Emacs Compatibility Tracking Issue

[morgoth]

Rather than a monolithic "implement emacs in Zed" enhancement request (which is inherently unactionable) this issue is a tracking issue for centralizing various Zed bug fixes and enhancements to better supporting emacs-like compatibility and operation in Zed.

Issues:

• Add command to exchange beginning/end of region #4697
• Add a mark / select mode #8580
• Adaptive wrap prefix? #8614
• Remove whitespaces from empty lines when pressing enter #9230
• Which-Key like menu #10910
• cut-buffer / yank support for ctrl-k and ctrl-y #14260
• Zed Terminal is slower to process ctrl-x than MacOS Terminal (emacs) #16214
• User-defined visual text substitutions (Prettify Symbols Mode in vim/emacs/vsc) #18420
• Visual overline syntax decoration like Emacs' "Decorate Tags" option in EDE mode  #20986
• Editor::KillRingCut support for multiple lines? (emacs) #22490
• Immutable project search (emacs occur style) #22943
• Add keep lines and flush lines command #23408

Merged PRs:

• Add emacs keymap #19605
• Implement readline/emacs/macos style ctrl-k cut and ctrl-y yank #21003
• Add emacs keybinds for previous/next/cancel in search #21921
• Improve emacs keybind with better home/end behavior #21923
• Emacs keybinding improvements (2025-01-02) #22590
• More Emacs keybinding improvements #22629
• emacs: Fix using emacs in embedded terminal #22779
• Add emacs keybindings for mark emulation #22904
• emacs: Add as Transpose Characters (editor::Transpose) #22974
• Add emacs mark mode #23297
• Add support for editor::SwapSelectionEnds everywhere (emacs exchange-point-and-mark) #23428

Comments such as "I need emacs mode to switch to Zed!" and the like are unwelcome here.
Please vote with 👍 below on this issue and the linked issues instead.

Editor note (@notpeter): Originally this issue was for an emacs keymap, a beta of which shipped in #19605

[ozanmakes]

An offical "Emacs mode" would be really nice. There is a couple of example user configurations over here: https://github.com/zed-industries/community/discussions/1653

At the moment the lack of a "mark" command is the biggest holdup. In Emacs, pressing Ctrl+SPC will toggle selection and let you use movement commands to select text without keeping Shift pressed. Any chance this could be added to Zed?

[notpeter]

For those following this issue we've recently shipped two emacs-related improvements:

• Add emacs keymap #19605
• Implement readline/emacs/macos style ctrl-k cut and ctrl-y yank #21003

Please try out the Emacs (beta) keymap by triggering the welcome: toggle bas keymap selector:

It's very basic at this point, but give it a whirl, happy to consider PRs with improvements / refinements.

Rather than close this issue I've repurposed it as a tracking issue for additional Emacs-related enhancements and I've edited the issue description above to include links to other issues.

One other update, sadly, due to issues with international keyboards we also opted to revert terminal.option_as_meta to default to false again:

• Make terminal.option_as_meta=false in default settings #19364

If you need emacs/readline style keybinds in your terminal which use meta / alt you will want to add this to your settings.json:

  "terminal": {
    "option_as_meta": true
  }

[dmvianna]

Moving around the workspace panes is different from Emacs, which will just cycle through all available buffers and has no default concept of how they're positioned. Zed seems to organise them spatially, so instead of having just the default Emacs ctrl-x o (which I rebinded to alt-o as per Mastering Emacs in my own configuration), I had to use spatial bindings. I dislike it; I find Emacs's approach better, especially when I can use IBuffer to locate buffers by name using ctrl-x b.

In Emacs, I go to the pane I want the buffer to be and switch to it by name. In Zed (at least for now), I have to locate the pane by looking at the tabs, switching to the pane and then choosing the desired tab. Suboptimal.

Here's my current config:

"context": "Workspace"

  "ctrl-x o": "tab_switcher::Toggle",
  "alt-x b": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Left"],
  "alt-x f": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Right"],
  "alt-x p": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Up"],
  "alt-x n": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Down"]

[dmvianna]

pop-global-mark in Emacs takes you back to the last mark, which in Zed it is the same as xref-go-back.
"context": "Pane"

  "alt-,": "pane::GoBack",  // xref-go-back
  "ctrl-x ctrl-space": "pane::GoBack",  // pop-global-mark
  "ctrl-u ctrl-space": "pane::GoForward"  // set-mark-command with negative prefix

Typing ctrl-x ctrl-space fast enough in Zed is tricky. How can I make Zed less impatient?

[notpeter]

At the moment the lack of a "mark" command is the biggest holdup. In Emacs, pressing Ctrl+SPC will toggle selection and let you use movement commands to select text without keeping Shift pressed. Any chance this could be added to Zed? -@ozanmakes comment link

Tomorrow (2025-01-21) this will be available Zed Preview 0.171.x (#23297 and #23428):

• ctrl-space to enter mark/selection mode (editor::SetMark)
• ctrl-x ctrl-x to swap selection ends (editor::SwapSelectionEnds aka exchange-point-and-mark)

Note multi-cursor is supported for both.

video demo

Screen.Recording.2025-01-21.at.18.17.59.mov

Thanks @ozanmakes for your work on #22904 which inspired me to get this over the line.

