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I tried Emacs after reading so much about it lately...but I don’t understand how people use it. The sheer volume of key combinations always in play to do things

I tried Emacs after reading so much about it lately...but I don’t understand how people use it. The sheer volume of key combinations always in play to do things makes my hands hurt. It made me see the appeal of some of those concave keyboards.

widdershins 6y ago
I'm just getting into Emacs (~4 months) and I'd say that I have probably ~40 key-commands memorized. I M-x search for everything else and I still find it to be an excellent experience. I'm building my config and muscle memory very slowly, but enjoying every minute.
DocTomoe 6y ago
That's me, two years ago, when I made the switch from vi. In the end, the key combinations are something to learn - but the productivity increase makes them worth learning. And for the handcramp thing: Realize that you have two control, and two meta keys on a standard keyboard.
neolog 6y ago
Many people find it helpful to swap ctrl with capslock.
- samus 6y ago
  I'm currently trying out a circular swap of left ctrl -> left super, left super -> left alt, left alt -> left ctrl. The goal is the same: now the thumb just curls a little bit more to reach ctrl. Edit: my preferred keyboard layout has levels, and the Caps Lock key is a level shifter, which makes me prefer not pushing it down to Left Ctrl.
auganov 6y ago
Super and Hyper (Right Alt and Right Pritnscreen for me). I never use any C-c bindings. C-* & M-* already have decent defaults, so all my frequently used stuff is s-* and H-*. Some of the less frequent stuff might be H-s-*, C-s-* or M-s-* [0]. Everything else I can just call from M-x. Don't see the point of using keybindings for stuff you only need a few times a day. On the flipside the stuff where keybindings make sense should have the simplest possible one. [0] It may seem daunting but there's usually some symmetry in the way I define them. One letter tends to do different but somewhat related things with different modifiers. For example s-x is eval defun, H-x is eval s-exp at point, s-z is eval defun and pprint, H-x is eval at point and pprint. H-s-x is eval at point and replace. C-k is kill-line so s-k is kill sexp. M-f is forward-word so s-f is forward-sexp.

widdershins 6y ago

I'm just getting into Emacs (~4 months) and I'd say that I have probably ~40 key-commands memorized. I M-x search for everything else and I still find it to be an excellent experience. I'm building my config and muscle memory very slowly, but enjoying every minute.

DocTomoe 6y ago

That's me, two years ago, when I made the switch from vi. In the end, the key combinations are something to learn - but the productivity increase makes them worth learning. And for the handcramp thing: Realize that you have two control, and two meta keys on a standard keyboard.

neolog 6y ago

Many people find it helpful to swap ctrl with capslock.

samus 6y ago
I'm currently trying out a circular swap of left ctrl -> left super, left super -> left alt, left alt -> left ctrl. The goal is the same: now the thumb just curls a little bit more to reach ctrl. Edit: my preferred keyboard layout has levels, and the Caps Lock key is a level shifter, which makes me prefer not pushing it down to Left Ctrl.

auganov 6y ago

Super and Hyper (Right Alt and Right Pritnscreen for me). I never use any C-c bindings. C-* & M-* already have decent defaults, so all my frequently used stuff is s-* and H-*. Some of the less frequent stuff might be H-s-*, C-s-* or M-s-* [0]. Everything else I can just call from M-x. Don't see the point of using keybindings for stuff you only need a few times a day. On the flipside the stuff where keybindings make sense should have the simplest possible one. [0] It may seem daunting but there's usually some symmetry in the way I define them. One letter tends to do different but somewhat related things with different modifiers. For example s-x is eval defun, H-x is eval s-exp at point, s-z is eval defun and pprint, H-x is eval at point and pprint. H-s-x is eval at point and replace. C-k is kill-line so s-k is kill sexp. M-f is forward-word so s-f is forward-sexp.