keyboard shortcuts – Diary of an Emacs tragic

Emacs: yank a line multiple times from the kill ring

Jason — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:33:32 +0000

Today I needed to copy a line multiple times in emacs. I needed 8 copies, but how to do that in emacs short of pressing C-y to yank 8 times? My initial guess was to try C-u 8 C-y but that yanks the 8th item from the kill ring.
Fuco on #emacs supplied the awesome answer:
F3 C-y C-8 F4
So what does that do? F3starts recording a macro, C-yyanks the line, then within the macro itself you can add a numeric argument of 8 using C-8. End recording of the macro with F4. Emacs then runs the macro 8 times. Recall that pressing F4 after ending recording of the macro runs the macro.

Edit a regex search string in Emacs

Jason — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:13:11 +0000

If you are writing a complex regex search in emacs and need to edit the string, arrow keys takes you out of the search. M-e allows you to really edit the string.

The Mark Ring in emacs

Jason — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:37:19 +0000

Each time you mark with C-, Emacs saves the mark in the mark ring.
You can step back through your mark ring with C-u C-.
You can swap point and mark with C-x C-x.

Re-reading the emacs tutorial

Jason — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:10:20 +0000

It came upon me to re-read the emacs tutorial. Last time I read it was probably about 17 years ago. Things might have changed since then.
I picked up two things:
C-/ is undo and is equivalent to C-_
C-h c gives you brief help on a keyboard shortcut. I was using C-h k but that opens a new window which can be annoying sometimes.
C-h t takes you to the tutorial.

Swap Registers in emacs calc

Jason — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:14:56 +0000

to swap the contents of the last two registers in calc.

emacs keyboard macros

Jason — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 03:42:47 +0000

If you haven’t explored the power of keyboard macros in emacs, you should.
You only need to remember a few keys to get going:

 Start recording a macro
 End recording a macro
C-x e to repeat the macro

Give it a go!

Select what you typed rather than the completion in ido-mode

Jason — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:18:13 +0000

Sometimes you don’t want the completion that ido is offering me in Emacs, for instance when trying to create a temporary buffer C-x C-b sometempbuffername. C-j will to get ido to accept what you typed rather than the completion.

Keyboard shortcut to un-minimise a window in OS X

Jason — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 03:03:49 +0000

It’s a bit fiddly but it can be done.
Cmd+m to the item you want to un-minimise, then while still holding cmd, press Option. Release Cmd and then finally release Option.

Cmd+m to Minimise a window in OS X

Jason — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 02:59:45 +0000

Cmd+m to minimise a window in OS X

Insert a new heading after numbered list in org-mode

Jason — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:59:57 +0000

In org-mode in emacs, M- will add either a new heading or if your insertion point is between a list item and a heading, it will add a new list item. This is not always desirable. To add a new heading try C-U M-.
I only discovered this as I got frustrated with org-mode insisting on adding an item to the list rather than creating a new heading. The emacs way around problems like this is to prefix the command with C-U to make it do something slightly different.