Emacs: Xah Fly Keys Tutorial

Pick a Layout

All keybinding shortcuts on this page changes accordingly.

Activate Command Mode, Insert Mode

• Alt+Space (xah-fly-command-mode-activate)
• Esc (in GUI emacs) (xah-fly-command-mode-activate)

• f or Space Space (xah-fly-insert-mode-activate)

Exit Emacs

• Space , x (save-buffers-kill-terminal)

Cursor Movement

Move by char

   i
 j k l

Try them. Try many times. Feel your finger muscles with the cursor movement.

Move by word

• u (backward-word)
• o (forward-word)

Move by paragraph

• h (xah-beginning-of-line-or-block)
• ; (xah-end-of-line-or-block)

Repeated call moves by paragraph.

Move to beginning of buffer

• Space h (beginning-of-buffer)
• Space n (end-of-buffer)

Text Editing

• e (backward-kill-word)
• r (kill-word)

• d (xah-smart-delete) → Cut something to the left. If left is whitespaces, cut them all. If it is any bracket, cut the brackets and its innertext. Else, delete 1 char.

• w (xah-shrink-whitespaces) → Delete spaces or blank lines. Repeated call deletes the other type.

• Space g g (kill-line) → cut line from cursor to end.
• Space g h (xah-delete-current-text-block) → cut current text block.

undo

• y (undo)

To redo, do an undo, then press key to switch to command mode (or Ctrl+g), then do undo. To reverse direction, press Ctrl+g again.

💡 TIP: I recommend not to use any external undo/redo package.

Cut Copy Paste

• x (xah-cut-line-or-region) → Repeated call cut more lines.
• c (xah-copy-line-or-region) → Repeated call copy more lines.
• v (xah-paste-or-paste-previous) → Repeated call paste previous.

To paste something twice, call paste, then enter space or return or switch command mode, then paste again.

To paste something 5 times, Space . (universal-argument) 5, then call paste.

Cut All, Copy All

• Space x (xah-cut-all-or-region)
• Space c (xah-copy-all-or-region)

Mark and Text Selection

• g (xah-extend-selection) → Start selection. By default, select current word, or bracketed text, or whitespaces, or other, depending on what's under cursor. Move cursor to expand.

• Space g Space (set-mark-command) → start selection but don't select anything.

• t (xah-fly-cancel) → cancel selection.

• Space g , (exchange-point-and-mark) → Move cursor the the other end of selection.

• Space g k (xah-select-text-in-quote)

Select All

• Space a (mark-whole-buffer) → Select all.

Call Command by Name (M-x)

• a (execute-extended-command)
• Space Return (execute-extended-command)

Search Text

• n (isearch-forward) → Start isearch
• Space y (xah-search-current-word) → Search current word or selection.

When in isearch:

• Ctrl+y → paste.
• ← → → search backward/forward.
• ↑ ↓ → previous/next search history.
• Return → exit isearch and leave cursor at the current location.
• Ctrl+g exit isearch and leave cursor at original location.

💡 TIP: i recommend not installing external packages to jump cursor to locations.

Find Replace

• Space r (query-replace)
• Space k r (query-replace-regexp)

New Open Close Save

You can use the following standard keys.

• Ctrl+n (xah-new-empty-buffer)
• Ctrl+o (find-file) → Open.
• Ctrl+w (xah-close-current-buffer)
• Ctrl+s (save-buffer)
• Ctrl+Shift+s (write-file) → Save as.
• Ctrl+Shift+t (xah-open-last-closed) → Open last closed

When you are comfortable with Xah Fly Keys, and do not want to use Control key, then use the following.

• Space i l (xah-new-empty-buffer)
• Space i e (find-file)
• Space u (xah-close-current-buffer)
• Space ; (save-buffer)
• Space i ; (write-file)
• Space i r (xah-open-last-closed)

Open Files

• Space i e (find-file) → Open file.
• Space i f (xah-open-file-at-cursor) → Open URL or file path.
• Space i c (xah-copy-file-path)
• Space m (dired-jump) → Go to dired and place cursor on file name.

Open Recently Opened File, Recently Closed File

Emacs: Open Recently Opened File

• Space i j (recentf-open-files) → List recently opened files.
• Space i r (xah-open-last-closed)
• Space i y (xah-open-recently-closed) → List recently closed files.

Bookmark

Emacs: Bookmark

• Space i p (bookmark-set) → Add current file to bookmark.
• Space i i (bookmark-bmenu-list) → List bookmarks
• Space i o (bookmark-jump) → Open a file in bookmark.

Switch Buffer

• Space f (switch-to-buffer)
• Space i d (ibuffer) → List buffers.

• Ctrl+8 or Ctrl+Tab (xah-next-user-buffer)
• Ctrl+7 or Ctrl+Shift+Tab (xah-previous-user-buffer)
• Ctrl+6 (xah-next-emacs-buffer)
• Ctrl+5 (xah-previous-emacs-buffer)

Split Window

• - (split-window-below) → Split to bottom.
• = (split-window-right) → Split to right.
• ' (delete-other-windows) → Unsplit all.

Switch Window

• , (xah-next-window-or-frame) → Switch cursor to next pane or next window (emacs frame).

Working with Quote and Brackets

xah-fly-keys has a system to work with brackets. Brackets includes ()[]{}“” and all Unicode: Brackets, Quotes 「」【】《》

Move to Brackets

• m (xah-backward-left-bracket) → Move to left bracket.
• . (xah-forward-right-bracket) → Move to right bracket.
• / (xah-goto-matching-bracket) → When cursor is on a bracket, jump to the matching one. If cursor is not on a bracket, move it to parent left bracket.

Select Bracket Text

when cursor is on a bracket, H (xah-extend-selection) selects the whole.

Delete Whole Bracketed Text

d (xah-smart-delete) → When the left char is a bracket, delete the bracketed text. The deleted text is automatically copied.

Delete Bracket Pair

move cursor to the right of a bracket, then Space . (universal-argument) d (xah-smart-delete)

Delete a Single Bracket

move cursor to the right of it, then press E.

Insert Brackets

• Space d k (xah-insert-paren)
• Space d l (xah-insert-square-bracket)
• Space d j (xah-insert-brace)
• Space d u (xah-insert-ascii-double-quote)
• Space d s (xah-insert-ascii-single-quote)

• These commands insert bracket pairs.
• When cursor is at beginning of line, they put brackets around the line.
• When there is a text selection, they put brackets around it.

Now, type Space d Ctrl+h to see all other brackets and quotes you can insert.

💡 TIP: Always insert bracket pairs together.

Change Brackets

• Space r h (xah-change-bracket-pairs)

Font Size

• Ctrl+= (text-scale-increase)
• Ctrl+- (text-scale-decrease)

• Space l a (text-scale-adjust)

List All Leader Keys

• Emacs: Xah Fly Keys, Show All Leader Key Sequences

More Advanced

• Space t (xah-show-kill-ring) → Show copy history

• T (xah-select-text-in-quote) → Selects inner text between brackets or quotes (e.g. string)

• Space k c (copy-to-register) → Copy selection to a register.
• Space k v (insert-register) → Paste from a register.

〔see Emacs: Copy to Register〕

More Leader Keys

There are about 200 commands with leader key prefix. They basically replace what emacs C-x does.

Learn them as you go.

When in command mode, press Space Ctrl+h to list all leader key sequence commands.

Remember to use Alt+x describe-function and Alt+x describe-key to find what's the key or command name.