Macos – OS X Terminal: Meta key + alt functionality at the same time

emacskeyboardmacosterminal

Is there a way to use an alt / option key as a meta key but still be able to use it to make some characters which need it?

For example, in my local keyboard layout:

  • @ is alt + 2
  • \ is alt + shift + 7
  • | is alt + 7
  • etc.

So, if I set alt as a meta key, I can't make those characters anymore. On the other hand, using "press esc, release esc, press a key" to make meta key sequences makes my hands hurt.

Any Emacs users with international keyboards who have solved this, please give any tips you might have! 🙂

Edit:

It appears that I can set alt as a meta key and then add these kind of settings in inputrc: "\e2": "@" This works in the bash shell but it still won't work with Emacs though, so no good.

Best Answer

I use a Swedish keyboard in Mac OS X and use the following setup for Emacs.app:

First I have KeyRemap4MacBook installed and I have it setup to change the left Option key to Command.

I then have the following in my .emacs:

(setq mac-option-modifier 'none)
(setq mac-command-modifier 'meta)

This makes Emacs treat command as Meta and ignore Option. Since the left Alt/Option key is remapped to command, this makes it work lite meta while the right Alt/Option key still works for entering special characters like @ [] and {}.

App specific Mac shortcuts like Cmd+C and Cmd+V no longer work, but global shortcuts like Cmd+space for Spotlight and Cmd+Tab for app switching do.

Update: If you use iTerm2 as a Terminal, that has support for mapping only the left Alt/Option key to meta, which means you can still use the right AltGr/Option key for entering special characters. This also means you can use meta as normal inside Emacs running in the iTerm2 terminal.

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