Re: [Emacspeak] How can I set the prefix?

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Esben Stien" (via emacspeak Mailing List) <emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> "Tim Cross" (via emacspeak Mailing List) <emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> writes:
>
>> outline why you feel it is necessary
>
> I'm trying to unlearn 25 years of Emacs usage with C-e as EOL,
> as I now try to use the END key. I do however use it frequently, when
> I'm not typing on my Moonlander keyboard, my CharaChorder or my
> Twiddler, cause standard keyboards have a weird END key placement.
>

OK, I get what your saying. Personally, I use a Glove80 keyboard with
'home key mode' and use the 'meow' modal key binding setup. I used
standard Emacs bindings for over 20 years, then switched to evil and
finally meow.

Either I have just got use to doing C-e twice for end of line or I don't
use that binding much with meow - I certainly don't notice it enough to
be bothered by it.

>> I think this is a really bad idea. There are a number of complications
>> which will arise if you do this.
>> [..] deal with the underlying assumption that the package changes
>> move-to-end-of-line bindings [..] this will break things and you will
>> have to spend significant time debugging what it breaks. 
>
> I'm not sure I understand what you're saying;). Can it be set to
> something else, at all? I tried to set it to "C-a" in
> emacspeak-keymaps.el, but that failed, as well. Does it absolutely have
> to be "C-e"?

C-a is a bad choice as that is beginning of line, so you would also have
to replicate all the stuff emacspeak does with C-e, but around the other
way (so that C-a C-a is move to geginning of line). Did you make that
change by changing the emacspeak-prefix variable and if so, did you make
sure it was changed before emacspeak was compiled and loaded?

When I started using emacspeak in the mid 90s, it was defined as a user
option and I suspect easy to change. However, as both emacspeak and
emacs has grown, I think the basic assumption that C-e is the prefix has
become more 'baked in'. It no longer seems to be documented as a user
configurable value, which makes me think that it probably is possible,
but comes with some issues. To further complicate matters, there are also
other packages which expect C-e to be end of line and which emacspeak
has to adjust to keep things consistent. It is likely some of these are
assuming the prefix is C-e for emadcspeak and will therefore need
tweaking as wsell. 

Basically what I'm saying is that yes, you cdan change the prefix, but I
doubt it will be as simple as just setting a new binding for C-e There
will very likely be areas of emacspeak which assume the prefix is C-e
and there are possibly other areas which adjust packages to work better
with emacspeak which will make similar assumptions. You will just need
to be prepared for breakage and be willing to spend the time to debug
issues when they occur. As this is also a very uncommon configuration
change, you will likely not get much help as few others will have
experienced the issue.