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General: Sane keymapping syntax
1. General

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General: Sane keymapping syntax

General

If you came to the page hoping to find a ‘general overview’ of emacs, then you are sadly mistaken. This entry is for general.el, which is a package that allows the user to define his own keymapping in a manner that should in theory, be easier to perform, but unfortunately is difficult to understand.

Usage

From glancing over the documentation, implementing the package is much more involved then originally assumed. Regardless, below is an example that exemplifies most of the basic functionality.

Syntax Example

;; * Global Keybindings
;; `general-define-key' acts like `global-set-key' when :keymaps is not
;; specified (because ":keymaps 'global" is the default)
;; kbd is not necessary and arbitrary amount of key def pairs are allowed
(general-define-key
 "M-x" 'amx                             ; or 'smex
 "C-s" 'counsel-grep-or-swiper)

;; * Mode Keybindings
;; `general-define-key' is comparable to `define-key' when :keymaps is specified
(general-define-key
 ;; NOTE: keymaps specified with :keymaps must be quoted
 :keymaps 'org-mode-map
 "C-c C-q" 'counsel-org-tag
 ;; ...
 )
;; `general-def' can be used instead for `define-key'-like syntax
(general-def org-mode-map
  "C-c C-q" 'counsel-org-tag
  ;; ...
  )

;; * Prefix Keybindings
;; :prefix can be used to prevent redundant specification of prefix keys
(general-define-key
 :prefix "C-c"
 ;; bind "C-c a" to 'org-agenda
 "a" 'org-agenda
 "b" 'counsel-bookmark
 "c" 'org-capture)

;; for frequently used prefix keys, the user can create a custom definer with a
;; default :prefix
;; using a variable is not necessary, but it may be useful if you want to
;; experiment with different prefix keys and aren't using `general-create-definer'
(defconst my-leader "C-c")

(general-create-definer my-leader-def
  ;; :prefix my-leader
  ;; or without a variable
  :prefix "C-c")

;; ** Global Keybindings
(my-leader-def
  "a" 'org-agenda
  "b" 'counsel-bookmark
  "c" 'org-capture)

;; ** Mode Keybindings
(my-leader-def
  :keymaps 'clojure-mode-map
  ;; bind "C-c C-l"
  "C-l" 'cider-load-file
  "C-z" 'cider-switch-to-repl-buffer)
;; `general-create-definer' creates wrappers around `general-def', so
;; `define-key'-like syntax is also supported
(my-leader-def clojure-mode-map
  "C-l" 'cider-load-file
  "C-z" 'cider-switch-to-repl-buffer)

;; * Settings
;; change `auto-revert-interval' after autorevert has been loaded (`setq' will
;; not work)
(general-setq auto-revert-interval 10)

Package Integration

General.el integrates with many of the popular packages for Emacs. A few notable one’s are:

Which-Key
Use-Package