mirror of git://git.qorg11.net/kill9.git
81 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
# Moving in Emacs
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The Emacs cursor just says where the next character will be printed,
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and such things like that, like in Vim, you can move it with the arrow
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keys, but this is a bad idea since you have to move your hands to do
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that.
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Do this: put your hands on the keyboard in the most comfortable way
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possible, they don't have to be on the home row, just comfortable
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position.
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Very likely, one of your fingers is near the F key, other in the P
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key, and other near the B key, this are the keys you will use to move
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the cursor in Emacs. But since Emacs don't have an insert mode "like
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vim" you have to use a modifier key. The most common are C (Control)
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and M (Meta)[^1]
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The movement keys have a meaning: F meanings forward (Next character),
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P previous (Previous line), B backward (Previous character) and N next
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(Next line)
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You can see it this way[^2]:
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~~~
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C-p
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:
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:
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C-b .... The cursor .... C-f
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:
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:
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C-n
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~~~
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This is hard to use at first. but keep using it for a while and you'll
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love it more than "comfortable" Vim key bindings.
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If moving character by character is too slow, you can try using the
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M-f and M-b to move word by word. M-p and M-n don't do anything. So
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don't try it.
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## Moving even faster
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Sometimes you just have to go to the end or beginning of the
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line. Obviously Emacs supports this. with the C-a and C-e shortcuts.
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C-a goes to the beginning of the line and C-e goes to the end of the
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line.
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You can also go to the end or beginning of a sentence with Meta. M-e
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goes to the end of the sentence and M-a goes to the beginning
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Most desktop keyboards have a Page Up and previous Page Down, this
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keys do work on Emacs, but they're far from the keys we normally
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use. So we Emacs has it shortcut for it: C-v and M-v. C-v means next
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page and M-v previous page.
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While editing configuration files. You probably want to go the end of
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the file and start typing, M-> will put the cursor on the last
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character of the file. And M-< will put the cursor in the first
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character of the file (This behaviour is the same as the Home and End
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key in a website for example. In Emacs, these keys just move the
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cursor to the end or beginning of the line (Like C-e and C-a)
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There's a weird keybinding: C-u (Universal argument) which gives a
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numeric value to the next keybinding you'll use. For example. C-u 8 C-b will do C-b 8 times.
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## Exercises
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Open [this](https://kill-9.xyz/emacs/introduction/.lorem) file in
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Emacs and move across it (Try C-b, C-F- C-n, C-p, C-e, C-a, M-a,
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M-e...)
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[^1]: Meta key was a key present on very (very) old keyboards. Since
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the Meta key is missing on newer keyboards. We use left Alt
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instead. But if your keyboard (Sun Type 7 for example) has a meta
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key, you can use it instead of Alt. You can also use ESC instead
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of alt
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[^2]: While reading Emacs documentation, you'll find a lot of M-* and
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C-*, M-f for example, means Meta + F, and C-f means Control + f
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