Thumb keys on an ergonomic keyboard are a much better solution to this issue.
Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
41–50 of 57 posts
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the record, the intent of my original post was just to see if someone had already encountered and solved my problem (having difficulty finding Emacs commands, due to inexperience). The use of “archaic”, etc. was meant humorously, and not as a complaint about Emacs. I wouldn’t mind if the maintainers added some more modern synonyms for commonly needed commands, but I wouldn’t expect them to.
The following is my personal experience only. When I decided to learn Emacs I bought a book (the fat O'Reilly one),sat down and practised the keystrokes. I made a few scratch notes as well. Within a few hours, not days, I found movement to be extremely straightforward and much more comfortable than the old windows/mac way, for the great part. When I was doing my own project I would do most of my work in Emacs but reg…
That's a very thoughtful response, thanks. It would be nice if I could see into the future to know whether or not my time spent learning Emacs will pay off :)
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#43Reminds me of god-mode: https://github.com/emacsorphanage/god-mode . Although I use Evil, it still comes in handy on occasion when I need to type something without an Evil keybind. Alas, it’s been abandoned, though it still seems to work for me on the rare occasions I need it.
That was the first thing I thought of too. I'm guessing the name itself is a parody, especially given the cheeky readme.
Yes, I had the same thought.
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yank instead of paste. Frame instead of window. Kill instead of delete. kill-ring-save instead of copy. I was going to add 'visit instead of open', but I guess that bit has changed over the years. C-x C-v no longer invokes 'visit-file'.
While I completely get what you're saying it's not really fair to expect Emacs to be compatible with systems that came after it. If you going to work in Emacs you have to pretty much work on its terms, which I think is fairly reasonable and speaking only for myself, I found very worthwhile. If you think it would make it more accessible to have certain changes, email the Emacs issue/bug people with constructive sugges…
The fact that Emacsen developers started to create text-manipulation terminology earlier is laudable. But it doesn't make Emacsen terms better. From purely pragmatic perspective we have almost a separate language which brings additional barrier for entry, while adding no particular value. I really feel like we stick to sunk-cost fallacy here.
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The following is my personal experience only. When I decided to learn Emacs I bought a book (the fat O'Reilly one),sat down and practised the keystrokes. I made a few scratch notes as well. Within a few hours, not days, I found movement to be extremely straightforward and much more comfortable than the old windows/mac way, for the great part. When I was doing my own project I would do most of my work in Emacs but reg…
That's a very thoughtful response, thanks. It would be nice if I could see into the future to know whether or not my time spent learning Emacs will pay off :)
Good luck with your decision, whichever it is! My only suggestion is avoid Gnus which I found an incredibly flaky mess and regretted ever touching it.
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I completely get what you're saying it's not really fair to expect Emacs to be compatible with systems that came after it. If you going to work in Emacs you have to pretty much work on its terms, which I think is fairly reasonable and speaking only for myself, I found very worthwhile. If you think it would make it more accessible to have certain changes, email the Emacs issue/bug people with constructive sugges…
The fact that Emacsen developers started to create text-manipulation terminology earlier is laudable. But it doesn't make Emacsen terms better. From purely pragmatic perspective we have almost a separate language which brings additional barrier for entry, while adding no particular value. I really feel like we stick to sunk-cost fallacy here.
I fear I may be wasting my time replying, but I'm going to try and understand where you're coming from rather than answer your question about Emacs.
Your complaint comes across very much like moaning that strawberries are not the same as cherries. Quite true, and that is exactly why it's a good thing; I would prefer to have a world with strawberries and cherries. Emacs is different from (e.g.) Visual Studio and that's a good thing. Your complaint seems to be that you want Emacs to resemble something else, okay, and after the terminology matches do you want the key bindings to match as well,? And then what do you want? How close in the end, do you want them to look and behave? And if you want them very close, then just use what you're familiar with already and don't worry about us Emacs users.
ISTM you are trying to turn Emacs into visual studio, if not then please make it clear what precisely you want other than injecting phrases like "barrier to entry". Please be specific.
