By default, pressing Esc in TextMate cycles through possible completions (in addition to closing dialog boxes), which can put unwanted characters in your document, especially if you are used to Esc being a safe key to hit in most text editors. (In fact, in a lot of IDEs, pressing Esc a lot is necessary to close auto-completion popups so the up and down arrow keys work.)
How do I disable this behavior, so in normal text editing, the Esc key does nothing, but closing dialogs still works as expected?
What works
Based on a comment from #matt I found that I can do what I need by overriding the default key binding, as mentioned here, https://manual.macromates.com/en/key_bindings.html :
In addition TextMate has a /path/to/TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/KeyBindings.dict file with some extra key bindings which are specific to TextMate (and thus not appropriate to put in the per user global key bindings file). You can copy this file to ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate and edit it, this will then take precedence over the bundled file.
I edited the file and took out the line with nextCompletion, assigned to shift+Esc ($\033) and assigned both Esc and shift+Esc to call noop
"\033" = "noop:";
"$\033" = "noop:";
I learned about the existence of the noop selector here:
https://github.com/textmate/textmate/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=noop
After quitting and relaunching TextMate Esc now does nothing except close dialogs.
(Apparently to change this one setting, you need to know Objective-C to recognize selector strings, (and assembly which has 'nop') so you can guess that there should be a noop selector. And you need to know octal, so you recognize the Escape key as 033 = 27.)
Things I tried that failed
EDIT: for reference for people wondering how it can take 90 minutes to change one little setting.
I found this paragraph in the manual, at the end of section 4.2:
When you provide your own completion command (or list) you may want to
disable the default matches. This can be done by setting
disableDefaultCompletion to 1.
I tried setting disableDefaultCompletion to 1 in the Preferences > Variables pane and quitting and reopening the app. I found that Bundle menu > Select Bundle Item and clicking Settings shows a list of all the settings, including my disableDefaultCompletion = 1 at the bottom. Apparently this doesn't do anything? (Other settings overridden by different bundles show as crossed out, which my settings is not.)
I also searched the http://github.com/textmate/textmate repo for the string disableDefaultCompletion and it shows in the search results, so this is feature should exist there somewhere.
I tried quitting the app and then on the commandline:
defaults write com.macromates.TextMate disableDefaultCompletion true
Relaunching and trying again (hitting Esc to the right of a close } in JavaScript mode) and it is still not disabling completion.
I can't get emacs to scroll horizontally!
To replicate the problem:
Open the *scratch* buffer.
Write a long line.
Make the long line exceed the window width with M-xtoggle-truncate-lines. The left hand text (column 0) will now be off the left of the window.
Try M-xscroll-left or its shortcut C-x < to scroll left.
Type y to enable the disabled commands.
NOTHING HAPPENS!
I also tried C-a to go to the beginning of the line.
I also tried M-xtoggle-horizontal-scroll-bar but got the error message "Horizontal scroll bars aren't implemented yet".
There seems to be no way to scroll horizontally!
I need this because I have many wide CSV files to read.
I'm using the latest prelude on emacs 24.5 on Windows 10.
I filed an issue on the prelude project in case it is a genuine bug and could be fixed there.
You seem not to understand how horizontal scrolling works. It's not intuitive, that's why the command is disabled by default.
When I press C-x< at the end of the long line, the line disappears to the left. When I press C-x> there, nothing happens.
Pressing C-x< at the beginning of the long line, though, shows the second part of the long line.
Consider using visual-line-mode or even the csv-mode instead.
There is new a feature in Emacs 26. You can customize mwheel-tilt-scroll-p and use mouse to scroll.
M-x customize group RET mouse
Then set mwheel-tilt-scroll-p to t
No need to handroll it yourself. This is provided out of the box in emacs 27, and it probably was available for longer:
This feature is off by default; the variable mouse-wheel-tilt-scroll turns it on, if you customize it to a non-nil value.
(setq mouse-wheel-tilt-scroll t)
Sounds like xemacs have horizontal scroll in a 'natural' way.
As far as I can see it there is a [Options] button in the menubar, when clicking on it there is a [Frame Appearance] sub menu and there, there are 2 button []scrollbars, [] Truncate Lines
When these 2 buttons are checked in, long line are truncated and scrolling is smooth.
