8 ms·

Emacs for the rest of us: ErgoEmacs

62 points by macco 15y ago

phzbOx 15y ago
In that same vain, I would love an emacs in a browser based on the Javascript language. So, a base API to create new buffers/windows. Ideally a theme manager and a plugin/extension system. The goal would be to have this app open 24h/24 on a server and be able to totally use it from the browser and customize it with Javascript. I would also be able to have a irc client (Think erc) directly in this 'editor' coded entirely in Javascript using this API. Basically, anything you could do with emacs would be possible, but directly from the browser hosted somewhere and running 24h/24.
- mnutt 15y ago
  That's interesting, but one of the challenges is the wide variety of modifier keys emacs uses, and the difficulty of binding them all in the browser. The other major challenge is just duplicating javascript the sheer quantity of functionality emacs provides. An easier first step may be to run emacs on the server and write a javascript-based client for it.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Or, you know, run emacs on the server and write a "ssh based client" for it. :) What would be the value of running in a browser specifically? The files you are editting almost by definition live outside the browser's sandbox. And if they're going to be managed server-side, it seems like there's a perfectly working 40 year old paradigm for managing files on a remote host.
    - mnutt 15y ago
      You're right, it's an interesting challenge but not necessarily one that is begging to be solved.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- tikhonj 15y ago
  This might not be everything you want, but check out Ymacs: http://www.ymacs.org/ http://www.ymacs.org/
- intranation 15y ago
  Not sure about having an editor in a browser, but if you want a (mostly) decent IRC client in the browser you could try: https://irccloud.com/ https://irccloud.com/ I have 3 invites if anyone wants to email me (my email is on my profile).
endeavor 15y ago
Interesting project. Emacs is such a powerful tool. It makes sense to attempt to modernize it. It will be hard to get momentum because Emacs users are typically die-hard purists, so moving away from the "Emacs way" may ruffle some feathers. Recently I've started to do this on a small scale in my own .emacs file. Shortcuts I use every few minutes were hidden but too many multi-step keyboard shortcuts. Especially when I really don't need to duplicate the arrow and page-up/down keys with single-step shortcuts. It's too bad it sounds like there won't be a Linux version.
- s1rech 15y ago
  I think the biggest change for regular users is a good package manager. ELPA is coming per default in emacs24, and there is a project in github (el-get) that is even better. I have a pretty big emacs config, and configuring some external modules (and updating them!) used to be a nightmare. Now it has gotten much easier.
- tikhonj 15y ago
  It does make sense to modernize it, but it emphatically does not make sense to use cua-style bindings. This isn't because all Emacs users are "die-hard purists", it's simply because the Emacs way is much better and trading long-term efficiency for short-term gain (ease of learning) is definitely not a good choice. Additionally, you should use the C-whatever bindings for moving around instead of the arrow keys. Once I learned them, moving around code became much simpler. Not only do you not have to move your hand to the arrow keys, but you also start using some of the more advanced moving commands that let you move by expression or paragraph (the latter is great for code because it takes you to the next blank line, which is usually what delimits parts of the code that are logically together).
ryanklee 15y ago
Some projects related insofar as they are attempts to simplify the initial configuration of Emacs. I've used all but the last at some point and have found them useful (though like any good scaffolding, they become irrelevant over the course of continued Emacs usage): * https://github.com/gabrielelanaro/emacs-for-python https://github.com/gabrielelanaro/emacs-for-python * https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit * http://eschulte.github.com/emacs-starter-kit http://eschulte.github.com/emacs-starter-kit * https://github.com/pdee/pdee https://github.com/pdee/pdee I am especially interested to see this get off the ground, though, as even the simplified "starter kits" above still require a certain non-trivial level of contextual Emacs-knowledge -- a simple binary with overly-sane keybindings and functional out-of-the-box would be a real contribution. I would have loved to use something like that myself about a year ago.
wyclif 15y ago
"whose" not "who's"
amstr 15y ago
This timeline seems to be unaware of package.el, ELPA, etc, by proposing bundling MORE packages by default in Emacs (IMO Emacs' default installation is already huge). Also, I don't see the keybinding changes gaining any traction, because they would conflict with too many existing packages. As one of many examples, C-c (proposed for Copy) is already used for lisp compilation.
julian37 15y ago
