Remap key bindings for dired mode - emacs

I am using Aquamacs 3.0a GNU Emacs 24.3.50.2
When ever I am in dired mode I find it very hard to navigate using a and ^.
Can any one suggest more convenient key bindings so that it does not interfare with existing key bindings, and should only be active when in dired-mode only
May as convenient as ⌘+↓ to open and ⌘+↑ to parent dir, and ⌘M+↓ to open in new frame.

Related

How to use terminal keyboard shortcuts inside emacs multi-term

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.

Why doesn't modifying the .emacs file change the behavior of GNU Emacs?

I'm running GNU Emacs 24.3.1 on Windows 7. As mentioned in this manual page, I can type
C-x d ~/ RET
to determine the location of my home directory. In my case, Emacs returns:
e:/EmacsDocs
which, according to Windows Explorer, indeed contains a file .emacs. When I open .emacs with Emacs, the file appears to be empty.
Now, I want to set Emacs so that it is in overwrite mode by default. According to this page, that can be done by adding the following to .emacs:
(setq-default overwrite-mode t)
But when I make this change to .emacs and close and reopen Emacs, Emacs does not overwrite when I select text and start typing. (Rather, it still operates in insertion mode, with new characters inserted before the cursor.)
I also tried, for example, adding this command to .emacs, which according to this page will disable cursor blinking:
(blink-cursor-mode 0)
but again, there is no change when I restart Emacs.
How can I tell if Emacs is actually reading the .emacs in the home directory (upon restarting Emacs)?
You are confusing what Emacs calls overwrite-mode with the requested behavior "overwrite when I select text and start typing".
In Emacs, the latter behavior is called delete-selection-mode, and overwrite-mode means that when you type text (without selecting anything), any existing text that follows the cursor is overwritten by what you type.
Most Emacs users do not turn on overwrite-mode by default, and they just hit the insert key (typically to the left of the home key) to toggle `overwrite-mode on/off when they need/want to.
One way to turn on delete-selection-mode by default is to put one of the following in your init file (.emacs):
(setq delete-selection-mode t)
or
(delete-selection-mode)
Another way is to customize the option delete-selection-mode using M-x customize-option RET delete-selection-mode RET and save the customized value.
Instead of editing the file outside of Emacs, just type
C-x C-f ~/.emacs
and add your configurations there. Save with
C-x C-s
and restart. This should work, since ~ in Emacs defaults to the home directory.

Emacs: how to open dired bookmarks in the same window

I managed to make dired work in a single window, when I am navigating through the file system.
Improving ergonomics, I decided to create bookmarks for my most frequent dirs with short names like: 'lwt', 'eve', etc. But every time I open the bookmark, the new dired buffer is created, even if the old one exists.
How to make it open the bookmark in the existing dired buffer?
Edit:
The original answer was actually a non-answer. I apologise for not having tested it properly. I will leave it here so other potential answerers aren't misled like I was.
I have meanwhile taken a good look at the source code of bookmark.el and the dired+ modifications don't have any effect on it. By default the bookmark-jump function uses the switch-to-buffer function as its display function. bookmark-jump however has an optional display-func argument, so a possible solution (involving a bit of elisp hacking) would be to create a function that reuses the current dired buffer (based on the dired+ source code) and invoking bookmark-jump with it, and if the concept works, then bind that to a keyboard short-cut.
Original answer:
The behaviour you are observing is just a side effect of the general "create a new buffer when navigating" behaviour of dired. This fact makes this question an almost duplicate of How do I stop emacs dired mode from opening so many buffers?.
Of the solutions proposed there and at the Dired Reuse Directory Buffer Emacs Wiki page, probably the simplest one is installing the Dired+ package and toggling directory buffer reuse with:
(toggle-diredp-find-file-reuse-dir 1)
in your .emacs file.
If this can help - that's what I use to open my bookmarks in the same buffer.
(defun my-bookmarks-list-same-buffer ()
"Open *Bookmarks* in current buffer."
(interactive)
(bookmark-bmenu-list)
(switch-to-buffer "*Bookmark List*"))
(global-set-key (kbd "s-b") 'my-bookmarks-list-same-buffer)
With Bookmark+, at least, bookmark-jump (C-x j j) to a Dired bookmark does reuse the Dired buffer if it already exists.

TAB key does not work for auto-completing in Auctex

I am using Emacs 24.1 on windows XP/7.
TAB/RET key works for auto-completing in elisp mode,
scratch and even ESS mode.
When I write tex file using Auctex, hitting TAB key
jumps to the next line and doesn't auto-complete the
input. C-i could auto-complete the input in Auctex.
but it takes two keys. Any suggestions to solve this?

emacs create new file with ido enabled

I reciently switched to emacs starter kit which includes the ido package.
ido has a nice feature that suggests paths when find-file which is usually very handy except when trying to create a new file. When the new file name matches a suggestion in another path ido automatically switches to that path assuming that's what I wanted, but usually its not and I find it annoying.
To workaround the issue I either touch newfile from shell, create a new buffer and save as, or M-x find-file to get the original behavior. I could of course rebind C-x C-f to find-file again but must of the time I like ido-find-file, I just want it to stop automatically switching paths when I type the path explicitly.
I figure there is probably some simple key I can press during ido-find-file to tell it that the file I'm looking for does not exist and to stop making suggestions, or some var I can set to get more desirable behavior?
Try:
C-x C-f C-f
It should kick you out of ido mode into "normal" find file mode
C-j is the key combination you are seeking.
As mentioned: being fast, using C-j to confirm immediately, and using and additional C-f to temporarily switch to the traditional mode are all useful.
Also, when ido has already selected an alternate file path, you can hit C-z to return where you were and temporarily disable that behavior.
A solution for a related problem - ido not asking overwrite confirmation.
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2010-11/msg00226.html
On Fido, M-j does the trick.
It's bound to icomplete-fido-exit by default.