Thursday, October 4, 2007

The Quicksilver Files: Emacs(!) Keybindings

As we all know, emacs is the One True Editor. And, if you've used it, you know that you spend lots of time holding down the CTRL key. Many hard-core Mac/emacs users have re-wired the CAPS-LOCK key (which is useless anyway) to be another control key, saving wear and tear on the wrist and little finger of the left hand. (This by the way can be accomplished in the Keyboard preferences pane.)

The other day I accidentally used the emacs "down one line" command (CTRL-N) while using Quicksilver to navigate the file system...and it worked! Now, I use CTRL-P (up one line) and CTRL-N all the time because it's easier when typing to not have to move to the arrow keys.

Quicksilver: wysiwyg asap

6 comments:

Chad Humphries said...

Most emacs shortcuts work in osx.

John Russell said...

Yes, but once you get to a folder, how do you go right to navigate to the next level down? Ctrl-F and Ctrl-B would seem to be logic but don't work. Any thoughts?

Unknown said...

How, exactly, do you map caps lock to ctrl?

Neal Ford said...

Mapping caps lock to CTRL is easy. Just open Keyboard Preferences, the Keyboard tab, and choose the Modifier Keys at the bottom. That allows you to remap all the quasi-mode keys on the keyboard.

Neal Ford said...

To John Russell:

Check out http://pragmactic-osxer.blogspot.com/2007/05/quicksilver-files-quick-folders-and.html

Unknown said...

Thanks! I was looking in the keyboard shortcuts tab. Looks like I found it last time I saw this post, because I had already set it.

Since that worked so well (thanks again for the response), any ideas about:

- tiling window manager for OS X (ala xmonad, dwm, wmii, ...)

- size windows from any side or corner (I heard that would be in Leopard, but no luck)

Thanks again,
Vince