Re: Making ESC not a prefix key while keeping Alt = Meta

[Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com>]

Yevgeniy Makarov wrote:
> Kevin Rodgers wrote:
> 
>> (global-set-key "\0" (global-key-binding "\e"))
>> (setq meta-prefix-char ?\0)
>> (global-unset-key "\e")
> 
> This indeed disassociates ESC from Alt; however, ESC remains a prefix
> key. For example, when I press ESC, Emacs waits a little and then
> displays "ESC-" in the minibuffer, waiting for the second key in the
> sequence. A similar thing happens when I press C-h ESC (describe key
> briefly).

Apparently some modes bind ESC locally e.g. lisp-interaction-mode
(*scratch) and help-mode (*Help*).  So you'd need to put
(local-unset-key "\e") in each such mode's hook.

> When I say
> 
> (global-set-key "\e" 'keyboard-quit)
> 
> this indeed puts keyboard-quit function in the global-keymap where
> ESC-prefix used to be. However, ESC does not become a synonym for C-g:
> for example, when I do C-x C-f (find file), I can't terminate input
> using ESC.

 From the Quitting node of the Emacs Lisp manual:

,----
|  -- Command: keyboard-quit
|      This function signals the `quit' condition with `(signal 'quit
|      nil)'.  This is the same thing that quitting does.  (See `signal'
|      in *Note Errors::.)
|
|    You can specify a character other than `C-g' to use for quitting.
| See the function `set-input-mode' in *Note Terminal Input::.
`----

The first node under Terminal Input is Input Modes, which describes
the set-input-mode and current-input-mode functions.  So:

(let ((input-mode (current-input-mode)))
   (setcar (nthcdr 3 input-mode) ?\e)	; QUIT = ESC
   (set-input-mode input-mode))

-- 
Kevin