In the workgroups2 package, an example shortcut is defined as :
(global-set-key (kbd "s-/") 'wg-switch-to-previous-workgroup)
How would one invoke the 's-/' shortcut?
s-/ stands for Super + /. If you don't have a Space-cadet keyboard, there's a chance it's already mapped to some other key (or can be remapped to it) as described here:
http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_hyper_super_keys.html
You can also define your own shortcuts using different keys.
Related
I’m on a Mac and would like to use the function key F19 as meta.
(There’s a good reason, although it's a bit of a hack: My built (the otherwise excellent port by Yamamoto Mitsuharu) doesn’t support using only the left alt key as meta while preserving the native behavior (inserting special characters) of the right alt key.. So I remapped the left alt key to an unused key - F19 - on the system level with PCKeyboardHack (xmodmap is sorely missed) and would like to tell Emacs to use that as meta.)
So, how do I: use a function key (F19 in my case) as meta key in Emacs?
(I’m fairly new to Emacs and, after some googling, tried out something like
(define-key global-map [f19] \M)
but that, of course, doesn’t do the trick (Symbol’s value as variable is void: M)
Well, with
(setq x-alt-keysym symbol)
you can tell emacs what key is to be understood as meta, but afaik it only accepts 'meta, 'alt, 'super and 'hyper as symbol. Maybe try it with f19.
An alternative option that will work but which will require adaption to a new way of working would be to use F19 as a prefix key (like you use C-h or F1 to invoke help commands):
(define-prefix-command 'f19-map)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f19>") 'f19-map)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f19> x") 'execute-extended-command)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f19> u") 'upcase-word)
...
Writing the configuration shouldn't be too hard. Just press C-h b to get all existing keybindings and edit the help buffer. Get rid of all lines that don't start with M-, then use rectangles to replace all occurrences of ^M- by (global-set-key (kbd ", and so on.
Yet another option would be to bind the key to Esc instead of F19, as long as that's supported by your system, and use the esc prefix instead of the f19 prefix. That way you don't have to change the emacs configuration at all.
I'd like to find all the modes which do assign a function to some specific shortcut.
For example if I'm not mistaken a stock Emacs simply assigns (or defaults to) newline for S-return but while in org-mode S-return does invoke org-table-copy-down.
Is there an easy way to figure out which modes (both major and minor) do map a function to a specific shortcut? I can find all the shortcuts of one major mode using describe-mode but I'd like to find those for all the various modes. I don't mind if it were to only work for all the currently loaded modes.
Basically I'd like to find "free" or "relatively rarely re-mapped" key shortcuts, which are also easy to type (i.e. I'm not after doing "C-c a" because for a start C-c is a very convoluted key to reach and then having to then hit another key is one key too many for me. I'm more after re-mapping C-o, S-return, M-/ and other combo trivial and fast to reach).
You can find the current-mode bindings using C-h b.
You can get all of the keymaps currently available, using accessible-keymaps. You can find all the features loaded via variable features. But you would have to work to find all possible bindings for all possible modes from all files that you have loaded so far.
I recommend that you do it for a particular mode, one mode at a time. It's easy to check a given mode's key bindings.
You can even check the bindings of keymaps (such as minibuffer maps or the Isearch map) that are hard to see otherwise, if you use command C-h M-k (describe-keymap) from library `help-fns+.el. I use that when I want to see what keys are still available in a given keymap etc.
You can use
M-x describe-unbound-keys
to find out the free keys.
This is from third party library as said in comments.
I don't know the answer to your specific question, but I can give you my solution to getting easy-to-type keybindings that don't conflict with other modes.
In my set up, I've remappped CAPS-LOCK to Alt. Most people map it to CTRL, but I can hit CTRL relatively easily, while ALT is difficult. With this set-up, one of the easiest key combos to hit is M-space. So I use this as my own private keymap:
(define-prefix-command 'ty-keymap)
(global-set-key "\M- " ty-keymap)
(define-key ty-keymap " " 'just-one-space)
(define-key ty-keymap "j" 'join-next-line)
(define-key ty-keymap "s" 'mark-sexp)
(define-key ty-keymap "c" 'org-capture)
...
Note: by default, M-space is bound to just-one-space, which is useful. I've moved that to M-space-space. Bouncing my thumb twice on the spacebar is only a fraction slower than hitting it once, so it's not a big loss.
Since M-space isn't a keymap by default, this setup allows me to use all the keys on the keyboard, without further modification. That's a lot of real-estate, guaranteed to be free of any conflict with other packages - since well-behaved packages won't clobber a basic Emacs keybinding.
You might prefer another key combo, but the idea is the same. You could even use a function key as your prefix-command, so you could do <f5> followed by a letter for your commands.
I want certain keys and key combinations to behave as other keys or key combinations in Emacs. For example, I want F5 to behave as a substitute for C-c for every possible combination involving it, or C-S- as C-. Is it possible to do that without manually rebinding all such key combinations?
The keys you are referring to are known as 'prefix keys'. A prefix key has its own keymap, so to make another key behave the same, you need to assign it to the same keymap. For control-c, you use the mode-specific-map:
(global-set-key (kbd "<f5>") mode-specific-map)
Control on its own isn't a prefix key, or really a key at all, since it doesn't send a keypress to Emacs[1] until you hit another key. I'm not sure how to remap C-S- to C- within Emacs. You could do it system-wide with xmodmap, but that's probably not what you want.
[1] the control key (and shift, alt) do send a keypress to the operating system, but Emacs doesn't 'see' this unless there's another key pressed at the same time
I prefer
(define-key key-translation-map [f5] (kbd "\C-c"))
Here is a good resource.
To summarize the link given above: The disadvantage of global-set-key is that, when you define a key combination to enter a symbol, it doesn't work in isearch.
key-translation-map also has a problem. Imagine you defined a symbol | to execute a command and C-| to enter the symbol |, pressing C-| will execute the command.
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.