Meow: Yet another modal editing on Emacs
github.com75 points by Bogdanp 5 hours ago
75 points by Bogdanp 5 hours ago
It's one of the best designed packages I've seen. Except 'repeat' that was horribly broken last time I checked but can be fixed by using the repeat-fu package. Manages to cleanly implement the kakoune model in an incredibly flexible manner and without interfering with anything else.
I still have my meow config, but currently disabled. The kakoune model is definitely what you're looking for if your desire is to edit text with the fewest keystrokes, it's far better than vim. I think the vim model is better, though, because motion-as-selection is fundamentally exhaustive, and in vim, by the time you realize what you're going to do, you go into operator pending mode (e.g. pressing d) and the next keystroke also feels obvious, while in meow you may have to reset the selection by doing some movement.
What works best for me is no modal editing at all. Definitely requires the most keystrokes, but that's not a limiting factor for me. It just feels nice never having to think about modes or constantly pressing Esc, and instead navigating with a mixture of default Emacs keybinds and great, joyous to use packages like Avy, smartparens, tempel and combobulate. Meow's KEYPAD is also not really helpful, it does save some keystrokes but doesn't make anything easier to remember or reach for. For the commands that it is worse, it is much worse.
> What works best for me is no modal editing at all.
I used vim for 8 years and after switching to Emacs, realized that I'm the same. I was spending way more time (in vim) thinking about (to borrow another commenter's metaphor) how I was going to play the notes than what notes I was going to write.
funny, 20 years of vim/evil here and I feel like I never really think about the motions anymore, except maybe when building a macro
I’m in the same boat. I’ve internalized Vim keybindings so much that there’s no friction between thinking and doing on the screen. If I want to place the cursor on the next line, move to the end and add a semicolon, then jump to the end of the file, I just do it. My pet theory is that because Vim keybindings are unintuitive, developing proficiency required building muscle memory, which offloads cognitive load from my brain to my fingers so text editing becomes mechanical rather than cognitive.
Had a similar experience, tried to switch to Meow twice, it's really nice in most ways. But I found lack of vim-style repeat and accidental "dropping" the selection to be so unwieldy that I couldn't stick to using it.
Ended up writing an alternative to Meow which addresses the issues I had.
It's currently in review for Melpa, see:
I gave Meow a fair shake a year or so ago. I'd say it's currently the most robust mode for implementing Kakoune or Helix-like bindings in Emacs, but you can customize it to be like vim or anything else. It's more lightweight than evil-mode. At present, however, I'm not using modal editing in emacs; just lots of Meta-key shortcuts for movement and a hydra with a key-chord for common commands.
The god-mode minor mode that is linked is also mind-boggling: https://github.com/emacsorphanage/god-mode
I have god-mode installed, but I've basically forgot about it as Emacs have a different model of editing than Vim.
With Vim, text editing feels like playing the piano. For every action, you compose a sequence of bindings and execute on it. It is really a language of editing.
Emacs feels more like blacksmithing, hammering the text into a proper shape. There's no composition, you just select the correct tools and applies it. And emacs have a lot of those tools.
god-mode is my modal editing of choice. I usually use it to scroll and read through and select files. It works especially well with read-only buffers in my experience.
It's really cool to see this and other recent experimentation towards breaking past the local maximum of modal editing we've been in since Vi. Really neat stuff!
> Meow aims to blend modal editing into Emacs with minimal interference with its original key-bindings
Given how bad the defaults are, that's not a good aim