May be xemacs is non standard though.
I use it, I find it easy to cut/paste even rectangular areas, selection is faster and more precise to me that what I could achieve with keyboard meta-ctrl-shift stroke alone.
Cheers
Phi
I
Using a macbook keyboard (which means I do not have the 'page up' button) I cannot figure out what the pageUp keybinding is or how to bind ctrl+u to the pageUp action.
My first attempt was to add this to my KeyBindings.dict file:
{
"^u" = "pageUp:";
}
That didn't work, so I tried to define pageUp: in "settings -> keyboard -> keyboard shortcuts -> application shortcuts" and then created one for textmate using 'pageUp' and 'pageUp:' as the 'Menu Title' option (there is no menu option for textmate that I can see so I was kind of guessing here).
Basically, what is the opposite of ctrl+v? Or if it does not exist for this keyboard, how can I bind ctrl+u to page up?
You may have changed something with that keybindings file. fn-up arrow should page up and fn-down arrow should page down. The cursor doesn't move with these however, just the screen. I just accidentally found that Ctrl-Up and Ctrl-Down work the same way in TextMate. Playing around a bit, I also found that fn-Opt-Up and fn-Opt-Down will page up and page down while also moving the cursor.
I don't see right away the binding for it, but I do know that on MacBook's, fn + up / down arrow keys gives you page up / page down functionality.
Is there a way to use an alt / option key as a meta key but still be able to use it to make some characters which need it?
For example, in my local keyboard layout:
# is alt + 2
\ is alt + shift + 7
| is alt + 7
etc.
So, if I set alt as a meta key, I can't make those characters anymore. On the other hand, using "press esc, release esc, press a key" to make meta key sequences makes my hands hurt.
Any Emacs users with international keyboards who have solved this, please give any tips you might have! :)
Edit:
It appears that I can set alt as a meta key and then add these kind of settings in inputrc: "\e2": "#" This works in the bash shell but it still won't work with Emacs though, so no good.
I use a Swedish keyboard in Mac OS X and use the following setup for Emacs.app:
First I have KeyRemap4MacBook installed and I have it setup to change the left Option key to Command.
I then have the following in my .emacs:
(setq mac-option-modifier 'none)
(setq mac-command-modifier 'meta)
This makes Emacs treat command as Meta and ignore Option. Since the left Alt/Option key is remapped to command, this makes it work lite meta while the right Alt/Option key still works for entering special characters like # [] and {}.
App specific Mac shortcuts like Cmd+C and Cmd+V no longer work, but global shortcuts like Cmd+space for Spotlight and Cmd+Tab for app switching do.
Update:
If you use iTerm2 as a Terminal, that has support for mapping only the left Alt/Option key to meta, which means you can still use the right AltGr/Option key for entering special characters. This also means you can use meta as normal inside Emacs running in the iTerm2 terminal.
I have a Swedish keyboard on my Mac and I'm using Aquamacs. Adding the two lines (attribution goes to Joakim Hårsman)
(setq mac-option-modifier 'none)
(setq mac-command-modifier 'meta)
in .emacs (and restarting Aquamacs) did the trick for me.
with iTerm2 you can map the left option key to ESC/meta and leave the mapping of the right option key to "normal". This way you can use the right option key to type accents etc.
Think about using a full featured Emacs for Mac OS X. I use Carbon Emacs but I believe others (say Aqua Emacs or X11 Emacs) would do the trick.
If you insist on using Emacs in a terminal you can use the C-x 8 prefix as a compose key. Try C-x 8 C-h to get a list of possibilities.
See http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS
Two work-arounds I use:
I use xterm running under X11.app. X11.app uses the command key as meta.
When running emacs in Terminal.app, I just use the rfc1345 input-method, which allows me to enter all kinds of crazy non-ascii characters without needing an option key.
Check out cmd-key-happy. This little app has worked wonders for me. It allows you to use command as meta, with exceptions that you can configure.
Author's info follows:
This program allows you to swap the command and alt (or option) keys
in any application, but in particular Terminal.app.
http://github.com/aim-stuff/cmd-key-happy
This is an old post but adding an alternatives for Robots to find.
