If you’ve ever played keywiz on Emacs: “M-x keywiz”, you were probably eating humble-hacker-pie by the end of the game. (For the uninitiated, keywiz is a game in emacs that’s asks 10 random questions about key-bindings for some times obscure emacs commands.) So far my top score is 4 (out of 10). So what is a novice to do? I’ve decided to write commands I want to learn on sticky notes on my monitor until I memorize them. So, without further ado, here’s this weeks list of new commands: M-g g goto line. This command will ask for a line number and take you there in the current file.

C-x v=

vc-diff. This command will show a diff between current file and HEAD in whatever Version Control System you are using.

C-x vv

vc-next-action. This command will perform the next appropriate VCS command, such as add current file to staging, or commit.

C-M-\

indent-region. If there is a defined region, this command will indent it.

C-M-;

comment-region. If there is a defined region, this command will comment the region out. (or uncomment a commented out region.) A note: to define a region. Do a C-[spc] at the beginning of the region and then move to the end of the region however you’d like (arrow keys, C-n, C-f, C-v). If you can’t see the regions add the following to your .emacs file: (transient-mark-mode 1). Second note, in the above key combination, capital C, means hold the Ctrl key, capital M, means hold the Alt key. If there are dashes between letters: type them together (or with C or M hold the Ctrl or Alt key while typing the other key. So with M-g g: Hold Alt while typing g, let go and then type g again.) Now off to work on a new version of keywiz, perhaps keywiz-jr!