Arch Linux

Quirky

Member

Registered: 2015-08-14

Posts: 7

[SOLVED] Firefox 43 readline/emacs key bindings in XFCE

Now that Firefox uses gtk-3 instead of gtk-2 it seems like the way to set emacs/readline key bindings in e.g. the url bar or text fields has changed. I'm talking about ctrl-a to go to the start of a line, ctrl-e to go to the end, ctrl-k to delete text from the cursor to the end of the line, etc.

When Firefox used gtk2, the solution was one of these http://kb.mozillazine.org/Emacs_Keybind … Firefox%29 but those no longer work.

I've found this link from June 2015 for FreeBSD - https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/how- … fox.51924/ - which suggests the following links https://askubuntu.com/questions/124815/ … gle-chrome https://grox.net/sysadm/unix/gtk3emacskeys and https://github.com/mooz/keysnail/wiki - these boil down to running:

  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-key-theme "Emacs"

or

  dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/interface/gtk-key-theme "'Emacs'"

or installing an addon, which might just be a Vim-user trolling? It doesn't look like it has the actual behaviour as one of its features anyway.

I've tried the dconf/gsettings fixes, but they have not had the desired effect (or any noticeable effect at all). Ctrl-a still selects all text in the URL field instead of going to the start of the line.

I'm using XFCE as my DE rather than Gnome3 if that makes any difference (wouldn't have thought so, but you never know). Any other ideas?

Last edited by Quirky (2015-12-21 07:49:07)

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,322

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox 43 readline/emacs key bindings in XFCE

or installing an addon, which might just be a Vim-user trolling? It doesn't look like it has the actual behaviour as one of its features anyway.

I am a vim user and like vimfx. Still, did you by chance mean this addon?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo … /firemacs/

Last edited by progandy (2015-12-17 11:32:09)

---

| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' | alias ENGLISH='LANG=C.UTF-8 ' |

Quirky

Member

Registered: 2015-08-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox 43 readline/emacs key bindings in XFCE

No, the one suggested in that link is "Key Snail" https://github.com/mooz/keysnail/wiki

FWIW I use Vim all the time too. But from bash, gdb, mysql, etc. I'm really used to the readline shortcuts. It's muscle memory and for me I find that works better for multiple edits on a single line of text, such as the URL field.

Quirky

Member

Registered: 2015-08-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] Firefox 43 readline/emacs key bindings in XFCE

I've found a fix for this now. The solution in XFCE was to open up the Settings Editor and change xsettings > Gtk > KeyThemeName > change the string value to Emacs. Found that here https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=8189