I am trying to run Emacs on a guest system (Ubuntu 12.04)
inside a Windows 8 command console.
This is done through vagrant + Virtual box.
It looks like this,
Guest system : Ubuntu 12.04
Host system : Windows 8
Environment : Virtual Box + Vagrant
Emacs works fine except I can not set mark on text (C-SPC).
I supposed there is some kind conflict with the key binding.
So I tried and added this to init.el,
(global-set-key (kbd "C-8") 'set-mark-command)
It doesn't work either.
Would someone please advice me?
If you're running Emacs in a terminal, then C-SPC and C-8 are unlikely to send what you want them to.
Use C-h c C-SPC to ask Emacs what it's seeing.
Try using C-# instead.
FYI, I found the Cygwin X server excellent for running GUI Emacs in a Windows-hosted VM. With GUI Emacs you can use many more key combinations than a terminal emulator will permit.
If you try that, start the server with startxwin rather than startx (the former enables the X server's windows to appear as regular Windows windows), and then connect from an xterm with ssh -X or ssh -Y (see the man page) to connect with X11 forwarding.
Thanks a lot for the hint.
I finally figured out what the problem really is.
From the answer #phils, this link clarifies the problem.
Why does Ctrl+. not work when I bind it to a command in Emacs?
In my case, all C-[any other key] bindings work, except for the set-mark-command.
I found a workaround.
By adding the following code to .emacs.d\init.el I can use F8 to set mark now.
(global-set-key [f8] (quote set-mark-command))
It is still confusing why in other command, Ctrl+key bindings works.
Related
I'm using WSL (WSL2 in fact) for a few days and I'm a bit confuse about keyboard combination redirection and/or interception.
I have to say that my favorite tool to edit text is emacs, that use a lot of keyword combinations.
My stack is this one :
Under windows, I run Windows terminal (WT.exe)
In this terminal I open a tab which (afaik magically) is a shell on a linux subsystem. This subsystem is a Debian
In this shell I run emacs.
The whole thing looks like that :
At this point, when I enter a key combination, it may be passed to emacs, or it may be intercepted/interpreted by any other layer of the stack.
For instance :
ctrl-e is interpreted by emacs : it move the caret to the end of file
ctrl-z is interpreted by wsl2 (afaik) : it pauses emacs as a background job
ctrl-tab is interpreted by windows terminal : it changes tab
alt-f4 is interpreted by windows : it closes windows terminal
And some of them are a mystery for me. For instance ctrl-_ (ctrl underscore), which is very useful on default emacs configuration, is not interpreted by emacs. It is translated at some point as "delete". In this configuration typing "delete" or "ctrl-_" is the very same thing : it removes the first character before the caret.
Very specifically and synthetically stated, my question would be : "How do I configure this stack to make emacs receive ctrl-_ ?"
Of course more generally, I really would like to know, how each layer works and is parameterized. For instance, is there a configuration file for WT and/or WSL2, that says which combination are forwarded, which one are interpreted and which one are ignored.
Additional Data :
If I run WSL2 through WT, but don't start emacs, ctrl-_ is also interpreted as "delete"
If I run another type of "tab" in WT, like cmd.exe or powershell, ctrl-_ is not interpreted as "delete". I don't know if it is interpreted at all
If I run WSL2 without WT, Ctrl-_ is not interpreted at all.
I didn't found any mention of ctrl-_ in WT config shortcuts.
Additional Data :
I tried to run following python program in both stacks : WT/WSL and WT/CMD.EXE
import keyboard
while(True):
c = keyboard.read_key()
print(c)
On WT/CMD.EXE, the output is :
ctrl
_
_
ctrl
Which means it receive the keyboard info.
On WT/WSL2, it fails to run. Apparently "keyboard" is not compatible with WSL2. But this is not the question here.
A useful tool for debugging input on linux is showkey -a. You can use that to help debug what keys the client application is receiving. If you press a key and it doesn't display anything in the output, then there's a good chance it's being intercepted by the Terminal.
There's probably an open issue for this on the Terminal repo. #8458 looks similar.
is there a configuration file for WT and/or WSL2, that says which combination are forwarded, which one are interpreted and which one are ignored.
defaults.json is the file that contains all the keybindings that the Windows Terminal binds by default.
What WSL does is more complicated. IIRC, the inputrc file on linux is used readline (for bash, etc) to specify how certain keys are handled by the shell. But then there are also keys configured in stty that control other parts of the TTY interface. That part I understand less.
alt-f4 is interpreted by windows : it closes windows terminal
FWIW That's actually a application-level keybinding. The Terminal handles that key manually, so that people can optionally disable it. See defaults.json
I find myself doing this often:
launch emacs
shh into a server by C-x C-f [RET] /ssh:me#aserver.com:filetoedit.py [RET]
C-x 2 to split windows
C-x o to switch to top window
M-x shell to start a shell on my ssh connection
I there a way to automatically replicate this process on startup? M-x desktop-save doesn't seem to be doing this for me.
Despite my enthusiasm for emacs, I recommend you to take a look at "tmux".
You run emacs in tmux only once. Later on, say when you are back in the office the next day, you simply re-attach to the tmux session and will find your emacs instance is still there.
You don't really specify a lot about your setup, and I agree tmux may help. In my case, I do a version of what you are asking about daily. I'm running GUI emacs 24 on my Mac, I'll be connected to work via VPN with several tramp buffers and shells open. Then I'll just sleep the Mac, commute to work, re-establish the VPN connection and then continue as if nothing happened with the tramp buffers, and after running M-x shell in the shell buffers, continuing as if nothing happened.
To repeat this for several file/shell pairs I would probably save the window config to a register with C-x r w X and C-x r j X for different values of X.
