Re: Arrowless navigation

[dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs)]

In article <mailman.7237.1158859969.9609.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
David Hansen  <david.hansen@gmx.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:17:44 -0400 Vyacheslav Akhmechet wrote:
>
>> 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?
>>
>> 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?
>
>I use C-f and friends.  I'm so used to it...
>
>But if you like to have some other cursor movement commands
>w/o overwriting important emacs key bindings you can either
>use these windows keys as a modifier or do some key mapping
>magics with xmodmap.
>
>A quite common setup is to use CapsLock as the control key and
>the left control key as another modifier.
>
>David
>
>
>

Even better is that the standard sun keyboard has
control and caps-lock, etc, in the "right" place
(ie where they were on the ASR-33 teletype, which
is what EVERYONE used until finally (way back when!)
"glass ttys" became available (at reasonable price).

(is also how ancient VT-100, etc, had keys laid out).

Meaning, with control-key just to left of "A".

(Way down at the bottom left, as on (GD!) pc-keyboards,
it's a PAINFUL stretch (for me, anyway).

David