The answer to this is interesting and should be in the docs somewhere, but I sure couldn't find it.
Emacs DOES NOT seem to care about KEYSYMs at all. It is only interested in the Modifiers. As far as emacs is concerned MOD1 = META and MOD4 = ALT You can (using xmodmap) have MOD1 and MOD4 generated by whatever keysym you want (Alt_L, Meta_R, underscore....). SPECIFICS TO MY PROBLEM: MOD1 was generated by Alt_R, MOD4 wasn't generated at all. I hope this is of use to future generations :) -Michael P.S. Thanks for the help, Jens. On Fri, 28 May 1999, Michael Stenner wrote: >emacs seems to want to interpret ALT as META and ignore META altogether. > >I found no mention of this in the emacs docs. I'm pretty convinced that >it's an emacs issue: I've used xev to confirm that it's getting the >appropriate keysyms, so when I say it interprets ALT as META, what I >mean is: It gets the ALT keysym, but behaves as if I pushed META. > >Summary: > >Keysyms emacs behavior >ALT-x M-x >META-x x > >I've used xmodmap to change the keysyms that are sent, but that doesn't >change the way emacs interprets them. (Does emacs truly look at keysyms >or does it use keycodes?) > >I've also followed the advice from a thread (included below) that >heppened a while back, to no avail. > >suggestions are welcome :) > > -Michael > >REPOSTED FROM PREVIOUS THREAD >========================================================================= > Re: Emacs and the ALT key. > _________________________________________________________________ > > * To: Havoc Pennington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > * Subject: Re: Emacs and the ALT key. > * From: "Jens B. Jorgensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > * Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:04:27 -0500 > * CC: "Allen B. Riddell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > * Organization: Business Data Services, Inc. > * References: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > _________________________________________________________________ > >I posted a lengthy description of how to deal with this back in August >(the problem was introduced with hamm). I'll repost the content here: > >This problem has come up so many times since hamm started getting used >that it almost merits its own HOWTO. What's happened is that you've >upgraded X and now you are using the XKEYBOARD extension. As you've >noticed, the ALT key now does ALT and the "windows" key is now the >META key. I've argued several times that this is a bug since it >changes behavior. Alas no one listens to this raving madman. Where's >whatcha do (as root): > >sed -e 's/Alt_L/Foo_L/' -e 's/Alt_R/Foo_R/' <\ >/usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us |\ >sed -e 's/Meta_L/Alt_L/' -e 's/Meta_R/Alt_R/' |\ >sed -e 's/Foo_L/Meta_L/' -e 's/Foo_R/Meta_R/' >\ >/usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us.new > >mv /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us.old >mv /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us.new /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us > >(Now restart X and Things should work normally. > >Michael Symalla wrote: > >> Dear Debian users, >> >> can anyone help me to let my Alt-key be the metakey in emacs? Now I am >> using the ESC key, which works fine but is not as comfortable as the >> ALT >> key. >> >> Thanks a lot. >> -- >> Bye >> Mitch > >Havoc Pennington wrote: > >> On Wed, 12 May 1999, Allen B. Riddell wrote: >> > >> > the ALT key (on my PC keyboard) doesn't seem to work in emacs.. It >> > works in >> > netscape -- and aside from that, I have absolutely no problems at >> > all with >> > anything... >> > >> >> Probably the "Windows" key (if you have one) is bound to the Meta >> keysym, >> which is what Emacs is looking for; I don't think Emacs uses the Alt >> keysym at all by default. If you don't have a Windows key, you need to >> move Meta to some other key of your choice. (Many people have the >> physical >> Alt key send both Alt and Meta keysyms, which is technically wrong but >> works nice in practice, since few apps use both keysyms. However, >> XEmacs >> insists on complaining about it every time you start up.) >> >> That said, I'm not sure how to do this without Xmodmap. Perhaps it >> will >> help to know what you're trying to achieve though. :-) >> >> Havoc > > > >-- >Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null > Michael Stenner Office Phone: 919-660-2513 Duke University, Dept. of Physics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305