Re: OT: M-S-$ Not Working

[Bo Grimes]

To consolidate I'm replying to both Marcin and Tim together, and if
anyone has further advice I welcome it!!!, but I feel guilty, so reply
to me off-list, please.

On Sat, 06 Feb 2021 17:28:52 +1100
Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:
> 
> > Hi Bo,
> >
> > I know your problem is resolved now, but in case you don't know,
> > check also what `C-h c' does (and `C-h k' is also useful at times).
> >  In general, spending 20 minutes on looking through what `C-h C-h'
> > says might save you some trouble later;-).

Thanks!  I resolve to work through the help files from time to time, but
life and attenuation... C-h c looks very useful! I have a couple of
simple capture templates that I copied into my init.el, but I didn't
know one could create them like that!

Right now I am slowly working my way through Harley Hahn's Emacs Field
Guide, and I am determined to master Emacs and Org, which I have been
using extensively for 10 years now, I'm embarrassed to say.

My biggest challenge is that I use Emacs for Org and Org because after
trying everything else, it simply meets all my demands (plain text,
FOSS, etc), all my needs (notes, agendas, and writing), and it is so
stable and configurable that I can grow with it.  However, the
challenge is that duties and obligations (willed and wanted) often keep
me from working on notes, knowledge base, writing stuff for days and
even weeks, so I am constantly relearning.

> >  
> 
> This is good advice. I would add that if you find that Emacs does not
> respond, even to say that the key is not bound or defined, it is
> typically a sign that something in the environment e.g. window manager
> or X (or Wayland) layer is not passing the key press through. These
> are layers which are often overlooked and I've seen people spend hours
> inside Emacs trying to work out what the issue is, only to later find
> it is at a different layer (OS, windowing environment, window manager,
> etc).

> In general, standard Emacs key bindings are robust and reliable. If a
> standard key binding like M-S $ doesn't work, first step is to try
> emacs -Q. If that still does not work, odds are high it is an issue
> outside of Emacs. Most common causes are WM shortcuts, modified input
> device definitions (as seems to be the culprit here) and modified
> modmap settings. Utilities like 'xev' can be useful here (not sure
> what wayland has).

Yeah, I knew that had to be the case, but the Internet is now so awash,
and *nixes so divergent, it's sometimes very difficult, no matter how
good one's searchFu is, to find a solution.  Once I saw that S-4 gave
me a $ in a buffer and M-S-$ in a shell spellchecked the word, I knew it
had to be outside Emacs.  I even made sure it happened with Right M and
Right S as well.

I used Unix in grad school in the early 90s for email, gopher, usenet,
etc so when I heard about Linux in '99 I switched.  The Gnome/KDE wars,
Unity, SystemD, Wayland and more...they all left me behind.

It is INSANE that the problem could have been in Wayland, X, Gnome,
PopShell, Mutter, and that it's all so hidden now.  I still have no
idea what was making the Num Lock prevent the $ from working when M was
pressed but not when S was pressed alone.

I am just not adept enough to switch to something like AwesomeWM or i3.
I have to shepherd my time to focus on Emacs and Org.

In desperation, I turned to a reliable, ancient (in Internet years)
resource: the mailing list, and I am grateful for the patience,
tolerance, and guidance I found.  I have used this list, the only one I
subscribe to, a few times for real org problems, and I learn a lot just
reading any subject that interest me.

> 
> 
> When I install a new system (regardless of platform, linux, mac,
> windows), my first task is usually to remove or remap shortcuts. These
> days, most environments use super, alt, meta and control based
> shortcuts, many of which interfere with my Emacs. I rarely use super
> in my Emacs key bindings, so often I remap useful WM shortcuts to use
> super.
> --
> Tim Cross

This is excellent!  I have a super on all my keyboards, so I could
easily do this on both my laptop (this one) and my desktop.  I usually
only remap caps lock to control and try to learn the shortcuts as
given, but since I really ever only use my two computers (my laptop and
desktop), it makes no sense to worry about muscle memory if I use
another, so I should just change them all to what fits me best.

Thanks again, and for reading this discursive ramble if you got this
far.  This list is an example of what drew me to Linux/Emacs/Org to
begin with!

Gratefully,  
Bo Grimes