I borrowed a couple of files from Aquamacs(emulate-mac-keyboard-mode.el, aquamacs-tools.el) that fixes the problem (I have a Italian-Pro keyboard) :
(defun aq-binding (any)
nil)
(load "~/.emacs.d/emulate-mac-keyboard-mode.el") ;; 'noerror
this provides:
few minor modes (emulate-mac-italian-keyboard-mode,
emulate-mac-french-keyboard-mode,
mulate-mac-swiss-german-keyboard-mode, etc)
a menu to play with all the options provided by Aquamacs
Tested with Emacs-23.3-universal-10.6.6 and seems to work ok for me.
Thanks Aquamacs for this, what about pushing this upstream if not already done.
It's worth thinking about the assumption behind the question. I mean to say that the real problem is making the characters that currently seem to need the option key. This problem can be solved without achieving simultaneous 'meta key + alt functionality'.
Let me explain: I have a similar problem. On my UK keyboard, shift-3 is mapped to the pound sign, £, which means that I generally need to hit option-3 to get the very useful # - a real problem in Terminal, where I use option as meta. However, I find most of the above solutions to be a little over-the-top. I don't want to change to another version of Emacs (eg. Aquamacs), to switch to a different Terminal application (eg. iTerm or xterm), or to install a key-remapping application (eg. KeyRemap4MacBook) all for the sake of one symbol! Perhaps that would suit some people, but I thought it was worth pointing out that if the problem is just one character, it can be solved with a nine-character text file.
With regard to my personal version of this problem, I find the simplest solution is to create a file called .inputrc in my home directory, consisting of the following single line:
"§": "#"
This re-maps the (to me, quite useless) § that can be found to the left of the 1 on the current Mac keyboard to the (almost indispensable) #. That suits me even better than the default setup, because I can now get # with a single keypress. If there were any other characters I needed to remap, it would just be a matter of adding an extra line for each one.
Anyway, that deals with how to get the missing character in the shell, but if you also want it in Emacs (which you didn't say but is probably the case) then you can add something like this to your .emacs file (where 35 is the ASCII for the character I happen to want, ie. #):
(global-set-key (kbd "§") 'insert-hash)
(defun insert-hash ()
(interactive)
(insert 35))
It might not be such a neat solution if there were dozens of characters that I routinely wanted to access via the option key, but there aren't.
I hope this helps somebody. As a mere weekend hacker, I ordinarily wouldn't dare post an answer to a question on Stack Overflow...
Special keyboard layout with option deadkey
My solution to this problem is a special keyboard layout I have written, U.S. custom. It provides an option deadkey that produces option combos without having to use the physical ⌥ Option modifier key. For instance, the character ⟨ç⟩ is produced as follows on a normal U.S. keyboard layout:
Hit ⌥ Option+c.
The U.S. custom keyboard layout adds a second way of producing ⟨ç⟩:
Hit ⇧ Shift+§ (the option deadkey), then release it, then hit c.
This works even in Terminal.app when Use option as meta key has been checked.
Note that the U.S. custom keyboard layout does two additional things:
It converts plain § into a ⎄ Compose key (so you could also produce ⟨ç⟩ by hitting §, then ,, then c).
It replaces the CapsLock mapping by a (significantly extended) U.S. Extended keyboard layout.
Remap option deadkey to right option modifier key
If you have a physical ANSI keyboard, then you lack the § key. In that case, I recommend assigning the § key to some other key, for instance to the right ⌥ Option modifier key. Install KeyRemap4MacBook, open ~/Library/Application\ Support/KeyRemap4MacBook/private.xml and paste the following code:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<item>
<name>Send ISO Section for right Option</name>
<identifier>private.send_iso_section_for_right_option</identifier>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::OPTION_R, KeyCode::UK_SECTION</autogen>
</item>
<item>
<name>Send Shift+ISO Section for Shift+right Option (keep normal right Option without Shift)</name>
<identifier>private.send_shift_iso_section_for_shift_right_option</identifier>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::OPTION_R, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_R, KeyCode::UK_SECTION, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::OPTION_R, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::UK_SECTION, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L</autogen>
</item>
</root>
Then, open the KeyRemap4MacBook preference pane, hit ReloadXML and then select “Send ISO Section for right option”. Now, your ⌥ Right Option key is remapped to §, so while the U.S. custom keyboard layout is active, hitting ⇧ Shift+⌥ Right Option will give you the option deadkey state (hitting ⌥ Right Option without additional modifiers will give you a deadkey state equivalent to the option modifier.
