Emacs weirdness at console

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2003-05-19 21:18, Robert Storey <y2kbug at ms25.hinet.net> wrote:
> I installed "most" (from the ports collection), a much more colorful
> pager for man pages than plain old "more." I figured out that I can
> use "most" as a pager by doing this:
>
>    man -P most <command>
>
> The question is: how can I set "most" to be my default pager so I don't
> have to type "-P most"?

Set PAGER='most' in your environment.


On 2003-05-19 21:18, Robert Storey <y2kbug at ms25.hinet.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 19 May 2003 17:47:17 +0930 "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>>> That's pretty major - without that key, about half the Emacs
>>> commands are inaccessible.
>>
>> No, that's not correct.  Hit Esc first, then the character.  That has
>> always worked.
>
> You're right again - except when you want to auto-repeat the command. Like
> for example, M-f, to move forward one word. I'll often hold down M-f and
> move forward 10 words or more. Trying doing that with ESC-f and it will
> drive you crazy.

A more "Emacsy" way of doing the same is: `C-u 10 M-f'.

I like moving around in fast multiple-of-four runs by hitting C-u
several times and then C-f.  You're not supposed to have the same
preferences like me though, so here are a few ways you can use:

a. Set the left ALT key to 'meta' in your syscons keyboard map.  This
   works on the console.  You'd have to fool around with xmodmap or XKB
   to make it work under X11 too, but it can be done.  Some people like
   using ALT for META.  A lot.  Others just hate it.  Your call :)

b. Use C-u with an argument.  As shown above: `C-u 10 M-f'.  This is
   relatively easy to type, but you have to count things and write an
   approximation of what you want to do, which isn't exactly optimal
   when the argument is >9.  Single-digit movements like `C-u 4 M-f' are
   relatively ok and probably faster than holding down an arrow key for
   a while.  But anything above `C-u 9 ...' is too much for me.

c. Hit `C-u C-u C-u C-f'.  This is my favorite, since holding down CTRL
   and hitting 'u' several times followed by 'f' is uber-fast for me and
   easy to type with either one hand or two, whatever I feel like doing
   at the moment.