[kzar]

Zed is getting more and more usable for me (as a long-time Emacs user) with these changes, thanks @notpeter!

I've not had the latest upgrade yet, but something I've noticed recently. If I press ctrl-k (editor: kill ring cut) to delete to the end of the line, then ctrl-y (kill ring yank) the text will be pasted back as expected. But if I then select some other text, press ctrl-w (editor: cut), then ctrl-y, the wrong text will be pasted (the text from the original king ring cut). In Emacs, I can paste back the text after using ctrl-w.

[michaelgruner]

Tomorrow (2025-01-21) this will be available Zed Preview 0.171.x (#23297 and #23428):

Thanks for this! Zed is incredibly fast. This was one of my stoppers to finally switch over.

[maximvl]

I'm trying this Emacs keymap, one thing I'm confused about is how it should handle conflicts with default Zed keybinds, eg C-p instead of going to previous line currently opens project file search and C-a selects all instead of going to beginning of a line.

[michaelgruner]

I'm trying this Emacs keymap, one thing I'm confused about is how it should handle conflicts with default Zed keybinds, eg C-p instead of going to previous line currently opens project file search and C-a selects all instead of going to beginning of a line.

You're probably missing the base_keymap in your settings.json?

"base_keymap": "Emacs"

[maximvl]

You're probably missing the base_keymap in your settings.json?

"base_keymap": "Emacs"

I do have that, and I have some Emacs keybinds working, like C-n, C-e, but only those which are not used by Zed default bindings

[michaelgruner]

I do have that, and I have some Emacs keybinds working, like C-n, C-e, but only those which are not used by Zed default bindings

ctrl-p works just fine for me, as well as all the other navigation keys, yank, paste, save, search, etc... Using the default base_keymap (no custom key binds). The only thing missing for me is setting a mark with ctrl-space.

I'm in Zed 0.170.1 4b2e556bf3ff1c6cf98804cf6c855dd7776a4d1 on Mac. Here's my barebones ~/config/zed/settings.json:

// Zed settings
//
// For information on how to configure Zed, see the Zed
// documentation: https://zed.dev/docs/configuring-zed
//
// To see all of Zed's default settings without changing your
// custom settings, run the `open default settings` command
// from the command palette or from `Zed` application menu.
{
  "assistant": {
    "default_model": {
      "provider": "copilot_chat",
      "model": "gpt-4o"
    },
    "version": "2"
  },
  "vim_mode": false,
  "theme": "Solarized Dark",
  "ui_font_size": 16,
  "buffer_font_size": 16,
  "autosave": {
    "after_delay": {
      "milliseconds": 10000
    }
  },
  "hour_format": "hour24",
  "tab_size": 2,
  "base_keymap": "Emacs",
  "terminal": {
    "option_as_meta": true
  }
}

And my ~/.config/zed/keymap.json is empty.

[failable]

In Emacs, one can bind the same keyboard shortcut to different commands in different programming language buffers. It would be great if Zed had similar functionality.

For example, using the same shortcut to execute different run commands / tasks in Python and Rust files, e.g. python3 $ZED_FILE and cargo run respectively.

[dmvianna]

To help Emacs folks migrate, can I suggest adding feedback for when the user used the command palette for a command that already has a key binding. That way, folks can pick up the keybindings as they go. I've been finding I need to use the command pallete to find what I need (e.g. "file finder: toggle"), then go through the default keymap myself to find what that's bound to. In Emacs, a message like You can run the command ‘forward-char’ with C-f is shown in the mini buffer, so the user can quickly pick up the binding for next time.

Second this. I used the dropdown boxes to discover command names and current keybindings in Zed, but a `which-key` functionality where the keybindings are shown alongside the commands in the pallette would be much more useful as it would cover all commands and be readily accessible.-- Daniel Vianna

[notpeter]

I've moved this to a discussion because we're working to tidy up the Issue Tracker. We'll see how it goes.

Re which-key:

• Which-Key like menu #10910

[EmasXP]

What do you think about support for s-expressions ("sexp" for short), like Ctrl-Alt-Left for backward-sexp and Ctrl-Alt-Right for forward-sexp?

Link to the GNU Emacs Manual: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Expressions.html

[michaelgruner]

Hey @notpeter I've updated Zed to 0.171.3 and I can confirm ctrl-space works as intended to set selection marks. A few improvements to feel more emacs-like would be:

• Copying with alt-w should remove the selection after copying
• Yanking (pasting) with ctrl-y is not working in the base keymap. I had to manually add it to my settings.

Thanks!

[pbgc]

@michaelgruner for now I defined alt-w as:

{
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "alt-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "cmd-c ctrl-g"],
    .....

so the selection is removed after copying.

I also had to define ctrl-y in my keymap (it was working before)

[michaelgruner]

Thanks, since we are sharing, I also did your trick for cut and mapped tab to auto-indent, which emacs had spoiled me already:

            "tab": "editor::AutoIndent",
            "alt-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "cmd-c ctrl-g"],

[pbgc]

@michaelgruner thanks! the tab mapped to auto-indent was one of the things I really was missing from emacs! I defined it like this to be able to keep using tab to auto-complete the ai sugestions:

  {
    "context": "Editor && !inline_completion && !showing_completions",
    "use_key_equivalents": true,
    "bindings": {
      "tab": "editor::AutoIndent"
    }
  },