Re: How can I move my cursor 80 characters with a key binding?

[floyd@apaflo.com (Floyd L. Davidson)]

"Scott Teresi (sent by Nabble.com)" <lists@nabble.com> wrote:
>Well, that's great! The built-in key combination is almost good enough, but I think I might need
>to do the custom key binding so that I can rapidly jump the cursor 80 characters, repeatedly. If I
>have a line that takes up 10 lines on the screen (a paragraph of text, for instance), and I need
>to get to the center of that paragraph, I'd have to jump forward several times to get there. (I
>think the key binding would be easier for me than trying to guess exactly how many characters to
>jump forward.)
>Does anyone know an easier way to cursor around a very long line? I'm pretty frustrated with how I
>can't simply hit the up arrow and move up to the previous line on the screen (which is actually
>part of the same very long line), but it's an improvement over PICO which always adds a carriage
>return at the edge of the screen. I use the Terminal program in Mac OS X which doesn't seem to
>allow mouse input.
>Thanks a lot for your help! Merry Christmas!
>Scott

I'm not positive, but it sounds like this might do what you
want.

Put this into your init file, ~/.emacs.el or whatever. (This
works on either Emacs or XEmacs, but the init file would be
named differently.)  You can change the name of the function
from "fld-jmp80" to anything you happen to like, but it is wise
to pick a prefix that will never be used by any other module,
just to avoid stepping on something else.  Typicall the
programer's initials or a prefix specifying the name of the
module are used.

This function can take an optional argument, but the default
argument is 1.  With the (default) argument of 1 it will move
the cursor forward by 80 characters.  With any other argument it
will move the cursor backwards by 80 characters..

(defun fld-jmp80 (&optional fld-arg)
  "Move cursor forward or backward 80 characters.
   The default argument is 1, which moves characters forward,
   any other argument will move 80 characters backwards."
  (interactive "p")
  (let ((fld-cnt))
    (setq fld-cnt -80)
    (if (eq 1 fld-arg) (setq fld-cnt 80))
    (forward-char fld-cnt)))

You will also want to bind this to a key sequence, such as
a function key.

Here are ways to bind this function to various keys.  Choose a
key sequency you like, and using one of these as an example,
put a command into your init file to bind your function to
your choise of keys.

  (global-set-key        "\C-a"      'fld-jmp80)  ;; Cntl-A
  (global-set-key        "\C-x\C-a"  'fld-jmp80)  ;; Cntl-X Cntl-A
  (define-key ctl-x-map  "\C-a"      'fld-jmp80)  ;; Cntl-X Cntl-A
  (define-key esc-map    "a"         'fld-jmp80)  ;; Esc A
  (global-set-key [(insert)]         'fld-jmp80)  ;; "Insert" fkey
  (define-key global-map  [f5]       'fld-jmp80)  ;; F5 fkey

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson            <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@apaflo.com