I have been struggling to get emacs CUA-mode working in the console where it works fine in X (in an xterm using emacs -nw).
The main features I want are shift-movement selection and ^C,^V,^X but any more would be helpful. So far I am using a local keyboard and monitor but ultimate goal is to get all this working over ssh using something like putty.
So far I have been working on getting my terminal to output the same control sequences that emacs expects to see for shift-movement (specifically S-<down> or <S-down>) and this works in the console when shift-select-mode is set in .emacs. So far so good, so I can shift select text from any emacs invocation type: X-windows, terminal ($TERM=linux or $TERM=xterm). This site has been very useful.
Shift-<down> displays as follows using cat -v and emacs happily maps <S-down> to this control sequence.
cat -v (then type shift-down)
^[O2B
Here's the problem, switch on cua-mode and the shift-selection stops working but ^C,^V and ^X starts working !? So I can either have shift-selection or ^C,^V,^X but not both at the same time.
-------
Setup:
emacs 23
Raspberry Pi
Raspian (similar to Debian)
You might like to try a more recent version of Emacs, since cua-mode has been slowly changed to use the same code as shift-select-mode. In Emacs-24.4, cua-mode actually uses shift-select-mode directly.
I'm trying, for the first time, to access remote files via tramp from Emacs on Windows. I'm trying to open a remote directory via C-x C-f /plink:user#host:/. However, when Emacs gets to "Tramp: found remote shell prompt" in the minibuffer, it hangs. And not only does the minibuffer hang, but all of Emacs hangs, so that I have to kill it via task manager. This unfortunately means that I can't see any debug information for tramp, because it outputs to an Emacs buffer. How can I go about debugging this?
I'm running Windows 8.1, Emacs 24.3, and plink 0.63.
I ran into a very similar situation with tramp ssh, and I can't guess at what your particular problem is, but only that you can get a complete trace by doing:
(setq tramp-verbose 10)
Then try the connection again, and after it hangs, C-g and check for a buffer:
*debug tramp/plink USER#IP*
The level 10 verbosity might be too overwhelming - you can experiment with lesser levels (smaller numbers) to see if it reveals what the problem might be. Check the docstring for tramp-verbose.
Good Luck!
I tried to open a remote file via Emacs via Tramp.
(require 'tramp)
(setq tramp-default-method "ssh")
I get a message from Emacs
Tramp: Waiting for prompts from remote shell
Emacs hung and did not respond to any action after that
Emacs was installed on Windows; the remote file was on a Linux machine.
If the account you're connecting to uses some weird fancy shell prompt, then there is a good chance that this is what makes tramp trip.
Log in as root, then enter
PS1="> "
(that's a normal, standard shell (ZSH, BASH, younameit) prompt, one that tramp will understand)
then switch to the user account, and launch emacs -q (to make sure that your .emacs is not causing this mess) and try to C-x C-f /sudo:root#localhost:/etc/hosts and see what's what.
You can (not recommended) also customize the regexp that defines what tramp expects :
M-x customize-variable RET tramp-terminal-prompt-regexp
My approach :
Make sure the variable tramp-terminal-type is set to "dumb"
M-x customize-variable RET tramp-terminal-type
Test that in your .*shrc and serve the correct prompt :
case "$TERM" in
"dumb")
PS1="> "
;;
xterm*|rxvt*|eterm*|screen*)
PS1="my fancy multi-line \n prompt > "
;;
*)
PS1="> "
;;
esac
Your Windows ssh client is the key here, and the 'ssh' Tramp method is almost certainly wrong.
If you're using Cygwin, then you need to use the 'sshx' method, and you probably need to use ssh-agent to handle authentication. Details are here:
Using tramp with EmacsW32 and cygwin, possible?
I imagine the same applies to any stand-alone ssh client which does not require a full Cygwin installation, but does use the Cygwin DLLs. (I mention this, because I'm pretty sure I remember seeing such a thing.)
If you're using PuTTY then you want the 'plink' method, as Alex Ott pointed out. If the Wiki doesn't suffice, a search here will probably turn up solutions for configuring that approach.
Other alternatives I can suggest are:
Use the Cygwin-native Emacs. That will be slower than NTEmacs, but Tramp seems to work well with the 'ssh' method, and password-prompting works as well.
Host a Linux VM on your Windows box, and run Emacs on that. That's a fairly large hoop to jump through, but it's my preferred way of using Tramp when working in Windows.
Well, this is a defect of tramp.
The real solution is to prevent loading .bashrc when tramp is used. (because now it is PS1, but it can be PATH, or any other thing that your .bashrc will do that will displease tramp...).
This can be done by asking ssh to set an environment variable, and testing it in .bashrc:
Add this to ~/.emacs:
(require 'tramp-sh nil t)
(setf tramp-ssh-controlmaster-options (concat "-o SendEnv TRAMP=yes " tramp-ssh-controlmaster-options))
and that at the beginning of ~/.bashrc:
if [ ! -z ${TRAMP-x} ] ; then
return
fi
Another default of tramp is that it doesn't have a variable to pass random arguments to the ssh command, we have to piggy-back on tramp-ssh-controlmaster-options.
Had you checked Emacs wiki for solution? ssh is in PATH? It's also recommended to use plink on MS Windows - see section "Inline methods" in Tramp documentation
If the problem is your fancy custom prompt in the remote shell, an easy workaround is to add to your .bashrc or equivalent:
if [[ $TERM == "dumb" ]]; then
export PS1="$ "
fi
After you define your PS1.
Note: the credit goes to ChasingLogic as this is their suggestion in this thread.
By the way -- if You need tramp to sudo -- You can actually sudo without tramp using sudoedit.
Currently I'm using this bash function:
erf () { SUDO_EDITOR="emacsclient -a emacs" sudoedit $#; }