6.9 KiB
Emacs — Keybinding Managers
Keybinding Managers
Which-key
Which key is, I think, one of my favorite quality of life package. When you begin a keybind, Emacs will show you all keybinds you can follow the first one with in order to form a full keychord. Very useful when you have a lot of keybinds and don’t remember exactly what is what.
(use-package which-key
:straight (:build t)
:defer t
:init (which-key-mode)
:diminish which-key-mode
:config
(setq which-key-idle-delay 1))
General
General is an awesome package for managing keybindings. Not only is it
oriented towards keychords by default (which I love), but it also
provides some integration with evil so that we can declare keybindings
for certain states only! This is a perfect replacement for define-key
,
evil-define-key
, and any other function for defining keychords. And it
is also possible to declare a prefix for my keybindings! By default,
all keybinds will be prefixed with SPC
and keybinds related to a
specific mode (often major modes) will be prefixed by a comma ,
(and
by C-SPC
and M-m
respectively when in insert-mode
or emacs-mode
). You
can still feel some influence from my Spacemacs years here.
(use-package general
:straight (:build t)
:init
(general-auto-unbind-keys)
:config
(general-create-definer phundrak/undefine
:keymaps 'override
:states '(normal emacs))
(general-create-definer phundrak/evil
:states '(normal))
(general-create-definer phundrak/leader-key
:states '(normal insert visual emacs)
:keymaps 'override
:prefix "SPC"
:global-prefix "C-SPC")
(general-create-definer phundrak/major-leader-key
:states '(normal insert visual emacs)
:keymaps 'override
:prefix ","
:global-prefix "M-m"))
Evil
Evil emulates most of vim’s keybinds, because let’s be honest here, they are much more comfortable than Emacs’.
(use-package evil
:straight (:build t)
:after (general)
:init
(setq evil-want-integration t
evil-want-keybinding nil
evil-want-C-u-scroll t
evil-want-C-i-jump nil)
(require 'evil-vars)
(evil-set-undo-system 'undo-tree)
:config
<<evil-undefine-keys>>
<<evil-bepo>>
(evil-mode 1)
(setq evil-want-fine-undo t) ; more granular undo with evil
(evil-set-initial-state 'messages-buffer-mode 'normal)
(evil-set-initial-state 'dashboard-mode 'normal))
I want to undefine some default keybinds of Evil because it does not
match my workflow. Namely, I use the space key and the comma as
leaders for my keybinds, and I’m way too used to Emacs’ C-t
, C-a
, C-e
,
and C-y
.
(evil-global-set-key 'motion "t" 'evil-next-visual-line)
(evil-global-set-key 'motion "s" 'evil-previous-visual-line)
(general-define-key
:keymaps 'evil-motion-state-map
"SPC" nil
"," nil)
(general-define-key
:keymaps 'evil-insert-state-map
"C-t" nil)
(general-define-key
:keymaps 'evil-insert-state-map
"U" nil
"C-a" nil
"C-y" nil
"C-e" nil)
Something else that really bugs me is I use the bépo layout, which is
not at all like the qwerty layout. For instance, hjkl
becomes ctsr
.
Thus, I need some bépo-specific changes.
(dolist (key '("c" "C" "t" "T" "s" "S" "r" "R" "h" "H" "j" "J" "k" "K" "l" "L"))
(general-define-key :states 'normal key nil))
(general-define-key
:states 'motion
"h" 'evil-replace
"H" 'evil-replace-state
"j" 'evil-find-char-to
"J" 'evil-find-char-to-backward
"k" 'evil-substitute
"K" 'evil-smart-doc-lookup
"l" 'evil-change
"L" 'evil-change-line
"c" 'evil-backward-char
"C" 'evil-window-top
"t" 'evil-next-visual-line
"T" 'evil-join
"s" 'evil-previous-visual-line
"S" 'evil-lookup
"r" 'evil-forward-char
"R" 'evil-window-bottom)
This package enables and integrates Evil into a lot of different modes, such as org-mode, dired, mu4e, etc. Again, I need some additional code compared to most people due to the bépo layout.
(use-package evil-collection
:after evil
:straight (:build t)
:config
;; bépo conversion
(defun my/bépo-rotate-evil-collection (_mode mode-keymaps &rest _rest)
(evil-collection-translate-key 'normal mode-keymaps
;; bépo ctsr is qwerty hjkl
"c" "h"
"t" "j"
"s" "k"
"r" "l"
;; add back ctsr
"h" "c"
"j" "t"
"k" "s"
"l" "r"))
(add-hook 'evil-collection-setup-hook #'my/bépo-rotate-evil-collection)
(evil-collection-init))
undo-tree
is my preferred way of undoing and redoing stuff. The main
reason is it doesn’t create a linear undo/redo history, but rather a
complete tree you can navigate to see your complete editing history.
One of the two obvious things to do are to tell Emacs to save all its
undo history fies in a dedicated directory, otherwise we’d risk
littering all of our directories. The second thing is to simply
globally enable its mode.
(use-package undo-tree
:defer t
:straight (:build t)
:custom
(undo-tree-history-directory-alist
`(("." . ,(expand-file-name (file-name-as-directory "undo-tree-hist")
user-emacs-directory))))
:init
(global-undo-tree-mode)
:config
<<undo-tree-ignore-text-properties>>
<<undo-tree-compress-files>>
(setq undo-tree-visualizer-diff t
undo-tree-visualizer-timestamps t
undo-tree-auto-save-history t
undo-tree-enable-undo-in-region t
undo-limit (* 800 1024)
undo-strong-limit (* 12 1024 1024)
undo-outer-limit (* 128 1024 1024)))
An interesting behavior from DoomEmacs is to compress the history
files with zstd
when it is present on the system. Not only do we enjoy
much smaller files (according to DoomEmacs, we get something like 80%
file savings), Emacs can load them much faster than the regular files.
Sure, it uses more CPU time uncompressing these files, but it’s
insignificant, and it’s still faster than loading a heavier file.
(when (executable-find "zstd")
(defun my/undo-tree-append-zst-to-filename (filename)
"Append .zst to the FILENAME in order to compress it."
(concat filename ".zst"))
(advice-add 'undo-tree-make-history-save-file-name
:filter-return
#'my/undo-tree-append-zst-to-filename))
Hydra
Hydra is a simple menu creator for keybindings.
(use-package hydra
:straight (:build t)
:defer t)