meow VS xah-fly-keys

Using meow:https://github.com/meow-edit/meow I actually got keybindings in Emacs that are helix-like, so I use helix for certain projects and Emacs for others.

The muscle memory transfers well.

Thanks for the tip, meow looks interesting. I never got comfortable in evil-mode, but perhaps meow could be a gateway to trying emacs in anger.

Still waiting for kakoune/helix mode for gnu readline...

https://github.com/meow-edit/meow

https://github.com/jmorag/kakoune.el

Also see Meow[1], [2], which adopts some ideas from god-mode.

[1]: https://github.com/meow-edit/meow

[2]: https://esrh.me/posts/2021-12-18-switching-to-meow.html

You have to go further for ideal IMO.

Evil and evil-collection integrates pretty well, but Meow integrates perfectly and uses the action visible first approach.

https://github.com/meow-edit/meow

I think I'd rather hope for meow over Evil. It's close to Evil but embraces more of emacs' default bindings for calling commands.

https://github.com/meow-edit/meow

Modal editing with seamless emacs integration avoiding the need for evil-collection type packages.

Repeat action (evil handles this very nicely). see: https://github.com/meow-edit/meow/discussions/414

There's also Meow[1], which I currently use. You have to configure it first to suit your keyboard layout, but there are pre-built configs [2]

[1] https://github.com/meow-edit/meow

I was thinking about this a little more and Meow has something known as keypad mode that basically lets you call key combinations then return to Normal mode. It behaves a lot like god-mode. I just tested it out and if you install Meow you can call keypad-mode from insert and then automatically return to insert mode.

lol no xah-fly-keys

To build on what others are saying about Emacs, if you start exploring the package ecosystem, you're going to see quite a lot of really interesting packages that are related to improving/experimenting with the UX of editing text. While I'm not endorsing anyone in particular, I think what this list does show is just how easy it is to do pretty much whatever you want in Emacs;

https://karthinks.com/software/avy-can-do-anything/

https://github.com/jyp/boon

https://github.com/clemera/objed

https://github.com/jmorag/kakoune.el

https://github.com/meow-edit/meow/

https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys

https://github.com/Kungsgeten/ryo-modal

https://github.com/emacsorphanage/god-mode

Emacs 29 also now has treesitter and LSP mode integration built-in, a compilation mode, a comint mode for REPLs, excellent file browsing packages (I use dired/dirvish), and a few other killer features.

Now, if what you truly dislike are "quirky editors", prepare yourself for a world of hurt because vanilla Emacs departs quite a bit from "modern" text editors. I struggled with this for a while, but eventually by buying into the paradigm, I now feel that when emacs try emulating "modern" IDE features like autocompletion, LSP, and DAP UI, I feel like it's a regression, not a progression. The point here is that you might have an "idea" of what good initial UX and lack of quirks would look like, but Emacs might change the way you think.

Another consideration is that some editors make heavy use of key chords, which aren't so ergo friendly. Emacs in particular is notorious with how it uses the Ctrl key. I highly recommend switching to an editor with modal keybindings like NeoVim, or alternatively, your existing editor may have a Vim keybindings mode or extension. For instance Emacs has Evil mode and xah-fly-keys. Another route to circumventing chords is you can use one-shot modifiers (aka sticky modifiers) or define macros.

More radically, you might find a modal interface easier and more comfortable to use with HRMs, like Vim's, or staying within Emacs, using Evil mode or Xah fly keys.

I use xah-fly-keys. In command mode, on a QWERTY keyboard, the comma key moves the cursor to the next window.

> Long love ergomacs!

I recently stumbled over, and started using (and modifying) Xah's "xah-fly-keys" emacs bindings, which are a somewhat more radical implementation of the ideas behind ergoemacs (e.g. use Emacs without any "chording", i.e. without ever having to press two keys at once apart from shift+letter).

[1] https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys

*xah-fly-keys

I made it myself, but it was largely inspired by "xah fly keys": https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys