How do I fix the cursor to the middle of the screen in Emacs, so that the page moves, not the cursor?

Question

I\'d like to fix the cursor to the centre line of the screen, so that when I press Ctrl-N or Ctrl-P, the page itself moves up or down, and the cursor stays still.

Ha

Answer 1

Try centered-cursor mode:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/centered-cursor-mode.el

If you're using MELPA, it's available by M-x package-install RET centered-cursor-mode.

Answer 2

You can roll your own using the recenter built-in:

(global-set-key (kbd "C-n")
        (lambda (n)
          (interactive "p")
          (next-line n)
          (recenter)))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-p")
        (lambda (n)
          (interactive "p")
          (previous-line n)
          (recenter)))

Answer 3

M-x scroll-lock-mode, which could be used to put the Scroll Lock key to good use too:

(global-set-key (kbd "<Scroll_Lock>") 'scroll-lock-mode)

Answer 4

The EmacsWiki page on SmoothScrolling presents some possible solutions.