Keats: Emacs mode for key binding cheats

In Emacs, there’s a lot of keybindings to remember. From time to time it can be a quite large time gap between using different (usually major) modes. Then I have no chance remembering all keybinding. C-x b and C-x m helps, but to be able to put in my own description I usually keep a cheat file that I manage in org-mode that looks something like this:

| C-c C-v C-c   | Compiles this file |
| C-c C-v C-r   | Runs this file     |
| C-x C-u       | Upcase region      |
| C-S-backspace | Kill whole line    |
...

This works, but (as most Emacs users) I don’t like to leave Emacs and if I can avoid it, don’t even leave the current buffer. But in order to look up a cheat I have to leave the current buffer or split screen or something to get me back easy afterwards. This means that I have to find the file or buffer for each time I want to find or add a cheat.

Anyway, since this is way to painful, I decided to write a mode to handle keybinding cheats (or keats) for me. I didn’t even bother looking for a mode, but instead wrote my own for fun and learning. This mode is actually two modes: Keats and Keats Interactive.

Keats is hosted at Github: http://github.com/rejeep/keats

In the file comments, there’s plenty of installation and usage instructions. But here’s some basic usage.

Keats

This is a minor mode which allows you to manage keats without having to leave the current buffer. These keybindings are available:

Add Add a new: C-c k a

Edit Edit an existing: C-c k e

Remove Remove an existing: C-c k r

Print description Print the description of an existing: C-c k d

Search Search for a word in description: C-c k s

Write Write to file: C-c k w. This is done automatically when Emacs is killed and depending on keats-save-at variable, at add, edit and remove (see comments in code).

Interactive Interactive mode: C-c k i. Starts interactive mode (see below).

Keats Interactive

Why two modes? Well Keats mode is good if you find out a new keybinding when you are working that you fast want to save without it disturbing your workflow. Keats Interactive mode is good to use if you want to add, edit or remove many keats at the same time. To start this mode there a binding for it in Keats mode: C-c k i. Starting this mode will bring up a new buffer with all keats (search uses this mode, and in this case only the keats that matched the query will be shown). There’s a couple of keybinding for this buffer:

Add Add a new: a

Edit Edit an existing: e

Remove Remove an existing: r

Write Write to file: w

Search Search for a word in description: s

Next Moves to the next in list: n

Previous Moves to the previous in list: p

Run/Execute Run command for which key at point is connected to: RET. Prefix key for this command will kill the buffer before executing the command.

Quit Quits the mode: q

Keybindings for add, edit, remove and description in both modes can be used with a prefix key C-u. In this case there will be no reading of the keybinding, but it will be entered in words. This is good to use if a keybinding contains C-g or RET, which otherwise wouldn’t be possible to add. This is also good if you don’t want to enter a key, but a function name.

Future and Feature

In future versions I plan to implement tags support. And one thing I haven’t yet decided, is if it should be possible to enter the same key more than once. For example one might want to store the key n which can mean different things in many modes. If you can think of any other features, please let me know.