Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[Sunder]

Joe Davison <halting@attbi.com> wrote:
> Luckily, on both the carbon and x11 versions of emacs I use on my mac,
> one can arrange it so either Cmd or Opt is Meta..

The Esc key is so small and so far on my powerbook that I am ready to
try a different meta key. I want to understand how to do it, and if it
can lead to any problems (I will be using Aqua as well as X11
programs).

I think I'll leave Cmd alone as I see it being used elsewhere in the
system a lot. OTOH I don't encounter any use for Opt or Fn. Questions:
 
1. Is there any downside to binding Opt or Fn as meta?. Both keys are
placed equally conveniently for me, so I could just pick the less
problematic one.

2. What would I put in my .emacs to make such a binding?

S.

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[tristero]

In article <080520031142459136%sunder_3291@hotmail.nospam>, Sunder wrote:
> 1. Is there any downside to binding Opt or Fn as meta?

Never causes me any problems to use Option.  


> 2. What would I put in my .emacs to make such a binding?

There are three cases here, only one of which requires a .emacs
change:


1. Running in a Terminal (either gnuemacs or xemacs).  Enable the
   Emulation preference "Use option as meta key".  You might also find
   it useful to enable "Option click to position cursor", which gives
   you some very basic mouse functionality.

2.  Running the carbon gnuemacs.  Here you want to add a line to
    .emacs:

   (setq mac-command-key-is-meta nil)

   The effect of this is to make Option act as Meta and Command act as
   Alt.  For clarity you may want to conditionalize this to (eq
   window-system 'mac).  But it's not strictly necessary to do so.

3.  Running in X11 (either gnuemacs or xemacs).  Here you need to
    change the X11 modmap.  I put the following in ~/.Xmodmap:

    clear mod1
    keycode 66 = Meta_L 
    keycode 63 = Mode_switch
    add mod1 = Meta_L

    As in case (2), the effect of this is to make Option be Meta and
    Command be Alt. NB: the keycode values could well be specific to
    the Apple Pro keyboard.

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[Kyle Jones]

Sunder  <sunder_3291@hotmail.nospam> wrote:
 > Joe Davison <halting@attbi.com> wrote:
 > > Luckily, on both the carbon and x11 versions of emacs I use on my mac,
 > > one can arrange it so either Cmd or Opt is Meta..
 > 
 > The Esc key is so small and so far on my powerbook that I am ready to
 > try a different meta key. I want to understand how to do it, and if it
 > can lead to any problems (I will be using Aqua as well as X11
 > programs).

An alternative I use is to type ESC as Ctrl-[.  I started doing
this many years ago because ESC is one of those keys vendors love
to move.  It will feel odd at first but you will soon because
accustomed to it.

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[Kevin Rodgers]

Sunder wrote:

> The Esc key is so small and so far on my powerbook that I am ready to
> try a different meta key. I want to understand how to do it, and if it
> can lead to any problems (I will be using Aqua as well as X11
> programs).

Remember that Esc and Meta are fundamentally different, even in a default
X11 configuration: Meta is a modifier key (like Ctrl or Alt) that is pressed
simultaneously with another key, whereas Esc is a prefix key that is pressed
before another key (in order to simulate the Meta-modified key).

-- 
<a href="mailto:&lt;kevin.rodgers&#64;ihs.com&gt;">Kevin Rodgers</a>

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com> writes:

    Kevin> Remember that Esc and Meta are fundamentally different,
    Kevin> even in a default X11 configuration: Meta is a modifier key
    Kevin> (like Ctrl or Alt) that is pressed simultaneously with
    Kevin> another key, whereas Esc is a prefix key that is pressed
    Kevin> before another key (in order to simulate the Meta-modified
    Kevin> key).

I wish that were true.  Unfortunately, it is not.  ESC-as-Meta behaves
somewhat like (setq modifier-keys-are-sticky t).  It does not work the
way other prefix keys do.  It is special-cased at a very low level.

I can say that Kyle's approach of using Ctrl-[ will definitely work as
desired.[1]  If you do any manipulation of the ESC key (eg, with xmodmap
or whatever Apple uses to define the keycode to keysym mapping), you
need to be very careful that the effect is identical to physically
reconnecting the "wires" to the ESC key to a different one.



Footnotes: 
[1]  On second thought, just trust Kyle, don't worry about what I say.
;-)

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[tristero]

In article <090520030440528694%ajanta@no.spam>, Ajanta wrote:
> But I would also like to try defining
> Option as Meta. What is the .emacs command for this? Thanks.

I just posted a description of this for all three osx emacs
"window-systems" (terminal, carbon/aqua, x11) yesterday.

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[Ajanta]

Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> I wish that were true.  Unfortunately, it is not.  ESC-as-Meta behaves
> somewhat like (setq modifier-keys-are-sticky t).  It does not work the
> way other prefix keys do.  It is special-cased at a very low level.
> 
> I can say that Kyle's approach of using Ctrl-[ will definitely work as
> desired.[1]  If you do any manipulation of the ESC key (eg, with xmodmap
> or whatever Apple uses to define the keycode to keysym mapping), you
> need to be very careful... 

