6 ms·

It's easier said than done. I decided to switch about a month ago, and after playing around with evil mode for a week, I gave it up in favor of emacs-std bindin

It's easier said than done. I decided to switch about a month ago, and after playing around with evil mode for a week, I gave it up in favor of emacs-std bindings. The core editor evil emulation was flawless. All my 20-year muscle memory commands just worked without a second thought. When going into other packages like org, magit, etc. I noticed that all their default bindings were emacsey as well (for obvious reasons). I realized that I would be forever mapping evil bindings into new packages every time I wanted to use something new, so I gave it up as a bad job and just bit the bullet and switched to stock emacs without evil. I'm like halfway through the learning curve (I hope!) and it's tough. I've always had the caps lock key mapped to Ctrl anyway, but I still feel like my pinkie is about to fall off. After using vi/elvis/vim for almost 25 years, I do admit that I like emacs, but "just switch" still means a period of remarkably reduced productivity to many. (Yes, I know that for any popular package someone has published evil mode bindings and use-package makes them trivial, but it's not the point.)

kreetx 9y ago
I did the same as you. Also took the learning as a challenge. It's also just so nice sometimes to start anew and learn something from zero. (I do also understand it takes time. But take it as motorcycle maintenance ;) EDIT: Also with emacs: you get synergies with the default mode of bash.
dxepcion 9y ago
have you looked into evil-collection? This is a collection of evil bindings for various emacs packages. https://github.com/jojojames/evil-collection https://github.com/jojojames/evil-collection
- davidmr 9y ago
  Thanks; I have, but I thought I might as well try to do it right. If after another month or so, I still have "Emacs pinkie", I might just bite the bullet and go to evil mode.
jpeloquin 9y ago
Regarding moving Ctrl, my experience is that the pinky finger just isn't strong enough to handle the Ctrl key in emacs even when Ctrl is bound to caps lock. I think it's more comfortable to swap Ctrl with Alt (or whatever key is adjacent to the spacebar) so the thumbs can be used for Ctrl. This is beneficial even in other software, since Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl+X are pretty common.

kreetx 9y ago

I did the same as you. Also took the learning as a challenge. It's also just so nice sometimes to start anew and learn something from zero. (I do also understand it takes time. But take it as motorcycle maintenance ;) EDIT: Also with emacs: you get synergies with the default mode of bash.

dxepcion 9y ago

have you looked into evil-collection? This is a collection of evil bindings for various emacs packages. https://github.com/jojojames/evil-collection https://github.com/jojojames/evil-collection

davidmr 9y ago
Thanks; I have, but I thought I might as well try to do it right. If after another month or so, I still have "Emacs pinkie", I might just bite the bullet and go to evil mode.

jpeloquin 9y ago

Regarding moving Ctrl, my experience is that the pinky finger just isn't strong enough to handle the Ctrl key in emacs even when Ctrl is bound to caps lock. I think it's more comfortable to swap Ctrl with Alt (or whatever key is adjacent to the spacebar) so the thumbs can be used for Ctrl. This is beneficial even in other software, since Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl+X are pretty common.