Emacs-like keybindings system-wide?
Is there a way to set Emacs-like keyboard shortcuts (at least the subset mentioned below) for the whole OS? This is possible in some apps such as the terminal, Emacs (go figure :) and additionally through special plugins in some other apps (Eclipse), but I got so used to C-f-ing through text and never having to jump to arrows that I'd like to be able to do this system-wide so that I can do it whenever I'm typing - e.g. searching for songs in Rhythmbox, typing stuff into the dash or the HUD, writing mails in Thunderbird or Gmail... The combos I'm most interested in are:
- C-f - forward
- C-b - backwards
- C-a - home
- C-e - end
- C-d - delete
- C-k - delete line
(note for non-emacs users - C means Ctrl)
Based on: https://superuser.com/a/516847/205010
Install gnome-tweak-tool:
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
Open it:
gnome-tweak-tool
Go to
Keyboard and Mouse
and changeKey Theme
toEmacs
I managed to solve the problem by using AutoKey, as recommended in this answer. Some of my phrases are:
content | hotkey | description
---------------------------------------------------------------
<ctrl>+f | <ctrl>+<alt>+f | replace the find operation
<home> | <ctrl>+a | begining of line
<end> | <ctrl>+e | end of line
<left> | <ctrl>+b | back one letter
<right> | <ctrl>+f | forward one letter
<delete> | <ctrl>+d | delete one letter
<home><shift>+<end><delete> | <ctrl>+k | kill line
(yeah, the kill line combo was nasty to find :)
You could go on replacing stuff, but I don't want the mental remap to grow to large (e.g. ctrl+n doesn't open a new window, but goes to next line). All in all AutoKey is a cool app!
Anyway, now I've got the emacs ergonomy of never having to leave the "letter keys" throughout Ubuntu - in every text box I am editing. Yeiii!
Update: as I got deeper into playing with AutoKey to fine-tune everything, I made quite some changes. You can see my complete AutoKey Ubuntu-Emacs configuration (and install it) in my dotfiles git repo.
There is another solution not involving third-party apps posted here emacs keybindings in ubuntu 12.04