If want to keep ⌥ Right Option when ⇧ Shift is not pressed (instead of the ⎄ Compose key), then select “Send Shift+ISO Section for Shift+right Option (keep normal right Option without Shift)” in the KeyRemap4MacBook preference pane (instead of “Send ISO Section for right Option”). Like that, only ⇧ Shift+⌥ Right Option will produce the option deadkey, while plain ⌥ Right Option will continue to work as an option modifier. You can even continue using ⌥ Right Option+⇧ Shift modifier combos (for instance ⌥ Right Option+⇧ Shift+c→⟨Ç⟩) as long as you don’t hit ⇧ Shift first.
The above answers mention ways to enter non-ascii input, but that's not really the problem here. The C-x 8 method lets you enter a bunch of non-ascii, but the problem is that you need the option key on mac just to enter the (ascii) character `|' (vertical bar)!
So how do you then enter stuff like M-| (region to shell command) when running emacs in ssh under Terminal.app? No way for it but to use the escape key, since | is option-7 and Terminal.app for some stupid reason won't let you use Cmc as meta :-(
(If anyone knows of a hack (SIMBL perhaps?) that actually does let Terminal.app use Cmd as meta, I'd be very grateful...)
The following solution works, is UNOBTRUSIVE and you don't need iTerm2 or Aquamacs or whatever.
Step 1
Keep "Use option as meta key" turned ON in the Terminal.app Settings.
Step 2
Edit ~/.inputrc (make it if it doesn't exist already), add the following line:
"\e3": '#'
This will remap ⌥ alt + 3 so that you produce a # character as expected in the terminal, instead of it annoyingly coming back with the prompt (arg: 3).
Step 3
Edit ~/.emacs, add the following line:
(global-set-key (kbd "M-3") "#")
This will remap ⌥ alt + 3 so that you produce a # character as expected inside emacs, instead of it annoyingly doing nothing.
Caveat 1, This is just 1 re-map. So ⌥ alt + ? (other keys) won't be remapped, e.g. you may wish to remap ⌥ alt + n to produce the tilde key ~. Simply follow the same steps outlined above obviously switching 3 with whichever key you need going forward.
Caveat 2, When you ssh into another box, you will face the same difficulties, but all you have to do there is edit the ~/.inputrc and ~/.emacs files on that box.
Caveat 3, I'm British, on a British MacBook. So I can't vouch for foreign MacBooks.
Aquamacs supports that, at least for my (french) keyboard. Once Aquamacs is installed (via drag'n'drop), you can go to Options -> Option, Command, Meta keys and choose an appropriate setting for your keyboard (in my case, ...Meta & French). I am not proficient with Emacs, but all the useful combinations I have tried seem to work ([, {, |, and so forth).
Supported keyboards, according to the menu items as of version 2.1, are :
British
US
Swiss-french
Swiss-german
Finnish
Italian-Pro
Italian
Spanish
French
German
I would guess the Aquamacs team would be grateful for any contribution, though, should your keyboard not appear in the list.
I bit the grass and started hitting the escape key instead. You get use to it...
I would like to mod this question up or something because i also use a Swedish keyboard where i must press alt+7 or alt+shift+7 to make | and \ respectively.
I also use Irssi in Terminal.app and these don't mix well.
I'm a long time vim user though so emacs is not an issue to me.
Isn't there some way to remap CMD to be Meta in Terminal.app?
So far i've been surviving by simply typing /wg N in Irssi because having those characters in my Terminal is much more important than IRC.
A solution would be worth gold to me though! :)
This is years late, but for people coming across this page whilst searching for a solution, as I did, I have decided to build one myself, one that doesn't require abandoning Terminal.app in favour of iTerm 2.
It is a simple status bar app that runs in the background and rewrites all left-Alt + $KEY key events to two key events in rapid succession, Esc, then $KEY; however, it only does this if Terminal.app is the focused application.
You can find it here at https://github.com/habibalamin/Metalt.
I assigned escape to the caps lock key and it works quite good. You can configure it easily in the mac system preferences > keyboard > modifier keys.
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/282092/236382