Ctrl-[ trick is certainly nice. But I would also like to try defining
Option as Meta. What is the .emacs command for this? Thanks.

(BTW, there is a very nifty unitity called Ucontrol which lets you
redefine keys at the OS level. The original motivation was to do
something useful with Caps Lock. However, OSX has no sense of emacs's
meta, so I can't use Ucontrol for this purpose.)

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[Rodney Sparapani]

tristero wrote:

>In article <090520030440528694%ajanta@no.spam>, Ajanta wrote:
>  
>
>>But I would also like to try defining
>>Option as Meta. What is the .emacs command for this? Thanks.
>>    
>>
>
>I just posted a description of this for all three osx emacs
>"window-systems" (terminal, carbon/aqua, x11) yesterday.
>
>
>
>  
>
Huh.  Where did you post that?  I found a nice review of ssh, but
nothing about keys.  In any case, I think the answer to the
original question (assuming GNU Emacs 21) is the first line of the
following (I through in some definitions for F1 and the cmd key):
;Mac keys
(setq mac-command-key-is-meta nil)
(global-set-key (quote [f1]) 'help-command)
(global-set-key [?\A-v] 'yank)           ; paste
(global-set-key [?\A-x] 'kill-region)    ; cut
(global-set-key [?\A-c] 'kill-ring-save) ; copy

-- 
Rodney Sparapani              Medical College of Wisconsin
Sr. Biostatistician           Patient Care & Outcomes Research
rsparapa@mcw.edu              http://www.mcw.edu/pcor
Was 'Name That Tune' rigged?  WWLD -- What Would Lombardi Do

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[tristero]

In article <3EBBB6D5.2000803@mcw.edu>, Rodney Sparapani wrote:
> tristero wrote:
> 
>>In article <090520030440528694%ajanta@no.spam>, Ajanta wrote:
>>  
>>
>>>But I would also like to try defining
>>>Option as Meta. What is the .emacs command for this? Thanks.
>>>    
>>I just posted a description of this for all three osx emacs
>>"window-systems" (terminal, carbon/aqua, x11) yesterday.
>>
> Huh.  Where did you post that? 

Earlier in this thread.  Here it is again:


There are three cases here, only one of which requires a .emacs
change:


1. Running in a Terminal (either gnuemacs or xemacs).  Enable the
   Emulation preference "Use option as meta key".  You might also find
   it useful to enable "Option click to position cursor", which gives
   you some very basic mouse functionality.

2.  Running the carbon gnuemacs.  Here you want to add a line to
    .emacs:

   (setq mac-command-key-is-meta nil)

   The effect of this is to make Option act as Meta and Command act as
   Alt.  For clarity you may want to conditionalize this to (eq
   window-system 'mac).  But it's not strictly necessary to do so.

3.  Running in X11 (either gnuemacs or xemacs).  Here you need to
    change the X11 modmap.  I put the following in ~/.Xmodmap:

    clear mod1
    keycode 66 = Meta_L 
    keycode 63 = Mode_switch
    add mod1 = Meta_L

    As in case (2), the effect of this is to make Option be Meta and
    Command be Alt. NB: the keycode values could well be specific to
    the Apple Pro keyboard.

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[Matthew Calhoun]

El Friday, 9 May, 2003, a las 11:47  PM, help-gnu-emacs-request@gnu.org 
escribió:
>
> 1. Running in a Terminal (either gnuemacs or xemacs).  Enable the
>    Emulation preference "Use option as meta key"...

I'm using OS X's pre-installed emacs (gnu 21.1.1), and I've done this, 
but it's not working quite right. Commands that start with "C-" work 
fine, commands that start with "M-" work fine, but when I hold down 
both Ctrl and Meta, the Ctrl is ignored.  For instance, if I try to run 
mark-sexp using C-M-@, Emacs interprets it as M-@, which is bound to 
mark-word.  Using ESC C-@ instead seems to work fine, it's just a pain 
to type. Any ideas as to what might be wrong? Does anyone else using 
the same setup even see this behavior? I haven't been able to find any 
mention of it.

Thanks,
Matt

Re: Opt/Fn as meta? (emacs on macs)

[tristero]

In article <mailman.6287.1053063307.21513.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
Matthew Calhoun wrote: 
>> 1. Running in a Terminal (either gnuemacs or xemacs).  Enable the
>>    Emulation preference "Use option as meta key"...
> 
> I'm using OS X's pre-installed emacs (gnu 21.1.1), and I've done this, 
> but it's not working quite right. Commands that start with "C-" work 
> fine, commands that start with "M-" work fine, but when I hold down 
> both Ctrl and Meta, the Ctrl is ignored.  

Unfortunately, yes, the meta emulation in Terminal is limited in the
way you describe (and it's not specific to the emacs version). It
works in combination shift but not in combination with control.  I
don't know of any way around this.