Over at the Emacs Elements Channel there’s an interesting video on navigating the Emacs calendar. I was excited when I saw it because although I seldom or never interact with the Emacs calendar, I often use its Org mode lookalike. While they appear to be identical, their user interface is different.
It’s possible to move around in the Org mode calendar by using the Shift and arrow keys. It works just like you think it would and, of course, you can always just click on your desired target. The thing is, as much as I make fun of true believers in our community, I really, truly, believe that you should avoid using the arrow keys when you can and, of course, the mouse is a heresy of the first order. I always feel a little queasy when I use it.
The Emacs calendar, on the other hand, uses the normal navigation keys to move around the calendar in very intuitive ways. Take a look at the video to see what I mean. That’s why I was excited: I thought maybe I could use the right™ keys to navigate the Org calendar. Sadly, that didn’t work because focus is in the minibuffer and keys such as Ctrl+f move the point in the minibuffer instead of the calendar display. Even if you move focus to the Calendar buffer, the normal keys still don’t work.
In a confounding irony, the Shift and arrow keys will work with the Emacs calendar. So if you’re looking for a unified method to moving about the calendars and don’t mind using the arrow keys, Emacs has you covered.
The video is only 5 minutes 14 seconds so it should be easy to fit in.