It should be pointed out that Emacs maintainers aren't in some kind of stubborn elitist get-off-my-lawn mindset. Making Emacs more welcoming to newbies has been discussed time and again on the Emacs mailing lists. But the general consensus (one that I happen to agree with) seems to be that "learning Emacs the hard way" is, generally, the right way. As just one example, I think that emulating the inferior Undo/Redo paradigm (using the Ctrl+Y/Z binding familiar to Windows and MacOS users) hides the full power of the Kill Ring and may mean that some Emacs users will never get to know about it. I know it's a topic of heated debate and I don't mean to start this debate all over here on HN. I just thought it would be good to point out that newbie-friendliness is continually being considered and reconsidered by Emacs' maintainers, but (for the most part) usually rejected, and I think for good reasons. See this thread for one example, there are many more if you care to look for them: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2005-03/msg00587.html http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2005-03/msg...
- peterb 15y ago
  I agree with the maintainers. I view these pre-configured init files as a good middle ground. They help you be productive while you learn.
- ajross 15y ago
  Right. It seems effort in this direction would be better spent making it easier to learn emacs as it is than trying to make it something else. The world is filled with CUA mode editors, many of them don't even suck. Users who truly want that are very well served, and emacs isn't going to bring much to the table. People who actually want emacs' features like it the way it is.
  - extension 15y ago
    I truly want the programmability of emacs without the weird interface. I tried to use the former to implement the latter, but it's a ton of work and it seems to break all the time.
    - 15y ago
gnuvince 15y ago
This hasn't been updated in nearly 2 years.
- invisiblefunnel 15y ago
  The linked 'DeveloperIntro' page hasn't been updated since 2010, but the code was updated as recently as last month. EDIT: http://code.google.com/p/ergoemacs/source/list http://code.google.com/p/ergoemacs/source/list
swah 15y ago
"enhanced from GNU Emacs"... Implying that you could easily enhance Emacs is a certain way for pushing passionate users away from this. You don't "enhance" Emacs, you hack it, extend it, write cool modes...
- chc 15y ago
  Eh, a beginner needs Emacs to be more extended like I need twelve more legs. Emacs is harder to learn than most of the programming languages you'll be using in it. The first thing I tried to do beyond basic open-edit-save when I started learning Emacs was change the colors to something that hurt my eyes less. After extensive Googling and playing around with the things I found, I failed. That's simple in every other text editing program I'd used up to that point, but when given the choice to improve the program's usability or "extend it" and "write cool modes," you're right, Emacs users seem to invariably prefer the latter. I can't blame people for scratching their own itch, but I don't think we should hate on people for trying to help new users either.
pnathan 15y ago
Meh. Modern does not equate to better. Most of the complaints listed boil down to "Because it's not Windows". Intuitive is just what you've seen before... I suppose it's ridiculous to expect and hope people to care about their tools enough to customize it for what they use and want. :-/ I spend probably 30 minutes each month on average dinking with my .emacs to tune it with how I'm using emacs, remove hassles, etc. These days it's extremely intuitive and useful for my work. I maintain similar keybindings between multiple operating systems, customized for my preferred keyboard and hands; a variety of functions have been put together to ensure that what I do gets done very efficiently. Because emacs was extensible trivially, was programmable, I can spend the time and the learning curve to invest in my primary tool. That's what, in my opinion, emacs is about.
- gruseom 15y ago
  Intuitive is just what you've seen before. That is a marvelous aphorism. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389615 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389615
  - pnathan 15y ago
    I didn't come up with it, but I like to use it in an 'intuitive' debate.
dacap 15y ago
The real power of Emacs is the whole set of commands to match the mind interests (more commands you have, more power you get). For example, sexps are the best thing for programming: cut/copy/paste complete expressions is a must and you can feel how your mind want to handle those kind of expressions. And Emacs gives you that power. Anyway the default Emacs keyboard bindings are just ridiculous, also ErgoEmacs is not good enough. I've my own keyboard bindings: http://goo.gl/jwwdG http://goo.gl/jwwdG and I'm sure they can be much better. But it's just matter of taste. The worst enemy of Emacs is its own UI and its own programming language for customization: elisp without multithreading support.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
mjcohenw 15y ago
How about Emacs for Android? Apropos of nothing, "WINE" stands for "WINE is not Emacs".
decklin 15y ago
