[OS X Emacs] Aquamacs Cursor movement and word wrapping: C-e, C-a, C-n, C-p

[Tom Van Vleck]

On Apr 22, 2010, at 6:54 PM, David Reitter wrote:

> Dear Aquamacs users,
>
> in future versions of Aquamacs, would you like the C-e, C-a, C-n, C- 
> p move according to buffer lines, or according to visual lines?   
> Note that these are different things when soft word wrapping is  
> turned on.
>
> In such a case, if they moved by buffer lines, then C-a would move  
> to the beginning of the paragraph (i.e. the long buffer line that is  
> displayed wrapped), and analogously for the other key commands.
>
> It may be less surprising for people if C-e, C-a, C-n, C-p acted on  
> visually displayed lines.
>
> We can then provide extra bindings for the buffer lines, probably C- 
> E, C-A, C-N, C-P.
>
> Your input would be appreciated.


I would prefer this not change.

Changing the meaning of C-e, C-a, C-n, C-p would make Aquamacs  
unusable for me.  It would break saved macros.  It would mean that  
these keystrokes meant different things depending on what machine I  
was logged into.  I would have to relearn editing skills I learned  
over 30 years ago.  I couldn't use Aquamacs if you changed this  
fundamental meaning.

You tried this once, and people complained, and you changed it back.   
I thought this idea had been put to rest.

If you wish to bind new keys that have no current meaning, go for it.

(In Aquamacs 1.9, C-h-k C-S-A pops up a help window that says that it  
is the same as C-a, but in fact it does something different: C-a goes  
to the beginning of a line but C-S-a goes to the beginning of the line  
and highlights from the old point to the beginning of the line.)

In August of 2008, I wrote regarding the change to Control-left and  
Control-right:
> Many of us use Emacs on multiple different platforms in the same day.
> Switching our behavior back and forth depending on the platform is  
> error prone.
> I think that where behavior is the same on all Emacsen it should be  
> left that way in Aquamacs.
> The beauty of Aquamacs was that it added behavior for flower- 
> whatever to the existing Emacs function, without conflict with what  
> was there.
>
> Operating systems come and go.  My Emacs habits have developed over  
> almost 30 years.
> I expect that I will be using Emacs on Mac OS XI, XII, etc.
> I was happy to see some features flow in the other direction, with  
> OS X adopting ctrl-F and so on in Mail.app.
>
> I would prefer that gratuitous changes to existing Emacs behavior in  
> Aquamacs
> should be opt-in rather than opt-out.  Go ahead, experiment, add new  
> choices
> to the menus.  Some will be wonderful, and each person can each  
> adopt them as desired and when convenient.
> The ones, like changing ctrl-right, that conflict with usage on  
> other systems, I won't adopt.