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mikeroher

Two more tips:

* Ctrl-a to go to beginning of line

* Ctrl-e to go to end of line

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I love how osx supports emacs key-bindings by default for any text field.

I miss this feature a lot when I switch back to windows. I find myself pressing ctrl-n in my browser's address bar, expecting to view my URL history, and instead I get a new windows.

If anyone knows of a way to get similar functionality in windows, I would love to hear about it!

Cltr + D to focus on address bar. Alt + down arrow to view history.

A couple more:

* ⌘ + ` (tilde key) to switch between different windows of your current application

* ⌘ + l (lowercase L) in most web browsers to highlight the address bar

I'm always telling people about ⌘ + `, it makes navigating windows on OSX so easy.

The former is the one thing I missed the most from my OSX days...until I got a tiling WW setup (i3).

Woohoo, love me some Linux, let choice reign ;-)

to piggyback off of this... (not sure if this is in the thread already)

⌘ + ` to switch between different windows of current application

⌘ + SHIFT + ` to switch between different windows of current application (reverse order)

same for the general application switcher:

⌘ + TAB to switch between different windows of current application

⌘ + SHIFT + TAB to switch between different windows of current application (reverse order)

A lot of the Emacs shortcuts work in OS X (most of the system) as well as on Linux (bash and other users of readline).

I use Vim and was unaware that this shortcut existed. Are there any other Emacs shortcuts which are useful in OSX?

Ctrl-K kill to end of line,

so Ctrl-A Ctrl-K will clear a given field

And you can Ctrl-Y to paste the line you killed. This is a separate copy/paste buffer from the normal Cmd-C one, which can be nice.

If you do "set -o vi" you can also use vi shortcuts, such as ESC-j,k to go up/down the history, 0 to go to the beginning of the line, etc.

You cannot use 'set -o vi' to turn Cocoa text fields into vi-mode.

The basic Emacs key-bindings should work in all Cocoa apps. For instance, the URL bar of your web browser, while text editing in just about any editor (maybe even in Office, but I have not tired in a while), etc. Basically, anywhere you have a cursor, the basic line-editing key bindings should work.

So, in practical terms, this means you have 1 + n clipboards[1]. The main global GUI clipboard (using the command key), and then an app-specific clipboard (using the control key with Emacs bindings). As a developer, it is extremely helpful to have two clipboards in TextMate, for instance.

[1] Technically, the clipboard in OS X maintains a history (not sure what the limit is), but the OS X GUI only exposes the last cut/copied item.

defaults write -g NSTextKillRingSize -string 4

Can you shed some light on how to access those other three from the GUI (whether using the command key or some other means)?

Sorry forgot some steps...You also have to rebind C-y to 'yankAndSelect:' (https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/...)

For the most in depth info on the Cocoa Text System: http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html

Because crappy Macs have no Home/End keys (or they don't work as such).

ctrl-arrow (which breaks with Lion's Spaces default keys), or shift Home/End in Terminal.

It's not that Macs are crappy, they just have different key bindings. I regularly work with Macs, Windows, and Linux for development and I've just learned to use the different key mappings.

I don't think I'm quite as proficient in any one system because of that, though. For example, I have avoided learning the Emacs key bindings for use in Mac/Terminal. (I don't want to try to remember TWO bindings for Mac, plus I learned vim first so usually avoid Emacs.)

ctrl-arrow jumps to the next word boundary under Linux.

Yes, other systems have other key bindings, but why do common things like jumping to the begin/end of a line need a key combination? And why aren't the characters written onto the keys? Every time I have to type some code on a Mac I have to press all the keys in order to find { } [ ] etc. At leas I learned not to quit the terminal when I want to enter a @ by now. Whose brilliant idea was that?

{ } [ ] are just above the return key...?

Not on a German keyboard (forgot to mention that, sorry). Where are all the keys a programmer needs here?: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Apple-Wir...

In contrast a German PC keyboard: http://www.buypcsupplies.com/images/cat/38568_xlargenss_ndo4...

However, I prefer a Microsoft Comfort Curve keyboard, but I can't find an image of the German version right now.

On most macs, Fn + left/right arrow are home/end. Fn + up/down are pageup/pagedown.

Fn... urgh. I hate these crippled laptop keyboards (and tiny neck pain inducing laptop monitors).

Well, you don't have to follow that glossy mainstream. Just get yourself a new linux desktop with lots of RAM, couple of nice matte monitors, mouse and a good full size keyboard.

That's what I always do. My new PC should be delivered any minute, actually (16 GB RAM; at one intensive work session my current 8 GB where almost a bit scantly - is that the right English word?).

Not sure if I have it set up differently but mine is Cmd-Left or Cmd-Right to move to the beginning of a line...? Easier to reach than fn (I'm using a real wired BIG Apple keyboard, the RSI inducing one...)

Yup: http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rluserman.html#...

This was life changing when a co-worker showed me this last year.

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