How to switch to a different buffer from a terminal buffer - emacs

Question

I've been using emacs for few weeks and it's been great so far - coming from vim was easier than I expected (actually - emacs' keyboard shortcuts feel more... natural).
I have added few customizations like moving between buffers using M-Left/Right/Up/Down because C-x o felt a little bit too slow when I had four files opened at once.
So far - so good :-)
One thing bugs me though:
I open some splits using C-x 3 and C-x 2
I open the terminal in one of them using M-x term ENT
How do I switch to different split using keyboard?
Usual shortcuts obviously don't work - terminal is intercepting every emacs command, and I have to click on different buffer to activate it.

Answer 1

In term-mode, any regular C-x whatever keybinding becomes C-c whatever instead.

Answer 2

I'm not sure I understand your question. If you run M-x terminal, most of the key events are sent to the underlying terminal, so the standard C-x o binding and your M-Left are not available in the terminal.
Try using M-x shell to get a shell in one of the windows, and the navigation bindings you set up should still work.

Answer 3

In term-mode, type C-c b RET to switch to some other buffer.
That does what C-x b RET normally does.

Answer 4

This should do the trick to get C-x b working. You may have to add bindings for any custom move commands.
(add-hook 'term-mode-hook
(lambda ()
;; C-x is the prefix command, rather than C-c
(term-set-escape-char ?\C-x)
(define-key term-raw-map "\M-y" 'yank-pop)
(define-key term-raw-map "\M-w" 'kill-ring-save)))
BTW, there is a big difference between shell-mode and term-mode. The former integrates better with emacs (e.g. cd command). The latter is a full terminal emulation and can handle curses programs. They both have their place.

Answer 5

For a more generic answer dealing with emacs' windows, you can look at windmove, which started shipping with Emacs circa Emacs 22, I believe:
;;; Commentary:
;;
;; This package defines a set of routines, windmove-{left,up,right,
;; down}, for selection of windows in a frame geometrically. For
;; example, `windmove-right' selects the window immediately to the
;; right of the currently-selected one. This functionality is similar
;; to the window-selection controls of the BRIEF editor of yore.
;;
;; One subtle point is what happens when the window to the right has
;; been split vertically; for example, consider a call to
;; `windmove-right' in this setup:
;;
;; -------------
;; | | A |
;; | | |
;; | |-----
;; | * | | (* is point in the currently
;; | | B | selected window)
;; | | |
;; -------------
;;
;; There are (at least) three reasonable things to do:
;; (1) Always move to the window to the right of the top edge of the
;; selected window; in this case, this policy selects A.
;; (2) Always move to the window to the right of the bottom edge of
;; the selected window; in this case, this policy selects B.
;; (3) Move to the window to the right of point in the selected
;; window. This may select either A or B, depending on the
;; position of point; in the illustrated example, it would select
;; B.
;;
;; Similar issues arise for all the movement functions. Windmove
;; resolves this problem by allowing the user to specify behavior
;; through a prefix argument. The cases are thus:
;; * if no argument is given to the movement functions, or the
;; argument given is zero, movement is relative to point;
;; * if a positive argument is given, movement is relative to the top
;; or left edge of the selected window, depending on whether the
;; movement is to be horizontal or vertical;
;; * if a negative argument is given, movement is relative to the
;; bottom or right edge of the selected window, depending on whether
;; the movement is to be horizontal or vertical.