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I had the exact same attempt, but it turns out remembering a bunch of keyboard shortcuts to do anything is really hard and frustrating. I use Vim as an editor.

I had the exact same attempt, but it turns out remembering a bunch of keyboard shortcuts to do anything is really hard and frustrating. I use Vim as an editor. I thing there’s just a limit to what I can reasonably use day to day that requires memorisation over discovery. I’m using Gnome too, after Emacs I like the lack of configuration.

chlorion 4y ago
I think a lot of people think you have to use crazy key-combos in Emacs because it gets compared to Vim so often, but you can get by fine with the very basic combos, mouse use and the minibuffer! I mostly just use M-x to run interactive commands, and then use the basic C-x chords to save files and whatnot. I make really heavy use of interactive commands though, I find it easier to type "describe-function" into the minibuffer than doing the key-combo for it, for example! Using the GUI Emacs interface can also help a bit with non keyboard driven interaction I think, since it provides buttons you can click and a context menu when you right click that changes depending on the modes and other things. Anyways, my main point is that Emacs does not require a heavy keyboard/key-combo use style, and that you can use the mouse and the minibuffer to do everything you could with keyboard stuff.
phforms 4y ago
I have a pretty bad memory and also use both editors. Vim was a lot easier for me because it has a great mnemonik system around its shortcuts: nouns, verbs and all that. I really struggled with Emacs keybindings because I could never make any sense of them and didn’t use Emacs often enough to make them stick. This is what helped me: - the help commands (obviously), where I can quickly look up what a shortcut does (C-h k) and which ones are bound to a specific function (C-h f) or variable (C-h v) - the escape command (C-g) which helped me out countless times when I accidentally hit the wrong keystrokes - keeping an “Emacs Journal” where I write down my most important commands with shortcuts, what I want to learn next, what I want to fix, research, etc. (I use my persistent scratch buffer for this and I also keep a Journal for Vim)

chlorion 4y ago

I think a lot of people think you have to use crazy key-combos in Emacs because it gets compared to Vim so often, but you can get by fine with the very basic combos, mouse use and the minibuffer! I mostly just use M-x to run interactive commands, and then use the basic C-x chords to save files and whatnot. I make really heavy use of interactive commands though, I find it easier to type "describe-function" into the minibuffer than doing the key-combo for it, for example! Using the GUI Emacs interface can also help a bit with non keyboard driven interaction I think, since it provides buttons you can click and a context menu when you right click that changes depending on the modes and other things. Anyways, my main point is that Emacs does not require a heavy keyboard/key-combo use style, and that you can use the mouse and the minibuffer to do everything you could with keyboard stuff.

phforms 4y ago

I have a pretty bad memory and also use both editors. Vim was a lot easier for me because it has a great mnemonik system around its shortcuts: nouns, verbs and all that. I really struggled with Emacs keybindings because I could never make any sense of them and didn’t use Emacs often enough to make them stick. This is what helped me: - the help commands (obviously), where I can quickly look up what a shortcut does (C-h k) and which ones are bound to a specific function (C-h f) or variable (C-h v) - the escape command (C-g) which helped me out countless times when I accidentally hit the wrong keystrokes - keeping an “Emacs Journal” where I write down my most important commands with shortcuts, what I want to learn next, what I want to fix, research, etc. (I use my persistent scratch buffer for this and I also keep a Journal for Vim)