I have the following keyboard shortcut in my init.el
(global-set-key (kbd "C-S-<up>") 'move-line-up)
This works great in Cocoa Emacs.app, but when running emacs in console mode in iTerm2 it seems that they keys never make it to emacs.
I tried running the following in emacs
(read-key-sequence "?")
And entering C-S-<up> in the prompt but it was never received. That makes me think that either iTerm2 or zsh is stealing the keystrokes. Any ideas on how to debug this? Or better yet answers?
My guess would be that it's iTerm intercepting things.
You might find this site helpful. It says:
Select Profiles > Open Profiles… from the menu bar, or press Command-O and take a look at the default profile. Click on the Keys section. While you are here verify you have Left Option and Right Option as +Esc.
For the arrow key fixes though you will need to add a series of key shortcuts. The easiest way to get started is select Load Preset… > xterm Defaults
I am using the Emacs keybinding on Komodo IDE where Komodo uses the command key for "Meta" by default. So you press Command-X when you normally press Alt+X for Emacs on Linux.
I want to use the actual Alt key .. so when I tried to assign Alt+K, Komodo informs that "This key combination is not available" (see screenshot below)
Komodo Preferences Dialog screenshot http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/87045/permalinks/komodo-alt-key.png
How do I use the Alt key in Komodo? Is it possible?
On the Mac the Option/Alt key is used to quickly enter non-ASCII characters.
Komodo provides a few bindings involving control keys, like Alt+Return to
edit a file's properties, but it stays away from the Alt/Option key for
the most part.
I tried binding [Go to file...] to Cmd+Alt+K. The preferences dialog
accepted it (although it said it was first bound to Cmd+¬, and later said
it was bound to Cmd+Alt+Û, both of which gave me the feeling that
the binding would fail to work. There have been Mozilla bugs dealing
with inconsistencies in keybindings on OS X, and we're seeing that here.
Komodo will also let you create keybindings using combinations of
the Command, Control, and Shift keys -- I would stick with those,
and leave the Alt key for entering non-ASCII characters.
One can workaround this behavior using ControllerMate or a similar tool:
Create a new Driver Configuration for your normal keyboard
In that configuration, swap the Option and Command keys
Disable this new configuration
Create a new ControllerMate page
Add an Application Block to that page which only triggers when Komodo IDE is running in the foreground
Add a Properties Block connected to the Application Block which enables your Driver
Configuration.
Thus, when Komodo IDE is running in the foreground, ControllerMate swaps
Command and Option, giving you the Meta behavior you get everywhere else in OS X.
I'm building some code completion style text expansion functionality for text areas and inputs in a web application. I'm trying to work out a safe keyboard shortcut for invoking the completion proposals for browsers running on Mac OS X.
I've eliminated some potential candidates:
Command + Space - activates the Spotlight search field
Control + Space - activates the context menu in Firefox
Esc - cancels any background XMLHttpRequests in Firefox
That leaves Option + Space. I'm aware that may conflict with tools like Ubiquity, but that's something we don't expect our audience to be using.
Are there any conflicts I may have missed with Option+Space? Or do you have a better idea for a keyboard shortcut, and why?
A lot of Mac OS X apps use Option + Esc to do code completion or code hints.
Some kind of tab shortcut sounds like the best and most intuitive approach - users should be used to the 'type-tab-type-tab' workflow - maybe combine it with a modifier if it only wants to be optional.
As I recall, Visual Studio and TextMate both use tab to code-complete. In Visual Studio an intellisense menu pops up as you start typing and tab acts as the selection confirmation.
In TextMate, you start typing part of a command then hit tab to activate said command's associated "bundle". The associated bundle typically generates a code snippet and fills in any dynamic parts of the snippet as you type.
Come to think of it, most command lines work this way as well, auto-completing file names and paths when tab is pressed after typing a few characters.
EDIT: You say tabs are needed for field switching in a web interface, but you may want to try intercepting the keyboard event in the textfield, and check if they're started typing a macro. If they have, auto-complete and swallow the key by returning false; if not, simply let the command bubble through.
I discussed these ideas with our design team. One of them suggested using Control + Enter, which is what we decided to go with. This causes forms that only contain a single input field to automatically submit in Firefox, but we deal with that by preventing the default action caused by the event.
I re-assigned the Spotlight command to Command + Shift + Space. This is easily done via Prefrences.App
In bash shell with emacs key-binding, you can use key combination like M-f, M-b to move one word forward or backward on the shell prompt respectively. Usually, the meta key is mapped to Alt key on Windows and Linux. However, in iTerm, I could not find a way to map this meta key to either Option or Command key on my MacBook Pro.
It seems that in OS X, the meta key is by default mapped to ESC key. So you can use ESC-f, ESC-b on iTerm. However, ESC key is apparently not practical to use. In addition, iTerm does have option that allow you to modifier mapping for the meta key (Bookmarks > Profiles > Keyboard Profiles > Global > Option Key as...), this setting does not seem to work at all.
Therefore, if anyone know what is the solution to this problem, please let me know.
I have upgraded to the latest release, 0.9.6.1012, and this behavior is still persist.
Edit: Some clarification to my question. The key-binding I'm talking about is for bash shell, not in emacs. It just happens that, by default, bash shell also use the same key-binding as emacs.
Open "Preferences" (⌘,) -> Profiles -> Keys -> General tab.
Set Left Option key: to act as Esc+.
