Re: Dvorak/Svorak in Emacs

[Johan Andersson <johan.rejeep@gmail.com>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5032 bytes --]

Raven, looking at those movement keys, they are almost like Xah Lee's
"ergonomic emacs keybindings".

Xah Lee, looking through the dvorak lisp file you provided at your site, I
think that I could really dig those bindings, with a few modifications.
However, I was thinking about these bindings and the shell. How do you
survive (if you use a shell outside of Emacs) that the shell C-a, C-e almost
always means beginning and end of line? Of do you change them there aswell?

On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 8:05 PM, B. T. Raven <nihil@nihilo.net> wrote:

> If your reason for using Svorak is to accomplish both data and command
> entry by touch typing, then the default cursor movement key bindings
> aren't really feasable. The rest of Emacs default assignments can be
> left as is, especially if the modifier keys are remapped using Keytweak
> or Xmodmap*. You certainly don't want to mix qwerty and dvorak. The
> keyboard should work the same in all apps, either at system level or per
> user.
>
> The following works well for cursor movement on Dvorak and the other
> voraks and mostly works for Firemacs too with a few collisions among
> View, Edit, and Common settings:
>
> ;; Single char cursor movement on Dvorak layout
> (global-set-key [(meta h)] 'backward-char)
> (global-set-key [(meta n)] 'forward-char)
> (global-set-key [(meta c)] 'previous-line)
> (global-set-key [(meta t)] 'next-line)
>
> ;; upcased default bindings for h,n,c,t i.e Alt or Meta Shift
> (global-set-key [(meta H)] 'mark-paragraph)
> (global-set-key [(meta N)] 'next-buffer)
> (global-set-key [(meta C)] 'capitalize-word)
> (global-set-key [(meta T)] 'transpose-words)
>
> The following are adlibbed. Make them whatever you want:
>
> ;;substitute for stolen metakeychords
> (global-set-key [(control n)] 'next-line-mark)
> (global-set-key [(control p)] 'center-paragraph)
> (global-set-key [(control b)] 'beginning-of-line-mark)
> (global-set-key [(control f)] 'find-function-at-point)
> (global-set-key [(shift control f)] 'find-variable-at-point)
>
> Although these are global, they are overridden in some contexts like
> info, specialized modes, etc. So don't forget "backward, forward, next,
> previous" mnemonics. A guru who is also an ergonomics expert should
> probably incorporate all this in such a way that it can be made seamless
> with the rest of Emacs. Then we could start teaching the 'voraks to the
> young kids (exclusively).
>
> On Svorak, (å, ä and ö) seem to be the only significant differences from
> Dvorak, at least as far as Emacs is concerned. Since these characters
> don't occur in English, I produce them with an input method rather than
> by a dedicated key.
>
> * Super, Alt, Ctl, Space, Ctl, Alt, Super, Hyper mod key layout works
> well in Emacs for two-handed touch typing on 101-108 key keyboards. You
> could also make Caps Lock into left Hyper if you think it's worth the
> trouble.
>
>
> Ed-
>
> p.s. a good way to practice Emacs keyboarding is with keywiz.el but it
> will be a humbling experience for all but the most experienced
>
>
>
> Johan Andersson wrote:
>
>
> > Thinking about it. The only thing I don't want to learn again are the
> > movement keys. So I guess I could just rebind C-n, C-p, C-f, C-b, M-f
> > and M-b.
> >
> > 2009/10/3 Johan Andersson <johan.rejeep@gmail.com
> > <mailto:johan.rejeep@gmail.com>>
> >
> >     I guess I could try that. But it does seems like a lot of time to
> >     get used to that. I mean, learning how to use C-n, C-f, etc...
> >     instead of using the arrows took quite some time.
> >
> >     Lets say I want to keep the bindings at their current positions, how
> >     would I go about that? Would I have to remap all bindings? I guess I
> >     could check before each command is executed, what the command was.
> >     If it was a self-insert-command I would do nothing. Otherwise I
> >     would translate the binding to the dvorak layout, and the run the
> >     function. This would result in that the regular typing will be the
> >     dvorak way, but all other function calls would be mapped against
> >     qwerty. I guess no one has such code lying around? ;)
> >
> >     2009/10/3 Renaud Casenave-Péré <renaud@casenave-pere.fr
> >     <mailto:renaud@casenave-pere.fr>>
> >
> >         Hi,
> >
> >         I am a happy dvorak user myself and what I did was just use the
> >         new keybindings (like C-p becoming C-l)
> >         At first, you may think the bindings aren't really usable, but
> >         you will get used to it quite easily.
> >         Well, you'll have to use two hands to save a file or quit emacs,
> >         but if you use dvorak (or svorak), I guess you keep your two
> >         hands on the keyboard, so it shouldn't be that much of a problem.
> >
> >         So I suggest you give a chance to default bindings after
> >         switching X to Svorak.
> >
> >         --
> >         Renaud Casenave-Péré
> >
> >
> >
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6054 bytes --]