evil-colemak-basics.el

This Emacs package provides basic key bindings for evil-mode optimized for the Colemak keyboard layout. (As an extra, there is also a Vim version of most of the bindings, though Vim is less hackable than Emacs.)

Designed as a smart hybrid between Colemak and Qwerty, it works especially well for Colemak converts who have used Vim on a Qwerty keyboard before they made the switch to Colemak. All keys (except one) are in their Colemak or Qwerty positions, depending on what provides the most ergonomic editing experience, and muscle memory is retained for many frequently used commands.

Key bindings

The starting point is a plain Colemak layout with all keys in their normal positions. On top of that the following keys are changed for motion state (m), normal state (n), visual state (v), and operator-pending state (o, inherits from motion state):

In addition to the keys listed explicitly above, variations like gn and ge (gj and gk on Qwerty) to navigate visual lines instead of real lines also behave as expected.

The tables below indicate whether a key has its Colemak meaning, its Qwerty meaning, the same meaning, or neither.

Design rationale

Some other Colemak configurations for Emacs/Evil (and Vim) redefine big parts of the non-insert states (normal, visual, and so on) by changing or even completely removing standard Vim commands. Such changes significantly change the editing experience. This is a no go for seasoned users who are used to the default Emacs/Evil (and Vim) key bindings, and just want a new keyboard layout, not a new editor.

The other extreme is to not change anything at all. While a ‘no configuration’ approach may work fine for some, others consider it simply unacceptable to not have ‘arrow navigation’ keys (which are not mnemonic commands) at their usual ergonomic home row positions, because it completely breaks their muscle memory, making the switch to Colemak (from Qwerty) even harder than it already is.

This package provides a sensible compromise between ‘change everything’ and ‘change nothing’. It changes a few key bindings, namely those used for basic navigation (hnei), and only makes a number of additional cascading changes to deal sensibly with the implications of remapping the navigation keys. No functionality is lost.

The design steps to arrive at the key bindings provided by this package are as follows:

• The starting point is a standard Colemak keyboard layout. This works well for many mnemonic keys like d (delete), p (put/paste), y (yank), and various others.
• The hnei (hjkl on Qwerty) keys are used for the familiar ‘arrow key’ navigation.
• This means n (next search match), e (end of word) and i (insert) need a new home. All of these move to their Qwerty positions.
• As a consequence, u (undo), and f (jump to character) need a new home. Also move these to their Qwerty positions.
• At this point only t (jump until character) needs a new home. It cannot go to its Qwerty position, since that would cause a cascade of follow-up changes that would break many mnemonic keys. Therefore it moves to Colemak j, the only remaining unused spot. This position is hard to reach, but since this command is not frequently used, this is an acceptable trade-off.
• Now all commands are either at their Colemak or Qwerty position, except for ‘jump until character‘, which is at neither.

While this may seem complex, the result is that you can happily think and type in Colemak, while you can use muscle memory for many often used commands:

• basic ‘arrow key’ navigation
• insert
• undo
• search match navigation
• end of word
• jump to character

…in addition to all the keys that already have the same position on Colemak and Qwerty, such as b (previous word), c (change), w (next word), and various others.

As an alternative, a lighter variation of the above scheme is also available by omitting the t-f-j rotation. Without that rotation, t (jump until character) and f (jump to character) stay at their Colemak position, which some may prefer. The downside is that the ‘end of word’ command ends up at the hard to reach j position.

Installation

This package is available from Melpa and can be installed with the package manager (package.el) that comes bundled with Emacs 24+. With use-package, the minimal form looks like like this:

(use-package evil-colemak-basics)

Or manually install by running:

M-x package-install RET evil-colemak-basics RET

Alternatively, put the Elisp file somewhere in your loading path and load it explicitly:

(require 'evil-colemak-basics)

Note that this (require) is not needed when installing from Melpa.

Usage

To enable globally, use:

M-x global-evil-colemak-basics-mode RET

To enable for just a single buffer, use:

M-x evil-colemak-basics-mod RET

To enable permanently, call (global-evil-colemak-basics-mode) from your init.el. With use-package this looks like this:

(use-package evil-colemak-basics
  :config
  (global-evil-colemak-basics-mode))

When enabled, a lighter showing hnei will appear in your mode line. If you don't like it, use rich-minority or diminish to hide it.

Note that this package assumes that your operating system is properly configured for the Colemak keyboard layout. It does not implement the Colemak layout on top of a Qwerty layout.

Configuration

Use the customize interface to get more information about the settings:

M-x customize-group RET evil-colemak-basics RET

However, since the settings must be set before loading the package (since they influence how the keymap is constructed), the most reliable way is to put (setq …) in your init.el file, before using (require …) or invoking any of the autoloaded functions like (global-evil-colemak-basics-mode). With use-package, use :init like this:

(use-package evil-colemak-basics
  :init
  (setq evil-colemak-basics-... ...)
  :config
  (global-evil-colemak-basics-mode))

t-f-j rotation

The t-f-j rotation is enabled by default but can be disabled using:

(setq evil-colemak-basics-rotate-t-f-j nil)

Mod-DH

Support for the Mod-DH variation of Colemak, also known as Mod-DHm, can be enabled with:

(setq evil-colemak-basics-layout-mod 'mod-dh)

This will swap the bindings for m and h, leaving all other bindings as is.

evil-snipe

To use evil-snipe for the ‘jump to character’ and ‘jump until character’ commands, use:

(setq evil-colemak-basics-char-jump-commands 'evil-snipe)

Note that this package will load evil-snipe, so if you have any configuration that should be set before evil-snipe is loaded, such as evil-snipe-auto-disable-substitute, make sure to configure evil-snipe before this package is loaded. With use-package it looks like this:

(use-package evil-colemak-basics
  :after evil evil-snipe
  :init
  (setq evil-colemak-basics-char-jump-commands 'evil-snipe)
  :config
  (global-evil-colemak-basics-mode))

Credits

These bindings were inspired by a similar configuration for Vim and other software by James Pike, available from https://github.com/ohjames/colemak