Re: Arrowless navigation

[don provan <dprovan@comcast.net>]

"Vyacheslav Akhmechet" <coffeemug@gmail.com> writes:

> I recently disabled the arrow keys to avoid temptation. However, I
> find that default navigation is fairly uncomfortable: C-f, C-b, C-n,
> C-p. The keys are far away from each other and navigating like that is
> really stressful on the fingers. Why is this done this way?

The keys are chosen to be mnemonic.

> Do most people redefine these bindings? Initially I wanted to redefine
> to C-j, C-k, C-l and C-i (because they resemble the arrow keys and are
> close to the home row) but some of the most common emacs bindings are
> there. So how do the pros navigate?

Well, I modestly consider myself a pro. I use the original bindings,
and I suspect most people do. The main exceptions are those people
hooked on the arrow keys, but most pro's prefer to keep their hands at
the home position rather than shift back and forth to the keypad.

As a learner, I think you're focused on the movement commands so much
that you are forgetting that they are only four of hundreds of
commands that are bound to various key sequences on multiple layers
under your finger tips. As you learn the other key sequences, you'll
find that the mnemonic help in remembering the less used commands and
the vertical relation between control and meta is much more important
than any initial desire to cluster the four movement keys in some
central location. As you get used to it, you won't think any more of
their distribution than you think about the distribution of the
characters is "distribution" as you type it. And the control key may
seem a little awkward at first, but, with practice, it turns out to be
no more troublesome to use than the shift key to get capital letters.
You just add the movement commands (and all the other commands) to
your typing skills in the same way you learn to type words and
punctuation marks.

Just for the record, I always use my left pinky for control and my
left thumb for Meta (actually Alt on the PC keyboards I use
exclusively), although the odd thing about it is that it's so
automatic, I don't notice this anymore: I probably wouldn't have
realized I used my thumb for Meta if some other poster hadn't
mentioned it.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I encourage you to try and learn the
original bindings. By the time you're comfortable with enough commands
to be using the entire keyboard, I suspect you'll have forgotten what
you thought the problem was with ^f, ^b, ^n, and ^p. On the other
hand, if you start rebinding the basic movement commands, you'll most
likely spend the rest of your life rebinding all the other commands,
too.

-don provan