Re: Find bindings for all modes

[John Mastro <john.b.mastro@gmail.com>]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure I understand John Mastro & Tim Johnson are trying to
> achieve here.  However, there are a few keys that are much less trouble
> to use:

Fair warning - this will probably be of interest to approximately noone,
but I'll share my thinking anyway :)

My goal is to have a general-purpose prefix key on the right hand side
of the keyboard, to complement C-c.

> * C-' C-# C-. C-, C-; C-=.
> Undefined by default.

Besides the problem with terminals, there's a sense in which unbound
keys are less attractive for my purpose than using C-h. Keys that are
unbound by default are an understandably attractive option for mode
authors. On the other hand, no mode that I know of rebinds C-h, so I
only deal with the issue once. Also, these are all either pinky keys,
off the home row, or both.

> * C--, C-1, C-2,..., M--, M-1, M-2, ....
> These are duplicates.  If you like you can use one set of them and
> redefine the other.  Notice that C-4 & M-4 are almost useless since
> in most circumstances they do the same thing as C-u.

I like having numeric args on both control and meta. I can see the case
for {C,M}-4 (although there are counter-examples) but I find the idea of
treating 4 differently a bit ugly. Also, they're off the home row.

> * M-o.
> This isn't very useful unless you use enriched-mode.

Indeed, I use M-o for `ace-window' (an `other-window' replacement).

> * M-s.
> The existing M-s prefix key doesn't have very much in it.  Eventually the
> Emacs maintainers will put more in no-doubt, but until then you can put
> a few things in it.

This is on the left hand side of the keyboard, whereas I want something
on the right. As you point out, we already have C-c on the left.

> * C-c X.
> This is left as the default user-defined prefix key.

I use this a lot and am happy with it for many things, though not all. I
want a prefix key on the right to complement C-c, not to replace it.

> Some of these don't work in terminals, I don't know which ones because I
> don't use terminals.

I do use terminals regularly, but I still haven't managed to memorize
all the differences and at least once a week I manage to surprise myself
when something doesn't work.

-- 
john