bug#12132: 24.1; M-p and M-n should follow behave similarly to M-f and M-b

bug#12132: 24.1; M-p and M-n should follow behave similarly to M-f and M-b

[Daniel Neel]

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Hello all. Below is a quick suggestion originally intended to be submitted
as a bug. Sending through the mailing list because I don't have an email
client set up in Emacs yet.


My suggestion is to, by default, bind some movement behaviors to the M-p
and M-n keys. Currently, the default left and right cursor movement keys
are bound to C-f/b for going forward or backward by character, and M-f/b
to go forward/backward by word.

The up and down analog, C-p/n to go up/down a line, does not currently
(that I know of) follow this same pattern, where Control is bound to a
single unit of movement and Meta is bound to a larger semantic unit of
movement. Some keys that could substitute for M-p/n are C-v and M-v, for
the equivalent of page up and page down. Binding these, or another
similar set of keys, to M-p/n would follow the behavior of M-f/b and
hopefully make the default key set a bit more intuitive.

Also, C-v and M-v don’t follow the convention of C-A for movement in one
direction, and C-B for movement in the other. Rather, they switch things
up by binding Control to one direction and Meta to the other.

A potential problem here is that it looks like several other modes make
use of M-p/n for browsing through the command history in shells.

Anyways, that’s all for now. I probably underestimate how much effort
such a change would involve, but this might go a small ways towards making
the default command set make more sense, and rely less on rote muscle
memory.

In GNU Emacs 24.1.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.10)
 of 2012-06-11 on bitzer.hoetzel.info
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11203000
Configured using:
 `configure '--prefix=/usr' '--sysconfdir=/etc' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib'
 '--localstatedir=/var' '--with-x-toolkit=gtk' '--with-xft'
 'CFLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector
 --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2'
 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  erc-list-mode: t
  erc-menu-mode: t
  erc-autojoin-mode: t
  erc-ring-mode: t
  erc-networks-mode: t
  erc-pcomplete-mode: t
  erc-track-mode: t
  erc-track-minor-mode: t
  erc-match-mode: t
  erc-button-mode: t
  erc-fill-mode: t
  erc-stamp-mode: t
  erc-netsplit-mode: t
  erc-irccontrols-mode: t
  erc-noncommands-mode: t
  erc-move-to-prompt-mode: t
  erc-readonly-mode: t
  icomplete-mode: t
  global-auto-complete-mode: t
  auto-complete-mode: t
  desktop-save-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
a n d SPC r e l y SPC l e s s SPC o n SPC r o t e SPC
m u s c l e SPC m e m o r y . C-p C-p C-p C-l C-p C-l
C-p M-< M-> M-> M-< M-> M-< M-> M-< C-SPC M-> <C-insert>
<down-mouse-1> <mouse-movement> <mouse-1> <S-prior>
<S-next> <up> <up> C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n C-l
C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-n C-l M-> M-< M-> <S-prior> <S-prior>
<S-next> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-movement> <mouse-1>
C-n C-n C-p C-n C-p C-n C-l C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n
C-n C-l C-n C-p C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n C-e C-l C-n C-e
C-l C-a C-e C-n C-e C-l C-n C-p C-p C-n C-n C-n C-l
C-e C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n C-l C-n
C-l C-p C-l C-p C-p C-l C-e C-l <down> <down> <down>
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down>
<down> <down> <down> <down> C-n C-n C-n C-n C-l C-n
C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-x o M-x C-g C-g C-h f f o l l
o w <tab> - m o d <tab> <return> C-n C-n C-p C-p C-l
C-n C-p C-l C-p C-l C-p C-l C-p C-l M-< M-> M-< M->
C-x k <return> C-n C-p C-n C-n C-n C-x o <next> C-x
o C-x b <return> C-x o C-x b s c r a t C-g C-g C-x
b * s c r a t c h * <return> <return> M-x C-g C-g C-h
f r e p o r t <tab> - e m a <tab> <return> C-x o C-n
C-n C-n C-n q n <backspace> C-n C-n M-x r e p o r t
<tab> <return>

Recent messages:
Making completion list...
Type "q" in help window to restore its previous buffer.
byte-code: End of buffer [2 times]
Mark set [4 times]
byte-code: End of buffer [3 times]
scroll-up-command: End of buffer
Quit [4 times]
Making completion list...
Type "q" in help window to restore its previous buffer.
byte-code: End of buffer
byte-code: End of buffer

Load-path shadows:
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-compilation hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-winman-support hides
/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb_snap-20110605/ecb-winman-support
/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-advice-test hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-autogen hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-method-browser hides
/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb_snap-20110605/ecb-method-browser
/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-face hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-common-browser hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-file-browser hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-upgrade hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-layout-defs hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-cycle hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-speedbar hides
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/home/daniel/.emacs.d/elpa/ecb-2.40/ecb-create-layout hides
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(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message idna rfc822 mml mml-sec
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mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mail-utils mule-util
network-stream auth-source eieio gnus-util mm-util mail-prsvr
password-cache starttls tls erc-menu erc-join erc-ring erc-networks
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erc-netsplit erc-goodies erc erc-backend erc-compat etags dabbrev
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bug#12132: 24.1; M-p and M-n should follow behave similarly to M-f and M-b

[Stefan Monnier]

> My suggestion is to, by default, bind some movement behaviors to the M-p
> and M-n keys. Currently, the default left and right cursor movement keys
> are bound to C-f/b for going forward or backward by character, and M-f/b
> to go forward/backward by word.

Thank you for your suggestion.
I've often wondered what if anything could be bound to M-p, M-n, and
I always ended up with the conclusion that keeping them free for use by
local modes to be the best option.
Maybe it's just laziness on my part, of course.


        Stefan

bug#12132: 24.1; M-p and M-n should follow behave similarly to M-f and M-b

[Stefan Kangas]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:

>> My suggestion is to, by default, bind some movement behaviors to the M-p
>> and M-n keys. Currently, the default left and right cursor movement keys
>> are bound to C-f/b for going forward or backward by character, and M-f/b
>> to go forward/backward by word.
>
> Thank you for your suggestion.
> I've often wondered what if anything could be bound to M-p, M-n, and
> I always ended up with the conclusion that keeping them free for use by
> local modes to be the best option.
> Maybe it's just laziness on my part, of course.

I think I agree with Stefan Monnier here.  Any objections to closing
this as wontfix?

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#12132: 24.1; M-p and M-n should follow behave similarly to M-f and M-b

[Stefan Kangas]

tags 12132 + notabug wontfix
close 12132
thanks

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

> Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:
>
>>> My suggestion is to, by default, bind some movement behaviors to the M-p
>>> and M-n keys. Currently, the default left and right cursor movement keys
>>> are bound to C-f/b for going forward or backward by character, and M-f/b
>>> to go forward/backward by word.
>>
>> Thank you for your suggestion.
>> I've often wondered what if anything could be bound to M-p, M-n, and
>> I always ended up with the conclusion that keeping them free for use by
>> local modes to be the best option.
>> Maybe it's just laziness on my part, of course.
>
> I think I agree with Stefan Monnier here.  Any objections to closing
> this as wontfix?

No objections within three weeks.  I'm therefore closing this bug.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas