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Question to the Emacs crowd: how do I hit Alt comfortably? My instinct is to use my left ring finger, but have trouble doing that without moving my other finger

Question to the Emacs crowd: how do I hit Alt comfortably? My instinct is to use my left ring finger, but have trouble doing that without moving my other fingers much. Could it be because I have very large hands (or because my keyboard sucks)? Is it a good idea to just remap capslock to be the meta key?

jzawodn 13y ago
I just realized that I use my thumb for that.
jcurbo 13y ago
I tend to use my left thumb. Seems to be close enough on PC and Mac keyboards that muscle memory works fine.
spudlyo 13y ago
The control key is used more often than the meta key, so I'd reserve that choice bit of keyboard real estate (caps-lock) for control. For meta you can hit Esc, or even easier Ctrl+[ which is the same thing. Contorting your hand to hit control and alt in their default locations is going to cause you pain, so don't do it. I now use a kinesis keyboard, which has two giant thumb keys for your left hand, I use those for control and meta. Before that I used control at caps-lock and meta using Ctrl+[, which worked well and pain-free for me for years.
alokv28 13y ago
On OSX I have Meta bound to the Apple key. What also helped is a tip borrowed from Steve Yegge [1] to bind C-x C-m to M-x (also C-c C-m, in case you miss the x). This avoids my most common use of Meta, allowing me to use the more comfortable Control (bound to Caps Lock). [1] https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs
beffbernard 13y ago
I use my thumb. Though I replaced my CAPSLOCK with CTRL and I mapped C-x C-m and C-c C-m to be equivalent to M-x. This dramatically reduce my usage of Alt.
creese 13y ago
Having two control keys is really useful because then you can alternate hands. My layout looks like this: [super] - [left meta] - [left control] - [space] - [right control] - [right meta] Having control and meta right next to each other also makes C-M-* combinations easier to reach.

jzawodn 13y ago

I just realized that I use my thumb for that.

jcurbo 13y ago

I tend to use my left thumb. Seems to be close enough on PC and Mac keyboards that muscle memory works fine.

spudlyo 13y ago

The control key is used more often than the meta key, so I'd reserve that choice bit of keyboard real estate (caps-lock) for control. For meta you can hit Esc, or even easier Ctrl+[ which is the same thing. Contorting your hand to hit control and alt in their default locations is going to cause you pain, so don't do it. I now use a kinesis keyboard, which has two giant thumb keys for your left hand, I use those for control and meta. Before that I used control at caps-lock and meta using Ctrl+[, which worked well and pain-free for me for years.

alokv28 13y ago

On OSX I have Meta bound to the Apple key. What also helped is a tip borrowed from Steve Yegge [1] to bind C-x C-m to M-x (also C-c C-m, in case you miss the x). This avoids my most common use of Meta, allowing me to use the more comfortable Control (bound to Caps Lock). [1] https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs

beffbernard 13y ago

I use my thumb. Though I replaced my CAPSLOCK with CTRL and I mapped C-x C-m and C-c C-m to be equivalent to M-x. This dramatically reduce my usage of Alt.

creese 13y ago

Having two control keys is really useful because then you can alternate hands. My layout looks like this: [super] - [left meta] - [left control] - [space] - [right control] - [right meta] Having control and meta right next to each other also makes C-M-* combinations easier to reach.