Re: Emacs learning curve

[Lennart Borgman]

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 4:41 PM, Tom <address@hidden> wrote:
> Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:
>
>>
>> > That's why CUA-style editing should be made the consistent default, so 
>> > Emacs
>> > works like all other modern application on KDE/Gnome/Windows, etc. and the
>> > current behavior should be provided as a compatibility mode for those who
>> > are accustomed to the old behavior.
>>
>> I might agree.  But as long as noone submits actual code to do that, it
>> won't happen.
>>
>
> Those against the idea say the main problem with CUA mode is it hijacks C-c
> and C-x which are the standard bindings in current Emacs and they are
> hardwired in lots of places.
>
> Let's say the newbie user who wants to copy with C-c/C-x/C-v don't want
> to use the bindings C-w and C-y.
>
> Is it technically possible to implement a mode which binds copy to C-c,
> cut to C-x, but before that it rebinds all C-x bindings to C-w and
> C-c bindings to C-y? It should do it dynamically, of course, so when a
> new buffer is opened with new bindings or a new minor mode is activated
> it should change the bindings on the fly.
>
> This way the newbie could also have a standard and consistent set of
> bindings, only the prefix keys would be different in newbie mode and
> veteran mode.


Yes, Emacs is a bit prepared to make this change. There are variable
named ctl-x-map (for C-x) and mode-specific-map (for C-c). See

   (info "(elisp) Prefix Keys")

I have not (yet) tried to rebind those variables to C-w and C-y but I
think that this can do what you suggest.

If this does not work then a good first step towards such a solution
would be to make this rebinding work.