;" 'comment-or-uncomment-region)
however it doesn't work when I try (i don't get any error messages, it just has no effect). It will work though if i try a normal character (such as setting it to "\C-p").
I have also tried
(global-set-key (kbd "C-;") 'comment-or-uncomment-region)
but I don't like this option because for me it doesn't work when i run "emacs -nw". Any thoughts on how I can do this?
EDIT:
When I run C-hcC-; in emacs -nw I get the output:
; runs the command self-insert-command
which is exactly the same as when I run C-hc; in emacs -nw
So I believe phils is right, that it is a terminal problem, because emacs never actually sees C-;, it only sees ;
Indeed C-; is typically not something your terminal is able to send to an underlying application like Emacs (so it works under a GUI but not in a terminal). But I wonder: why do you need such a binding anyway, given that M-; is already bound to comment-dwim which does comment/uncomment the region when the region is selected, so it provides a superset of comment-or-uncomment-region.
Using (kbd "C-;") is absolutely fine and correct.
I suspect when you type C-; when running emacs -nw, your terminal is not actually sending anything to Emacs.
So your problem is more likely to be a question of how to get your terminal to send C-; to Emacs (or alternatively how to get Emacs to recognise the sequence which is sent).
If you run emacs -Q -nw and type C-hcC-;, do you get a "C-; is undefined" message?
Assuming that it is a terminal issue, here are some related Q&As which may point you in the right direction, but it's going to depend upon the particular terminal you are using.
Binding M-<up> / M-<down> in Emacs 23.1.1
Send "C-(" to Emacs in VT100/xterm terminal (Mac OS X's Terminal)?
How does one send S-RET to Emacs in a terminal?
emacs -nw issues with cscope and terminals
I've recently started using emacs and I'm enjoying using it for the most part. The only thing I'm not enjoying, is switching between buffers. I often have a few buffers open and I've grown tired of using C-x b and C-x C-b, are there any packages that make switching between buffers easier? I've looked into emacs wiki on switching buffers and I'd appreciate insight/feedback on what are are using/enjoying. Thanks.
UPDATE: iswitchb-mode is obsolete in Emacs >= 24.4, replaced by ido.
All of the features of iswitchdb are now provided by ido. Ross provided a link to the documentation in his answer. You can activate with the following in your .emacs (or use the customization interface as Ross suggests):
(require 'ido)
(ido-mode 'buffers) ;; only use this line to turn off ido for file names!
(setq ido-ignore-buffers '("^ " "*Completions*" "*Shell Command Output*"
"*Messages*" "Async Shell Command"))
By default, ido provides completions for buffer names and file names. If you only want to replace the features of iswitchb, the second line turns off this feature for file names. ido will ignore any buffers that match the regexps listed in ido-ignore-buffers.
The behaviour described below for iswitchb-mode applies equally to ido for switching buffers.
iswitchb-mode (Emacs < 24.4)
iswitchb-mode replaces the default C-x b behaviour with a very intuitive buffer-switching-with-completion system. There are more sophisticated options, but I've never needed more than this.
After you hit C-x b, you are presented with a list of all buffers. Start typing the name of the buffer you want (or part of its name), and the list is narrowed until only one buffer matches. You don't need to complete the name, though, as soon as the buffer you want is highlighted hitting enter will move you to it. You can also use C-s and C-r to move through the list in order.
You can turn it on by default with this in your .emacs:
(iswitchb-mode 1)
You can also tell it to ignore certain buffers that you never (or very rarely) need to switch to:
(setq iswitchb-buffer-ignore '("^ " "*Completions*" "*Shell Command Output*"
"*Messages*" "Async Shell Command"))
You can use C-x <right> (next-buffer) and C-x <left> (previous-buffer) to cycle around in the buffer ring. You could bind S-<right> and S-<left> to these functions. (S is the "super-key" or windows-key). This way you can save some keystrokes.
Moreover, note that C-x b has a default entry, i.e. it displays a standard value (most of the time this is the previously viewed buffer), so that you don't always need to enter the buffer name explicitly.
Another nice trick is to open separate windows using C-x 2 and C-x 3. This displays several buffers simultaneously. Then you can bind C-<tab> to other-window and get something similar to tabbed browsing.
M-x customize-group ido then set Ido Mode to Turn on both buffer and file and set Ido Everywhere to on. Then click the Save for future sessions button at the top and enjoy ido magic for both files and buffers. Read the docs to get a sense of how to use ido.
Also, take a look at smex.
ido-mode provides an efficient way to switch buffers.
ibuffer is best for managing all opened buffers.
anything is good for selecting an interested thing from different
sources. (for eg: a single key can be used to switch to another
buffer or to open recently closed file or to open a file residing
in the same directory or ... anything you want ... )
If you've looked at the Emacs Wiki, you probably have all this information already, but here are a few other relevant Q&As:
Emacs: help me understand file/buffer management
Buffer switching in Emacs
How to invoke the buffer list in Emacs
My toolkit consists of ibuffer, windmove+framemove, winner-mode, and a custom binding to make C-xleft/right and C-cleft/right less of a hassle to use.
I have mapped the "§"-key to 'buffer-list and I find it to be very efficient.
I've started using anything for a couple of days and I'm really liking it: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Anything .