Works for me in Emacs, though I'm not sure if it will have any other undesirable effects.
Go to Bookmarks > Manage Profiles. Then select Keyboard Profiles > Global and choose Option Key as Meta. This works for me in version 0.9.6.1201.
In Menu bar Iterm2 => Preferences => Profiles choose the keys tab and select
left Option key act as +Esc
worked for me as well in irssi.
For iTerm2 users this answer just partially solves the problem.
Cmd+., Profiles, Keys and choose Left option Key acts as: +Esc.
In addition to that, you have to go to Preferences (Cmd+,) ➔ Profiles ➔ Keys and in the Key Mappings find these Key Combination's: and . Double click on each mapping and change their Action and Esc+ to the following:
Go to your iTerm preferences select "profiles" then "key" and change your presets in "Natural Text Editing"
It should work immediately after.
It works with iTerm version 3.3.12
Going all zombie resurrection here, but for sake of posterity --
This post got it working as you desire for me, for M-b and M-f, while keeping 'Option Key as Meta' set so you don't sacrifice a modifier (I have vim mappings using meta, personally).
In summary, in your Global Keyboard Profile, add two new mappings with settings:
Key as hex code, value of 62 for b, 66 for f (man ascii)
Modifier as Option
Action as send escape sequence, value b or f
The only thing I still miss from Terminal.app is Opt-Backspace to delete by word. There are other workarounds for that, but I'm just trying to train myself to use Ctrl-w.
It's easier in iTerm2. Go to preferences->bookmark->keyboard and select Option sends +ESC. In iTerm2 you can configure the left and right option keys separately, so remember to change both if that's what you want. Link for iTerm2: http://sites.google.com/site/iterm2home/
Go to Bookmarks > Manage Profiles. Then select Keyboard Profiles > Global and choose Option Key as +ESC.
Works in iTerm Build 0.9.5.0611 & Build 0.9.6.20090415
I found some solution on stackoverflow also, just go to keyboard profile and in "Global" change "Option key as" +ESC
that works for me perfectly =) btw some iterm patch exists also look here: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS
I don't know about iTerm, but you can do this in Terminal. Instructions can be found here:
Emacs on Mac OS X Leopard key bindings
Here is what worked for me: Bookmarks > Manage Profiles > Keyboard Profiles > Global/xterm > Option Key as +Esc. With this, I can use Option+Enter in Midnight Commander and the currently selected file/directory name shows up in the command string, as it should. Option Key as Meta did not work for me. My build of iTerm is 0.10.
I was struggling with Meta + Left or Meta + Right. The context was for keystroke in Emacs utilized in an iTerm2 session.
I tried Esc+ and Meta for the left Option key with no luck. I tried with and with out the hex mappings. No luck.
But then I tried "Report modifiers using CSI u". (Documentation here). That allowed me to use the meta + Left and meta + right keys in Emacs, which is the behavior I have on my Linux machine.
The common answers of setting the options key to ESC+, didn't work for me out of the box. At some point I realized that it doesn't work only when opening the floating iterm terminal (using F12). The trick to fix it was setting the options key to ESC+ also for the "Hotkey Window" profile.
This tiny note in the "Apps can change this" mouseover made all the difference for me:
After trying all the options above for what seemed like hours, it was as simple as setting the "Right Option key" to act as Esc+ (though I was pressing Left).
Try "export LANG=C". I'm not emacs expert, but I found this enables emacs on OS X to recognize the Option key as the Meta key in iTerm,
I am trying to learn Emacs and trying to find best keyboard layout for me. One thing is really annoying me. I have added following lines to .emacs
(global-set-key "\C-y" 'scroll-up)
(global-set-key "\M-y" 'scroll-down)
When I hold Control and press y a few times, it will page down on every press of y.
However, when I hold the Windows key (mapped as Meta) and press y a few times it will only page up on the first press of y and all subsequent presses of y I get the ‘y’ character inserted in the buffer.
Can the page up behave like page down? I want to hold Meta and keep pressing y to scroll multiple pages up.
I am using GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-05-12 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched). It is Emacs with EmacsW32 patch. Is this problem with this Emacs? Problem with Meta key?
I tried original GNU Emacs (not patched) and it works OK with Alt. But my problem is not that I want to scroll without releasing any key. I release key y and press it multiple times but don't want to have to release Meta key. Same problem is described here:
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.emacs.help/browse_thread/thread/f30f4b75a8b75b10
Problem is not in that I have changed key mapping. It looks like it is a bug in EmacsW32 version. Here is another description of the problem:
Unreleased Meta/Win modifier
Use C-v and M-v.
Don't change C-y, M-y default bindings.
Could this be a side affect of using the Windows key as Meta? I'm thinking this because in a non-Emacs situation if you press and hold the Windows key and another key for a short cut (Win+E for Explorer, Win+R for Run dialog, etc.) the desired action only triggers once, not multiple times if you keep holding it down.
I'd try reassigning Meta to Alt and see if the problem persists. If it doesn't, then I'm not sure what other option you have, since likely it's the OS only sending the Windows key press once to the app in focus.
You should use the patched EmacsW32 version, if you want the Windows key as Meta.
From the site about the patches:
"Changes that makes it possible to use the window keyboard keys as META in Emacs. Without this patch key sequences like E will always do what they by default does in windows, ie in this case open up Windows Explorer. (This patched is not used by default, you have to turn it on.)"