xah-fly-keys

A modal keybinding for emacs (like vim), but based on command frequency and ergonomics.

This is the most efficient editing system in the universe.

home page at http://ergoemacs.org/misc/ergoemacs_vi_mode.html

2020-04-18 News: Key Engine Rewrite

Major key engine rewrite by Dan Langlois (https://github.com/DanLanglois) and Will Dey (https://github.com/wi11dey) . Much doc update will happen in next few days, on how to customize and how the new code works, at xah fly keys home page http://ergoemacs.org/misc/ergoemacs_vi_mode.html

The old stable version is available at http://ergoemacs.org/misc/i/xah-fly-keys_old_2020-04-18.el

QWERTY layout

DVORAK layout

Setup

Add the following to .emacs after installing manually or via MELPA:

(require 'xah-fly-keys)
(xah-fly-keys-set-layout "qwerty") ; required

The following keyboard layouts are supported:

"azerty"
"azerty-be"
"colemak"
"colemak-mod-dh"
"dvorak"
"programer-dvorak"
"qwerty"
"qwerty-abnt"
"qwertz"
"workman"
"norman"

Customization

If you want to add keybindings to command-mode, add bindings to xah-fly-command-map. Similarly, to add keybindings to insert-mode, add bindings to xah-fly-insert-map.

In case you want to add bindings available in both command- and insert-mode, define them in xah-fly-shared-map, which is the parent that both xah-fly-command-map and xah-fly-insert-map.

Define these bindings as follows:

(with-eval-after-load 'xah-fly-keys
  ;; Command mode keybindings:
  (define-key xah-fly-command-map (kbd "KEY") #'DEFINITION)

  ;; Insert mode keybindings:
  (define-key xah-fly-insert-map (kbd "KEY") #'DEFINITION))

N.B. For backward compatibility, xah-fly-key-map points to xah-fly-command-map in command-mode and to xah-fly-insert-map in insert-mode, which means if you already have code like this in your config, it will continue to work:

(defun my-xfk-addon-command ()
  "Modify keys for xah fly key command mode keys
To be added to `xah-fly-command-mode-activate-hook'"
  (interactive)
  (define-key xah-fly-key-map (kbd "1") 'my-command-abc)
  ;; more here
  )

(add-hook 'xah-fly-command-mode-activate-hook 'my-xfk-addon-command)

(defun my-xfk-addon-insert ()
  "Modify keys for xah fly key command mode keys
To be added to `xah-fly-insert-mode-activate-hook'"
  (interactive)
  (define-key xah-fly-key-map (kbd "2") 'my-command-xyz)
  ;; more here
  )

(add-hook 'xah-fly-insert-mode-activate-hook 'my-xfk-addon-insert)

However, you should switch to defining bindings in either xah-fly-command-map or xah-fly-shared-map since they are easier to debug for you, easier to maintain for us, and define bindings only once rather than every mode switch.

Remapping

A very effective way to change what the command-mode keys do based on the major/minor mode is command remapping. Command remapping will work no matter which keyboard layout you choose to use, and allows you to make the customizations in the major/minor mode’s map rather than the global xah-fly-command-map. Emacs automatically looks up remappings after finding the command bound to a key. Xah Fly Keys defines no command remappings, so they will always be looked up in the normal major and minor mode maps.

To add a remapping, find the command that Xah Fly Keys binds to a key in command mode (e.g. through describe-key), then add a binding in the major/minor mode’s map like so:

(define-key MAJOR-OR-MINOR-MODE-MAP [remap XAH-FLY-COMMAND-NAME] #'MODE-SPECIFIC-COMMAND-NAME)

For example, to make the ijkl keys scroll a PDF Tools page while in command mode:

(with-eval-after-load 'pdf-view
  (define-key pdf-view-mode-map [remap next-line] #'pdf-view-next-line-or-next-page)
  (define-key pdf-view-mode-map [remap previous-line] #'pdf-view-previous-line-or-previous-page))

Been working on this since 2013, and since 2007 on ergoemacs-mode.

Put in 5 bucks in my patreon. https://www.patreon.com/xahlee

or https://paypal.com pay to xah@xahlee.org

Thanks.