The biggest barrier to entry for you is yourself; the fact that you're not prepared to try something different.
So please tell me, what exactly do you want Emacs to end up looking like, if not a clone of Visual Studio?
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#47This could be done more cleanly in keyboard firmware. I recovered from a deep dive into mechanical keyboards by trying Topre switches, the obsession killer. I now have four Leopold FC660C keyboards with Hasu FC660C controllers, with custom QMK firmware. After many experiments, I've been won over by making every key near home row a "tap / hold" key. Tap for usual keystroke, hold as a modifier to access a custom keyboa…
I will echo another commenter, I'd love to hear more about how you arrived at this, and what your current practice looks like (the theory of operation, if you will).
I'd love to try and sort something like this out, but I'd need to consider where the chording is scoped. I run i3wm/KDE Plasma and emacs, and I'm not quite sure where to begin with something like that.
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that Emacsen developers started to create text-manipulation terminology earlier is laudable. But it doesn't make Emacsen terms better. From purely pragmatic perspective we have almost a separate language which brings additional barrier for entry, while adding no particular value. I really feel like we stick to sunk-cost fallacy here.
I fear I may be wasting my time replying, but I'm going to try and understand where you're coming from rather than answer your question about Emacs. Your complaint comes across very much like moaning that strawberries are not the same as cherries. Quite true, and that is exactly why it's a good thing; I would prefer to have a world with strawberries and cherries. Emacs is different from (e.g.) Visual Studio and that'…
I'm not sure if your answer is for my comment, or you posted it to the wrong thread. If it's the former, could you clarify what part of my comment you answering?
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fear I may be wasting my time replying, but I'm going to try and understand where you're coming from rather than answer your question about Emacs. Your complaint comes across very much like moaning that strawberries are not the same as cherries. Quite true, and that is exactly why it's a good thing; I would prefer to have a world with strawberries and cherries. Emacs is different from (e.g.) Visual Studio and that'…
I'm not sure if your answer is for my comment, or you posted it to the wrong thread. If it's the former, could you clarify what part of my comment you answering?
You're talking about terminology being a barrier to entry. Terminology is trivial but suppose we changed it (yank -> paste, kill -> cut etc). Now you'll not be happy with the key bindings (C-y to paste, C-k to cut) and want them to be replaced with the Windows/Mac standard – right? Because developing new muscle-memory for a different style of working is a lot heavier than just learning new terms for existing things.
Having done that you'll want all the other key bindings changed surely?
And I can see it progressing from their – Emacs regular expressions don't behave quite like visual studio IIRC, for example. Search and replace is pretty weird if you're not used to it. Rectangular selection is very different in Emacs from visual studio. etc. If you change Emacs you lose a lot of what makes it Emacs, and good.
So if I'm not misrepresenting you, and apologies if I am, I don't see your demands for change stopping until Emacs resembles, perhaps, visual studio, in which case why not just use visual studio?
I hope that makes sense.
Re: Show HN: Devil Mode: A twisted Emacs key translator for modifier-free editing
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if your answer is for my comment, or you posted it to the wrong thread. If it's the former, could you clarify what part of my comment you answering?
You're talking about terminology being a barrier to entry. Terminology is trivial but suppose we changed it (yank -> paste, kill -> cut etc). Now you'll not be happy with the key bindings (C-y to paste, C-k to cut) and want them to be replaced with the Windows/Mac standard – right? Because developing new muscle-memory for a different style of working is a lot heavier than just learning new terms for existing things.…
Now, it's clearer what you mean. But still doesn't not make much sense, sorry! You apparently see something which I didn't say, and refute something which I didn't say with impressive energy. No, making docs using common terms of today won't make you wish to turn Emacs to Visual Studio, or whatever other IDE you don't like. There are Emacs tutorials written in languages other than English where standard terminology for that particular language used. You know, you would not invent a separate word just to mirror idiosyncrasy of Emacs slang present in English. Trust me, there are no signs that after reading them somebody got obsessed with turning Emacs into Visual Studio.