Subject: 24.1; M-p and M-n should follow behave similarly to M-f and M-b

From: Daniel Neel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2012 13:00:55 -0400

Hello all. Below is a quick suggestion originally intended to be submitted
as a bug. Sending through the mailing list because I don't have an email
client set up in Emacs yet.

My suggestion is to, by default, bind some movement behaviors to the M-p
and M-n keys. Currently, the default left and right cursor movement keys
are bound to C-f/b for going forward or backward by character, and M-f/b
to go forward/backward by word.

The up and down analog, C-p/n to go up/down a line, does not currently
(that I know of) follow this same pattern, where Control is bound to a
single unit of movement and Meta is bound to a larger semantic unit of
movement. Some keys that could substitute for M-p/n are C-v and M-v, for
the equivalent of page up and page down. Binding these, or another
similar set of keys, to M-p/n would follow the behavior of M-f/b and
hopefully make the default key set a bit more intuitive.

Also, C-v and M-v don’t follow the convention of C-A for movement in one
direction, and C-B for movement in the other. Rather, they switch things
up by binding Control to one direction and Meta to the other.

A potential problem here is that it looks like several other modes make
use of M-p/n for browsing through the command history in shells.

Anyways, that’s all for now. I probably underestimate how much effort
such a change would involve, but this might go a small ways towards making
the default command set make more sense, and rely less on rote muscle
memory.

In GNU Emacs 24.1.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.10)
 of 2012-06-11 on bitzer.hoetzel.info
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11203000
Configured using:
 `configure '--prefix=/usr' '--sysconfdir=/etc' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib'
 '--localstatedir=/var' '--with-x-toolkit=gtk' '--with-xft'
 'CFLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector
 --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2'
 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  erc-list-mode: t
  erc-menu-mode: t
  erc-autojoin-mode: t
  erc-ring-mode: t
  erc-networks-mode: t
  erc-pcomplete-mode: t
  erc-track-mode: t
  erc-track-minor-mode: t
  erc-match-mode: t
  erc-button-mode: t
  erc-fill-mode: t
  erc-stamp-mode: t
  erc-netsplit-mode: t
  erc-irccontrols-mode: t
  erc-noncommands-mode: t
  erc-move-to-prompt-mode: t
  erc-readonly-mode: t
  icomplete-mode: t
  global-auto-complete-mode: t
  auto-complete-mode: t
  desktop-save-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
a n d SPC r e l y SPC l e s s SPC o n SPC r o t e SPC
m u s c l e SPC m e m o r y . C-p C-p C-p C-l C-p C-l
C-p M-< M-> M-> M-< M-> M-< M-> M-< C-SPC M-> <C-insert>
<down-mouse-1> <mouse-movement> <mouse-1> <S-prior>
<S-next> <up> <up> C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n
C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n C-l
C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-n C-l M-> M-< M-> <S-prior> <S-prior>
<S-next> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-movement> <mouse-1>
C-n C-n C-p C-n C-p C-n C-l C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n
C-n C-l C-n C-p C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n C-e C-l C-n C-e
C-l C-a C-e C-n C-e C-l C-n C-p C-p C-n C-n C-n C-l
C-e C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-n C-l C-n
C-l C-p C-l C-p C-p C-l C-e C-l <down> <down> <down>
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down>
<down> <down> <down> <down> C-n C-n C-n C-n C-l C-n
C-n C-l C-n C-n C-l C-x o M-x C-g C-g C-h f f o l l
o w <tab> - m o d <tab> <return> C-n C-n C-p C-p C-l
C-n C-p C-l C-p C-l C-p C-l C-p C-l M-< M-> M-< M->
C-x k <return> C-n C-p C-n C-n C-n C-x o <next> C-x
o C-x b <return> C-x o C-x b s c r a t C-g C-g C-x
b * s c r a t c h * <return> <return> M-x C-g C-g C-h
f r e p o r t <tab> - e m a <tab> <return> C-x o C-n
C-n C-n C-n q n <backspace> C-n C-n M-x r e p o r t
<tab> <return>

Recent messages:
Making completion list...
Type "q" in help window to restore its previous buffer.
byte-code: End of buffer [2 times]
Mark set [4 times]
byte-code: End of buffer [3 times]
scroll-up-command: End of buffer
Quit [4 times]
Making completion list...
Type "q" in help window to restore its previous buffer.
byte-code: End of buffer
byte-code: End of buffer

Load-path shadows:
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Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message idna rfc822 mml mml-sec
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils
mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mail-utils mule-util
network-stream auth-source eieio gnus-util mm-util mail-prsvr
password-cache starttls tls erc-menu erc-join erc-ring erc-networks
erc-pcomplete erc-track erc-match erc-button erc-fill erc-stamp
erc-netsplit erc-goodies erc erc-backend erc-compat etags dabbrev
multi-isearch help-mode view yasnippet assoc nxml-uchnm rng-xsd
xsd-regexp rng-cmpct image-mode rng-nxml rng-valid rng-loc rng-uri
rng-parse nxml-parse rng-match rng-dt rng-util rng-pttrn nxml-ns
nxml-mode nxml-outln nxml-rap nxml-util nxml-glyph nxml-enc xmltok
jka-compr info js json imenu newcomment ruby-mode org-wl org-w3m org-vm
org-rmail org-mhe org-mew org-irc org-jsinfo org-infojs org-html org-exp
ob-exp org-exp-blocks find-func org-agenda org-info org-gnus org-docview
org-bibtex bibtex org-bbdb org ob-emacs-lisp ob-tangle ob-ref ob-lob
ob-table org-footnote org-src ob-comint ob-keys ob ob-eval org-pcomplete
pcomplete org-list org-faces org-compat org-entities org-macs noutline
outline format-spec cal-menu calendar cal-loaddefs dired sgml-mode
sh-script executable vc-git advice advice-preload cc-mode cc-fonts
cc-guess cc-menus cc-cmds cc-styles cc-align cc-engine cc-vars cc-defs
warnings icomplete browse-kill-ring-autoloads ecb-autoloads
ecb_snap-autoloads magit-autoloads minimap-autoloads yasnippet-autoloads
package tabulated-list w3m-load slime byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile
cconv macroexp derived help-fns easy-mmode pp comint regexp-opt
ansi-color ring hyperspec thingatpt browse-url auto-complete-config
auto-complete edmacro kmacro popup color-theme easymenu wid-edit cl ido
desktop cus-start cus-load time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image fringe
lisp-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar
mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian
cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face files text-properties overlay
sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process dbusbind
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty emacs)