What are good custom keybindings in emacs?

Question

Emacs seems to have all the possible keyboard combinations already randomly distributed among it\'s commands. :p

If I am to define new keyboard shortcuts, where should I

Answer 1

I have an unconventional approach to this that I recommend highly. I have redefined the C-l ('ell') key to be a prefix key, and I use that to prefix my favorite commands. This key is very easy to type and it is bound to a function ('recenter) that isn't used that much.

Well, I don't use 'recenter much, but even if you did, it can be assigned to C-l C-l which is almost as easy to type, and a small price to pay for the possibilities opened up by the Ctrl-L-map . (Actually I prefer 'redraw-display to 'recenter, so I gave that the place of honor.)

I don't remember where I got the magic incantation that makes it work:

(global-unset-key "\C-l")
(defvar ctl-l-map (make-keymap)
     "Keymap for local bindings and functions, prefixed by (^L)")
(define-key global-map "\C-l" 'Control-L-prefix)
(fset 'Control-L-prefix ctl-l-map)

Then you can define keys to your heart's content. C-l is a great place to put bindings for your own commands, as well as functions that are not bound to keys, or are bound to keys you can't remember or find hard to type. Here are some sample bindings to standard functions:

(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-l"  'redraw-display)
(define-key ctl-l-map "l"  'recenter)

(define-key ctl-l-map "g"  'goto-line)
(define-key ctl-l-map "r"  'replace-string)
(define-key ctl-l-map "R"  'replace-regexp)
(define-key ctl-l-map "q"  'query-replace)
(define-key ctl-l-map "Q"  'query-replace-regexp)
(define-key ctl-l-map "o"  'overwrite-mode)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-w"  'kill-rectangle)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-y"  'yank-rectangle)
(define-key ctl-l-map "h"  'command-history)
(define-key ctl-l-map "w"  'write-region)
(define-key ctl-l-map "r" 'electric-replace-string)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\er" 'replace-string)
(define-key ctl-l-map "T"  'delete-trailing-whitespace)
(define-key ctl-l-map "C"  'describe-char)
(define-key ctl-l-map "W"  'ediff-regions-wordwise)
(define-key ctl-l-map "L"  'ediff-regions-linewise)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-f" 'facemenu-remove-all)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-c" 'calendar)
(define-key ctl-l-map "m"  'not-modified)   ;; already at M-~
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-q" 'fill-region)
(define-key ctl-l-map "u" 'set-buffer-file-coding-system)
(define-key ctl-l-map [?\C-2] 'transient-mark-mode)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-@"  'transient-mark-mode)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-n"  'linum-mode)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-s" 'isearch-forward-regexp)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-r" 'isearch-backward-regexp)a
(define-key ctl-l-map "U" 'browse-url)
(define-key ctl-l-map "F" 'browse-url-of-file)
(define-key ctl-l-map "\C-u" 'undo-only)