As a Dvorak user, I find it very odd that he has a version of the keybinding (http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html) with all the letters swapped around so that shortcuts are in the same physical place that they would be on a QWERTY keyboard(!). I can see relearning C for copy, as it's logical and would reduce the burden of switching between normal Mac/PC applications, but having J mean copy because that key would have been C in QWERTY is just too weird. I think about lots of Emacs bindings mnemonically: C-b, C-f and friends, obviously, or C-c because that's just the "bindings having to do with this mode" key, and you see it a lot when you read documentation -- in my head, it's a letter, not a physical position. I touch-type Dvorak pretty fast, but two-finger type it very slowly, because in my brain the letters are wired to finger movements starting on the home row. A possible reason for this is that he has an "inverted T" for cursor movement (but on the left hand, like vi, not WASD like I believe PC gamers would be used to). If your set of cursor keys is based on the physical layout of QWERTY, like vi, it doesn't translate all that well to Dvorak (vi manages to be not horrible since J and K stay next to each other, but in this proposal J and K are not on the same axis), but if they are mnemnonic, like Emacs, there's no problem. If the idea is to fit better with what the vast majority of "normal" people expect computers to work... well, normal people use the arrow keys. Telling them an invented abstraction is better because they don't have to move their hands from home row isn't going to sell them, I think.
- Gong-Yi 15y ago
  you may put this line in your .emacs or .emacs.d/init.el: (setenv "ERGOEMACS_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT" "dv")
gruseom 15y ago
I don't love Emacs' UI either, but imposing a new UI on it won't work, unless you rethink its entire model, in which case you'll no longer have Emacs. A better way to help new users with Emacs' daunting learning curve might be to make a game. A fun game would get that stuff into muscle-memory pretty quickly.
mgualt 15y ago
Many of the comments focus on increasing the friendliness of emacs for new users, and how open-minded the maintainers are to this effort, though they realize in their wisdom that this is not necessarily a valuable goal in and of itself. The newbie issue is a typical red herring and excuse for the maintainers not to face the fact that emacs has huge design problems for all users, not just newbies. For example, the presence of dozens of redundant crappy packages associated to every function, included by default in the distribution (e.g. a dozen word-wrapping packages) means that one is likely to use a substandard tool and have problems. The fact that all add-ons are treated with equal weight means that the command you are looking for is hidden among thousands of commands, most of which are way outside the scope of what I need. The proliferation of buffers, leading to the proliferation of buffer packages used to search through lists of buffers? You have to be kidding me. The customization system in Emacs is not only a throwback to 1980s UI "design" but completely out of control -- all options, no matter how minute, are treated on equal footing even if most of them should be hidden or in subtrees. Not only this, but the customization options themselves are badly named, using quirky terminology which nobody uses except emacs. In short, emacs is thoroughly polluted and needs an environmental assessment and large-scale cleaning project. This has nothing to do with newbies, it has to do with oldies whose dusty, dried-up packages need to be swept into the dustbin of history.
michaelcampbell 15y ago
But this is from Xah Lee. He's smarter than everyone on the planet and knows what's best, by fiat. If you don't believe me, just ask him.
- jacmoe 15y ago
  I do not question that he would agree with you. He's not smarter than me, though. :) Or Jeff Pace: http://jpace.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/ergonomic-emacs-keybindings/ http://jpace.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/ergonomic-emacs-keybin...
jacmoe 15y ago
People want instant gratification... Seriously. Use TextMate if you want a quick to learn, but limited, editor.
Gong-Yi 15y ago
ErgoEmacs is really helpful to me, the only problem is that most modes shipped with Emacs (like org-mode) are still using the old c-x c-something c-blah blah keybinding, that sometimes annoys me after I have adapted ErgoEmacs keybindings. It seems no good solutions for this issue available yet.
catphive 15y ago
Note that ergoemacs is not the same thing as CUA mode. Ergoemacs is more about ergonomic efficiency than about mimicking windows. CUA mode is a separate mode already built into emacs. I used ergoemacs keybindings for a year or so. They are pretty slick, and definitely more ergonomically efficient than emacs default keybindings. However, many modes are designed around emacs default keybindings, and I eventually decided it was too much work tweaking every mode I used to conform to the ergoemacs setup. If you stick to emacs core modes which are already customized, it's probably a good choice.

62 points by macco 15y ago

In that same vain, I would love an emacs in a browser based on the Javascript language. So, a base API to create new buffers/windows. Ideally a theme manager and a plugin/extension system. The goal would be to have this app open 24h/24 on a server and be able to totally use it from the browser and customize it with Javascript. I would also be able to have a irc client (Think erc) directly in this 'editor' coded entirely in Javascript using this API. Basically, anything you could do with emacs would be possible, but directly from the browser hosted somewhere and running 24h/24.

mnutt 15y ago
That's interesting, but one of the challenges is the wide variety of modifier keys emacs uses, and the difficulty of binding them all in the browser. The other major challenge is just duplicating javascript the sheer quantity of functionality emacs provides. An easier first step may be to run emacs on the server and write a javascript-based client for it.
- ajross 15y ago
  Or, you know, run emacs on the server and write a "ssh based client" for it. :) What would be the value of running in a browser specifically? The files you are editting almost by definition live outside the browser's sandbox. And if they're going to be managed server-side, it seems like there's a perfectly working 40 year old paradigm for managing files on a remote host.
  - mnutt 15y ago
    You're right, it's an interesting challenge but not necessarily one that is begging to be solved.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tikhonj 15y ago
This might not be everything you want, but check out Ymacs: http://www.ymacs.org/ http://www.ymacs.org/
intranation 15y ago
Not sure about having an editor in a browser, but if you want a (mostly) decent IRC client in the browser you could try: https://irccloud.com/ https://irccloud.com/ I have 3 invites if anyone wants to email me (my email is on my profile).

endeavor 15y ago

Interesting project. Emacs is such a powerful tool. It makes sense to attempt to modernize it. It will be hard to get momentum because Emacs users are typically die-hard purists, so moving away from the "Emacs way" may ruffle some feathers. Recently I've started to do this on a small scale in my own .emacs file. Shortcuts I use every few minutes were hidden but too many multi-step keyboard shortcuts. Especially when I really don't need to duplicate the arrow and page-up/down keys with single-step shortcuts. It's too bad it sounds like there won't be a Linux version.

s1rech 15y ago
I think the biggest change for regular users is a good package manager. ELPA is coming per default in emacs24, and there is a project in github (el-get) that is even better. I have a pretty big emacs config, and configuring some external modules (and updating them!) used to be a nightmare. Now it has gotten much easier.
tikhonj 15y ago
It does make sense to modernize it, but it emphatically does not make sense to use cua-style bindings. This isn't because all Emacs users are "die-hard purists", it's simply because the Emacs way is much better and trading long-term efficiency for short-term gain (ease of learning) is definitely not a good choice. Additionally, you should use the C-whatever bindings for moving around instead of the arrow keys. Once I learned them, moving around code became much simpler. Not only do you not have to move your hand to the arrow keys, but you also start using some of the more advanced moving commands that let you move by expression or paragraph (the latter is great for code because it takes you to the next blank line, which is usually what delimits parts of the code that are logically together).

ryanklee 15y ago

Some projects related insofar as they are attempts to simplify the initial configuration of Emacs. I've used all but the last at some point and have found them useful (though like any good scaffolding, they become irrelevant over the course of continued Emacs usage): * https://github.com/gabrielelanaro/emacs-for-python https://github.com/gabrielelanaro/emacs-for-python * https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit * http://eschulte.github.com/emacs-starter-kit http://eschulte.github.com/emacs-starter-kit * https://github.com/pdee/pdee https://github.com/pdee/pdee I am especially interested to see this get off the ground, though, as even the simplified "starter kits" above still require a certain non-trivial level of contextual Emacs-knowledge -- a simple binary with overly-sane keybindings and functional out-of-the-box would be a real contribution. I would have loved to use something like that myself about a year ago.

wyclif 15y ago

"whose" not "who's"

amstr 15y ago

This timeline seems to be unaware of package.el, ELPA, etc, by proposing bundling MORE packages by default in Emacs (IMO Emacs' default installation is already huge). Also, I don't see the keybinding changes gaining any traction, because they would conflict with too many existing packages. As one of many examples, C-c (proposed for Copy) is already used for lisp compilation.

julian37 15y ago

It should be pointed out that Emacs maintainers aren't in some kind of stubborn elitist get-off-my-lawn mindset. Making Emacs more welcoming to newbies has been discussed time and again on the Emacs mailing lists. But the general consensus (one that I happen to agree with) seems to be that "learning Emacs the hard way" is, generally, the right way. As just one example, I think that emulating the inferior Undo/Redo paradigm (using the Ctrl+Y/Z binding familiar to Windows and MacOS users) hides the full power of the Kill Ring and may mean that some Emacs users will never get to know about it. I know it's a topic of heated debate and I don't mean to start this debate all over here on HN. I just thought it would be good to point out that newbie-friendliness is continually being considered and reconsidered by Emacs' maintainers, but (for the most part) usually rejected, and I think for good reasons. See this thread for one example, there are many more if you care to look for them: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2005-03/msg00587.html http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2005-03/msg...

peterb 15y ago
I agree with the maintainers. I view these pre-configured init files as a good middle ground. They help you be productive while you learn.
ajross 15y ago
Right. It seems effort in this direction would be better spent making it easier to learn emacs as it is than trying to make it something else. The world is filled with CUA mode editors, many of them don't even suck. Users who truly want that are very well served, and emacs isn't going to bring much to the table. People who actually want emacs' features like it the way it is.
- extension 15y ago
  I truly want the programmability of emacs without the weird interface. I tried to use the former to implement the latter, but it's a ton of work and it seems to break all the time.
  - 15y ago

gnuvince 15y ago

This hasn't been updated in nearly 2 years.

invisiblefunnel 15y ago
The linked 'DeveloperIntro' page hasn't been updated since 2010, but the code was updated as recently as last month. EDIT: http://code.google.com/p/ergoemacs/source/list http://code.google.com/p/ergoemacs/source/list

swah 15y ago

"enhanced from GNU Emacs"... Implying that you could easily enhance Emacs is a certain way for pushing passionate users away from this. You don't "enhance" Emacs, you hack it, extend it, write cool modes...

chc 15y ago
Eh, a beginner needs Emacs to be more extended like I need twelve more legs. Emacs is harder to learn than most of the programming languages you'll be using in it. The first thing I tried to do beyond basic open-edit-save when I started learning Emacs was change the colors to something that hurt my eyes less. After extensive Googling and playing around with the things I found, I failed. That's simple in every other text editing program I'd used up to that point, but when given the choice to improve the program's usability or "extend it" and "write cool modes," you're right, Emacs users seem to invariably prefer the latter. I can't blame people for scratching their own itch, but I don't think we should hate on people for trying to help new users either.

pnathan 15y ago

Meh. Modern does not equate to better. Most of the complaints listed boil down to "Because it's not Windows". Intuitive is just what you've seen before... I suppose it's ridiculous to expect and hope people to care about their tools enough to customize it for what they use and want. :-/ I spend probably 30 minutes each month on average dinking with my .emacs to tune it with how I'm using emacs, remove hassles, etc. These days it's extremely intuitive and useful for my work. I maintain similar keybindings between multiple operating systems, customized for my preferred keyboard and hands; a variety of functions have been put together to ensure that what I do gets done very efficiently. Because emacs was extensible trivially, was programmable, I can spend the time and the learning curve to invest in my primary tool. That's what, in my opinion, emacs is about.

gruseom 15y ago
Intuitive is just what you've seen before. That is a marvelous aphorism. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389615 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389615
- pnathan 15y ago
  I didn't come up with it, but I like to use it in an 'intuitive' debate.

dacap 15y ago

The real power of Emacs is the whole set of commands to match the mind interests (more commands you have, more power you get). For example, sexps are the best thing for programming: cut/copy/paste complete expressions is a must and you can feel how your mind want to handle those kind of expressions. And Emacs gives you that power. Anyway the default Emacs keyboard bindings are just ridiculous, also ErgoEmacs is not good enough. I've my own keyboard bindings: http://goo.gl/jwwdG http://goo.gl/jwwdG and I'm sure they can be much better. But it's just matter of taste. The worst enemy of Emacs is its own UI and its own programming language for customization: elisp without multithreading support.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

mjcohenw 15y ago

How about Emacs for Android? Apropos of nothing, "WINE" stands for "WINE is not Emacs".

