Emacs: Xah Fly Keys Tutorial

Command/Insert Mode Switch

Alt+Space (xah-fly-command-mode-activate) → switch to command mode.

f or Space Space (xah-fly-insert-mode-activate) → switch to insert mode.

Cursor Movement

Switch to command mode. Then, follow keys are arrows.

    i
 j k l

• u (backward-word) → Move left by word.
• o (forward-word) → Move right by word.

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

• h (xah-beginning-of-line-or-block) → Move to beginning of line/indent/paragraph. Repeated call moves to previous paragraph.
• ; (xah-end-of-line-or-block) → Move to end of line/indent/paragraph. Repeated call moves to next paragraph.

Space h (beginning-of-buffer)

Space n (end-of-buffer)

Text Editing

• e (xah-backward-kill-word) → Delete word left.
• r (xah-kill-word) → Delete word right.

d (xah-smart-delete) → Delete something to the left. It may be 1 char, or whitespace, or bracketed text.

g (xah-delete-current-text-block) → Delete the current text block.

5 (delete-char) → Delete 1 character to the right.

w (xah-shrink-whitespaces) → Delete whitespaces. Repeated call delete more whitespaces.

Space g (kill-line) → Delete to end of line.

undo

y (undo) → 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) → Cut current line or selection. Repeated call cut more lines.

c (xah-copy-line-or-region) → Copy current line or selection. Repeated call copy more lines.

v (xah-paste-or-paste-previous) → Paste. 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.

More:

Space c (xah-copy-all-or-region) → Copy all.

Space x (xah-cut-all-or-region) → Cut all.

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

Copy and Paste to Register

• Space k 3 (xah-copy-to-register-1) → Copy current line or selection to register 1.
• Space k 4 (xah-paste-from-register-1) → Paste from register 1.
• Space k c (copy-to-register) → Copy selection to a register.
• Space k v (copy-to-register) → Paste from a register.

[see Emacs: Copy to Register]

Mark and Text Selection

t (set-mark-command) → Start selection. Move cursor to expand. Press again to unmark.

Text Selection Shortcuts

6 (xah-select-block) → Selects text block. Repeated call extends to next block.

7 (xah-select-line) → Selects line. Repeated call extends to next line.

8 (xah-extend-selection) → Select current word or bracketed text. Repeated call extend selection.

9 (xah-select-text-in-quote) → selects inner text between brackets or quotes (e.g. string)

Space a (mark-whole-buffer) → select all.

execute-extended-command (M-x)

a or Space Enter (execute-extended-command) → call a command by name.

iSearch

n (isearch-forward) → Interactive search and also move cursor.

Space y (xah-search-current-word) → Search current word or selection.

When in isearch:

• Ctrl+y to paste.
• left/right arrow keys ← → do search backward/forward.
• up/down arrow keys ↑ ↓ do previous/next search item.
• Return exit isearch and leave cursor at the current location.
• Ctrl+g exit isearch and leave cursor at original location.

There's no key to begin backward search. Just do isearch then press left arrow key.

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

Find Replace

Space r (query-replace)

Space k r (query-replace-regexp)

Open Close Save

You can use the following standard keys for now.

• Ctrl+n (xah-new-empty-buffer) → New.
• Ctrl+o (find-file) → Open.
• Ctrl+w (xah-close-current-buffer) → Close.
• Ctrl+s (save-buffer) → Save.
• 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 feel like you want to reduce using Control key, then learn 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/closed files:

• 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 related for fast open files:

• 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.

You should never need to type file path to open file, unless it's a new file you rarely work with.

All files or directories you work daily, should be bookmarked [see Emacs: Bookmark] , or with open recent. [see Emacs: Open Recently Opened File]

Open Files in External App

• Space i w (xah-open-in-external-app) → Open in external apps (for image, pdf, vidio/audio files, etc.)
• Space i s (xah-show-in-desktop) → Open the operating system's folder viewer.

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 Buffer

3 (delete-other-windows) → Unsplit all.

4 (split-window-below) → Split top/bottom

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

Space 3 (delete-window) → remove current pane.

Space 4 (split-window-right) → split left/right.

Tip: on large monitor, avoid workflow with 1 fullscreen. [see Emacs Workflow: Fullscreen vs Multiple Frames]

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 Brackets

when cursor is on a bracket, 8 (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 left of it, then press 5 (delete-char) .

Insert Brackets

• ALWAYS insert left/right brackets together.
• 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.

• Space d k (xah-insert-paren) → Insert parenthesis pair.
• Space d l (xah-insert-square-bracket) → Insert square brackets pair.
• Space d j (xah-insert-brace) → Insert curly brackets pair.
• Space d u (xah-insert-ascii-double-quote) → Insert double quote pair.
• Space d s (xah-insert-ascii-single-quote) → Insert single quote pair.

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

Change Brackets

• Alt+x xah-change-bracket-pairs

Font Size

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

• Space l a (text-scale-adjust)

List All Leader Keys

Space Ctrl+h → list all leader key sequences and commands. (if you have which-key-mode installed, you must turn it off first.)

More Advanced

ok, the above are the basics.

Now, there are about 200 commands with leader keys. These basically replace what emacs C-x does.

You might want to 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.

Misc Notes

Command Mode Key Must be Most Easy Key

It's critically important that the key to switch to command mode must be the most easy key on your keyboard.

I suggest the CapsLock on typical PC keyboards or laptop keyboards.

For how, see Emacs: Xah Fly Keys Customization

Insert Mode is Same as Default GNU Emacs Key

When in insert mode, it acts like Xah Fly Keys is off. (except a handful of global keys with Ctrl or Meta, but you can turn them off in customization.)

In some emacs modes such as dired , typing a letter will run some special command. For example, in dired, m for mark, u for unmark.

So, whenever you think there is some problem, do switch to insert mode.