Saturday, December 31, 2005

Emacs Tip: Viewing Commands Available On A Prefix Key

Emacs, and consequently Emacspeak, uses a number of multi-key sequences. The initial key that makes up such a multi-key sequence --- AKA the prefix-key that leads to all Emacspeak commands is C-e (control-e).

Pressing any prefix-key followed by the help-key (C-h) results in Emacs displaying a *Help* buffer that lists all key-sequences beginning with that prefix.

This can be a very useful way of quickly seeing what keyboard commands are available --- as the resulting listing is shorter than what is produced by C-h b (command describe-bindings) which lists all key-bindings.

To use this feature to review Emacspeak's key-bindings, I have now moved command emacspeak-learn-emacs-mode to C-h C-l and C-e F1 from its original key-binding of C-e C-h --- the change is checked into CVS.