Emacs-fu has an good intro to anything: http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2011/09/finding-just-about-anything.html
My favourite function for this is helm-mini which is part of helm.
As other helm functions, it allows incremental narrowing of the selection. It also searches your recently visited buffers, which is a really nice way to re-open a buffer. Helm can be a little surprising at first and as a new Emacs user, I found it visually overwhelming and I preferred ido or ibuffer which have been suggested in other replies. But now I absolutely love it and use it all the time for countless things.
Something that I realized by accident and that can be useful:
mouse-buffer-menu is by default bound to <C-mouse-1> (Control key + mouse left click) and opens a popup with a list of the current buffers.
For some reason I got the default M-del key binding for backward-kill-word mapped to a scan for matching brackets and resetting is not working, so I am trying to set the global key binding in lisp. So I wrote in ~/.emacs.d/init.el the lisp commands:
(global-set-key (kbd "M-h") 'backward-kill-word)
(global-set-key (kbd "M-<\delete>") ‘backward-kill-word)
I tried them with C-x C-e and they both give the 'backward-kill-word output but only the first key-binding works "M-h", the other is ignored and M-del still trying the strange scanning action. The delete key works in emacs elsewhere, so it seems like "delete" is not being mapped to the physical key in lisp (and the backslash is there to show in this text only as the word was being commented out). Any idea what keyword to use or special character?
Best.
(I looked for libraries that may have overrided this command but I cannot find them)
On some systems, the delete key is defined as an alias to C-d. This is done through function-key-map on GNU Emacs <23 and local-function-key-map on GNU Emacs 23. (I've observed this behavior on Debian and Ubuntu 10.04 under X.) The purpose of such translations is to isolate people who code modes from the terminal intricacies: a mode that wants to shadow the delete command only needs to rebind C-d and not wonder if it should rebind delete (is that a delete left or delete right?) or deletechar or something else.
If there is a global or local binding for delete, it shadows this translation to C-d. However, if you press ESC delete, if there is no global or local binding for ESC delete, the second key is translated to C-d. This translation has precedence over the interpretation of ESC delete as M-delete. So ESC delete becomes equivalent to C-M-d.
This is arguably a bug in Emacs: the effect of ESC delete should be the same as M-delete, and there is no reason why ESC delete would run down-list which has nothing to do with deletion.
There are several possible fixes; I don't know which is best. One that should work with any version of Emacs is
(global-set-key [?\e delete] 'backward-kill-word)
The really nice thing about kbd is that what you type there is the same string that Emacs displays. So, try the following
C-h k M-<\delete> (to use your syntax)
or
M-x describe-key M-<\delete>
Emacs (for me) responds with:
M-DEL (translated from <M-delete>)
runs the command backward-kill-word,
which is an interactive compiled Lisp
function in `simple.el'.
It is bound to , M-DEL.
(backward-kill-word arg)
....
Which you can see shows that the representation for the key you want is M-DEL or M-delete.
Which is a long way of getting to the point that what you want is
(global-set-key (kbd "M-delete") 'backward-kill-word)
Of course, if you have something in your .emacs that overrides it, the above won't help. You'll need to find that included library and stop using it (or customize its behavior).
You might want to call global-set-key interactively to see how it interprets meta-delete. Also try local-set-key to ensure the strange binding is not mode-specific.
After not being able to find the library holding the conflict I found this webpage
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/info2www?%28emacs%29Rebinding
Changing Key Bindings Interactively...
`M-x global-set-key KEY CMD '
Define KEY globally to run CMD....
Normally, C-z' is bound to the function
suspend-emacs' (when not using the X Window System), but you can
change C-z' to invoke an interactive subshell within Emacs, by binding
it toshell' as follows:
M-x global-set-key <RET> C-z shell <RET>
`global-set-key' reads the command name after the key. After you
press the key, a message like this appears so that you can confirm that
you are binding the key you want:
Set key C-z to command:...
And now the standard default is returned to by doing
M-x global-set-key M-del ...
backward-kill-word
But this is transient and must be done on each reload, any way to make this permanent?
Putting a command into the init.el is not overriding the other effect
I'm trying to teach Emacs standard shortcut keys. I use emacs23-nox version from Debian, often through SSH connection. One of those is CTRL+SHIFT+S for SaveAs. The relevant part of configuration looks like this:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-S") 'write-file)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-s") 'save-buffer)
but causes either both CTRL+SHIFT+S and CTRL+S invoke 'save-buffer (or 'write-file, depending on which line comes last). I also tried "C-S-s" instead of "C-S".
No Use of Shift Key section of Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful says it's not possible. I read this answer, but the accepted solution doesn't work for me (C-h k CTRL+SHIFT+S prints C-s).
Is there a way to make Emacs (the no GUI version) differentiate between CTRL+SHIFT+S and CTRL+S?
You can't, there isn't any provision in the character sets for uppercase control characters. The only way you can get shift and control is by going direct to the windowing system, so you need the GUI version.
To clarify a bit: If you are using Emacs with a window manager, then you can bind the key [(control shift ?s)], which is C-S-s (aka C-S, but not written this way in Emacs). This key is definitely different from the ASCII control character C-s, which has no lowercase/uppercase versions.
So the answer is (a) you have to be using a graphics terminal; (b) bind [(control shift ?s)] to get the uppercase version.