decklin 15y ago

As a Dvorak user, I find it very odd that he has a version of the keybinding (http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html) with all the letters swapped around so that shortcuts are in the same physical place that they would be on a QWERTY keyboard(!). I can see relearning C for copy, as it's logical and would reduce the burden of switching between normal Mac/PC applications, but having J mean copy because that key would have been C in QWERTY is just too weird. I think about lots of Emacs bindings mnemonically: C-b, C-f and friends, obviously, or C-c because that's just the "bindings having to do with this mode" key, and you see it a lot when you read documentation -- in my head, it's a letter, not a physical position. I touch-type Dvorak pretty fast, but two-finger type it very slowly, because in my brain the letters are wired to finger movements starting on the home row. A possible reason for this is that he has an "inverted T" for cursor movement (but on the left hand, like vi, not WASD like I believe PC gamers would be used to). If your set of cursor keys is based on the physical layout of QWERTY, like vi, it doesn't translate all that well to Dvorak (vi manages to be not horrible since J and K stay next to each other, but in this proposal J and K are not on the same axis), but if they are mnemnonic, like Emacs, there's no problem. If the idea is to fit better with what the vast majority of "normal" people expect computers to work... well, normal people use the arrow keys. Telling them an invented abstraction is better because they don't have to move their hands from home row isn't going to sell them, I think.

Gong-Yi 15y ago
you may put this line in your .emacs or .emacs.d/init.el: (setenv "ERGOEMACS_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT" "dv")

gruseom 15y ago

I don't love Emacs' UI either, but imposing a new UI on it won't work, unless you rethink its entire model, in which case you'll no longer have Emacs. A better way to help new users with Emacs' daunting learning curve might be to make a game. A fun game would get that stuff into muscle-memory pretty quickly.

mgualt 15y ago

Many of the comments focus on increasing the friendliness of emacs for new users, and how open-minded the maintainers are to this effort, though they realize in their wisdom that this is not necessarily a valuable goal in and of itself. The newbie issue is a typical red herring and excuse for the maintainers not to face the fact that emacs has huge design problems for all users, not just newbies. For example, the presence of dozens of redundant crappy packages associated to every function, included by default in the distribution (e.g. a dozen word-wrapping packages) means that one is likely to use a substandard tool and have problems. The fact that all add-ons are treated with equal weight means that the command you are looking for is hidden among thousands of commands, most of which are way outside the scope of what I need. The proliferation of buffers, leading to the proliferation of buffer packages used to search through lists of buffers? You have to be kidding me. The customization system in Emacs is not only a throwback to 1980s UI "design" but completely out of control -- all options, no matter how minute, are treated on equal footing even if most of them should be hidden or in subtrees. Not only this, but the customization options themselves are badly named, using quirky terminology which nobody uses except emacs. In short, emacs is thoroughly polluted and needs an environmental assessment and large-scale cleaning project. This has nothing to do with newbies, it has to do with oldies whose dusty, dried-up packages need to be swept into the dustbin of history.

michaelcampbell 15y ago

But this is from Xah Lee. He's smarter than everyone on the planet and knows what's best, by fiat. If you don't believe me, just ask him.

jacmoe 15y ago
I do not question that he would agree with you. He's not smarter than me, though. :) Or Jeff Pace: http://jpace.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/ergonomic-emacs-keybindings/ http://jpace.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/ergonomic-emacs-keybin...

jacmoe 15y ago

People want instant gratification... Seriously. Use TextMate if you want a quick to learn, but limited, editor.

Gong-Yi 15y ago

ErgoEmacs is really helpful to me, the only problem is that most modes shipped with Emacs (like org-mode) are still using the old c-x c-something c-blah blah keybinding, that sometimes annoys me after I have adapted ErgoEmacs keybindings. It seems no good solutions for this issue available yet.

catphive 15y ago

Note that ergoemacs is not the same thing as CUA mode. Ergoemacs is more about ergonomic efficiency than about mimicking windows. CUA mode is a separate mode already built into emacs. I used ergoemacs keybindings for a year or so. They are pretty slick, and definitely more ergonomically efficient than emacs default keybindings. However, many modes are designed around emacs default keybindings, and I eventually decided it was too much work tweaking every mode I used to conform to the ergoemacs setup. If you stick to emacs core modes which are already customized, it's probably a good choice.