Rakhim Davletkaliyev, whose EmacsCast podcast I’ve written about many times, has published a video on his Emacs configuration and workflow. As you know by now, I always enjoy seeing how others use Emacs and most often learn something new or get a good idea for my own workflow.
Davletkaliyev’s workflow and the Emacs packages he uses are much like mine. Well, except for the keybindings. I’m almost always content to use the default keybindings but Davletkaliyev has aimed to make his bindings as much like that of the other software he uses as possible. Since he’s on a Mac, that means using the ⌘ Cmd key in many of his commands. For instance, he uses ⌘ Cmd+o instead of Ctrl+x o to switch to the next window.
My first thought was that I should be doing something like that too because it would decrease the number of different bindings for similar operations among the applications I use. Then I realized that
- Almost everything I do except for the browser is done in Emacs.
- For the browser and any other extra-Emacs application I may need, I have Emacs keybindings configured for all the mac commands.
So in a sense, I solved the problem in exactly the opposite way: rather than adapt the Emacs keybindings to be like native app bindings, I configured the native apps to have Emacs keybindings. Either way, it reduces the cognitive load when switching applications.
Davletkaliyev’s video is about 16 and a half minutes but well worth watching. If you want to see exactly how he has things configured, there’s a link to his configuration.