Keys

Improve the keyboard experience within Emacs.

Config

Some of the default keybindings in Emacs really do leave you wondering, for example, when you want to exit a prompt you have to use C-g. Offer ESC as an alternative to quit (most) prompts, which I have muscle memory for already from literally every program created since 1990.

(global-set-key (kbd "<escape>") 'keyboard-escape-quit)

Hints

Since Emacs is keyboard driven software, there are a lot of keybindings. Sometimes it's useful to start pressing well-known key combinations, and view the available completions. This behaviour is implemented in the third-party package which-key¹. It displays the current incomplete keybinding input in a mini-buffer. It also works in the other direction, showing the corresponding keybindings for each command when you run M-x.

(use-package which-key
  :diminish which-key-mode
  :custom (which-key-idle-delay dotfiles/idle)
  :config (which-key-mode))

Leader

If like myself, you started using Emacs using a framework such as doom² or spacemacs³, you probably have a considerable amount of muscle memory developed for using SPC as a leader key. In both of the previously mentioned frameworks, the package general.el⁴ is used to implement this behaviour. It's a major improvement to the default way of creating custom keybindings in Emacs.

(use-package general
  :config
  (general-create-definer dotfiles/leader
    :states '(normal motion)
    :keymaps 'override
    :prefix dotfiles/leader-key
    :global-prefix dotfiles/leader-key-global))

Transient

Create transient keybindings with a shared prefix through hydra⁵. This is also used by a number of third-party packages as a completion system. An implementation example is used to scale the font size.

(use-package hydra
  :defer t)

Shortcuts

Implement some shortcut bindings, with a significant portion of them cherry picked from doom²:

Close buffers with SPC c
Find files with SPC . (period)
Switch buffers with SPC , (comma)
Kill buffers with SPC / (slash)

(dotfiles/leader
  "." '(find-file :which-key "Files")
  "," '(switch-to-buffer :which-key "Buffers")
  "c" '(kill-buffer-and-window :which-key "Close"))

Quitting Emacs

Customize the behaviour of exiting emacs, with keybindings behind SPC q:

Save and quit q
Quit without saving w
Exit the Frame (daemon) f

(dotfiles/leader
  "q" '(:ignore t :which-key "Quit")
  "qq" '(save-buffers-kill-emacs :which-key "Save")
  "qw" '(kill-emacs :which-key "Now")
  "qf" '(delete-frame :which-key "Frame"))

Managing windows

Screen space is divided into Frames inside of Emacs, manage them behind SPC w:

Swap with w
Close with c
Delete with d
Move with h,j,k,l
Split with s - <motion>

(dotfiles/leader
  "w" '(:ignore t :which-key "Window")
  "ww" '(window-swap-states :which-key "Swap")
  "wc" '(delete-window :which-key "Close")
  "wh" '(windmove-left :which-key "Left")
  "wj" '(windmove-down :which-key "Down")
  "wk" '(windmove-up :which-key "Up")
  "wl" '(windmove-right :which-key "Right")
  "ws" '(:ignore t :which-key "Split")
  "wsj" '(split-window-below :which-key "Down")
  "wsl" '(split-window-right :which-key "Right"))

Helper Functions

Use the built-in describe-* functionality of Emacs to quickly access documentation for packages, variables, and functions. Run helper functions with SPC h:

Packages p
Variables v
Functions f

(dotfiles/leader
  "h" '(:ignore t :which-key "Help")
  "hp" '(describe-package :which-key "Package")
  "hv" '(describe-variable :which-key "Variable")
  "hf" '(describe-function :which-key "Function"))