How to have Emacs keybindings everywhere in Macbook Air M1 Monterey 12.5? Is tweaking ~/Library/KeyBindings/ the best approach?

Question

I am new to macOS and a big fan of Emacs. I am trying to achieve Emacs keybindings everywhere.

Despite the fact that I have read multiple times on the web people stating that macOS was friendly and out of the box with Emacs keybindings, I am having some hassles. Obviously, the problems happen outside of Emacs. In Emacs, things work as expected.

I am struggling with copy, paste, cut, for instance. But I also used to have problems with those in Linux (Ubuntu/NixOs).

Unlike in macOS, in Linux I managed to get M-b (move back word) and M-f (move forward) to work.

It is possible to do it with Command-M-b and Command-M-f but I do not want to change my habbit/muscle memory. I want to make this new computer adapt to me - not the opposite.

Some old posts (like #1, #2, #3, #4) mention a tweak on ~/Library/KeyBindings/. By the way, a lot of posts are mentioning Jacob Rus' comprehensive guide which is hosted on Harvard University domain.... But the link is broken.

Unfortunately, I cannot even find this folder:

Pedros-MacBook-Air:Library pedro$ pwd
/Users/pedro/Library
Pedros-MacBook-Air:Library pedro$ cd Key
Keyboard/         Keyboard Layouts/ KeyboardServices/ Keychains/ 

How to find ~/Library/KeyBindings/ in Mac M1 Monterey 12.5? Should I create it?

Also, others posting more recent content are suggesting other alternatives, such as Karabiner-elements (#1 #2). Karabiner-elements can also be useful for short keys to launch applications.

What is the best technical practice to change keybindings in macOS? What are the technical arguments around every solution?

Answer 1

After some research and trial/error, I have become a heavy user of Karabiner Elements.

This software is really well-crafted. I have been having a great Emacs UX out of Emacs and inside a macOS thanks to Karabiner Elements.

I have even created a GitHub repo to share my configuration for Karabiner

I do not have the technical expertise to discuss and contrast the positive/negative aspects of each alternative. What I can state is that Karabiner-elements really improved my life.

Answer 2

As for getting your mac adapting to you and your Emacs muscle memory without third-party apps, my option has been, since 2010, to add a DefaultKeyBinding.dict inside my ~/Library/KeyBindings/.

And yes, I did have to make the KeyBindings directory inside ~/Library/ and move my keybindings file into it. (I don't have an M1 Mac, so I can't test it, but I don't see why that would be difficult to achieve. I have an Intel-based 2019 MacBookAir running Monterey 12.6).

I've tweaked (in Emacs, of course) Jacob Rus' DefaultKeyBinding.dict several times since I first copied it in 2010. You can find my version in https://github.com/plgx/DefaultKeybindings.dict/tree/main

You can also adapt it to your needs using for reference Apple's Cocoa Event Handling Guide.

(BTW, I'm sure Karabiner Elements is a great piece of software. I'll give it a try soon.)