[OS X Emacs] Enter key for "find next"

Elliott Roper elliott at yrl.co.uk
Wed Oct 8 18:19:20 EDT 2014


On 8 Oct 2014, at 15:20, David Reitter <david.reitter at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Aquamacs users,
> 
> I’ve installed a change that will allow users to find the next string when in isearch-mode.  Mac programs generally seem to offer this.
> 
> Will this change upset anyone’s workflow?
> 

Can I assume that [enter] means RET as used in the Emacs manual and not the separate "enter" key on most Mac keyboards?

If so, then I would prefer that RET continued in its current role. After typing C-s till I find the match I was after, RET is the simplest way of exiting the search without thinking too much. If I have hit C-s once, it is just as easy to keep on hitting it till I get the match I'm after than it is to move fingers somewhere else. Especially if I am thinking ahead, like choosing the search string to leave point at the character I want to delete. Then C-r C-r.....C-d is much less annoying than C-r RET... C-d. My left pinky much prefers the lack of exercise.

I could live with the change if I were able to restore the Emacs default, which I would do in a New York minute, because I already have enough trouble flicking my poor old brain between Emacs and Mac conventions. Emacs wins hands down in keyboard consistency. Apple has not helped by recently aping some Emacs keybindings and not others. C-a A-v to paste the clipboard at the beginning of a line in Textedit? Crikey! Where's my C-y when I need it?

I do have a few named keyboard macros that would need looking at, but it is no biggy. Most could use a re-visit.

Y'know if Apple were to have a system preference for Emacs keybindings in every app, I'd be more of a fanboi than ever before. And that is saying something!

PS How do you get a second RET to delete region between search start and matched point? Is that a special setting of transient mark?
Thanks,

Elliott Roper





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