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Swap Control and Alt Try swapping the Ctrl and Alt keys. Emacs's shortcuts are developed for Lisp Machine's keyboards of the 1980s. They have Control key near the space bar, and the Meta key further away from the space bar. So, Control key is the primary modifier key.
The fingers of each hand should sit on four keys each. The left hand pinky finger starts things off on the “A” key, the ring finger sits on the “S” key, the middle finger takes the “D” and the index the “F.”
Making caps lock another control key is a good place to start. Invest in an ergonomic keyboard. Some emacs users even go as far as to get foot pedal things for control and meta...
Configure so that the space bar works both as space and control; when the space is pressed alone, as a space, and pressed with others, as ctrl. So Space + x is treated as Ctrl + x.
You can do it with AutoHotKey in Windows, and with "at-home-modifier" in Xorg in Linux. (X, but Linux only.) You can use Karabiner (formaly known as keyremap4macbook) in Mac. (In fact, I am the author of at-home-modifier. =)
You can do more, if you have a keyboard with many keys around the space, like Japanese keyboards:Japanese keyboard http://www.owltech.co.jp/products/keyboard/KB86STD/KB86STD_B-320.jpg
My bottom row is basically EscBSSpaceEnterTab, but when used as modifiers, it's AltShiftCtrlShiftAlt. (For example, if you hold down Esc first and then Space, it's Alt+Space, but Space followed by Esc, it's Ctrl+Esc. If you press Space, Esc, and x, then it's ctrl + alt + x.) All can be pressed with the thumbs. You can order a Japanese keyboard from say amazon.com. You don't have to speak Japanese.
This is extremely handy. For firefox (sorry, not emacs) for example, focus a link, and press Ctrl + Enter; then it'll be opened in a new tab. (By also pressing Shift, it'll switch to the new tab, rather than staying on the current.)
(The above picture is the one the author of at-home-modifier uses. The maker doesn't sell this model any more, though.)
alt text http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/07sep/uf010710.gif
@ Xiong Chiamiov
Get a foot pedal! (I have a kinesis.) After you do, unmap control and capslock so you force yourself to use your feet.
(FYI, remapping capslock will help, but after enough emacsing in one day, will not be a total solution.)
For the love of God - use another text editor! If it's something that requires a foot pedal to work with it normally, then... well... frankly, I'm speechless. There is a multitude of powerful contemporary text editors out there that don't require you to memorize volumes of arcane keystrokes or buy fancy hardware.
You know, I can understand and accept a lot of things, but a foot pedal for a simple text editor is really where I draw the line.
I have always been curious about why such a large community of programmers, writers, geeks, etc. haven't yet found super simple and effective solution to this problem. Simply: 1) take a small piece of paper, make paper ball of it; 2) use scotch to stick it on to your left ctrl key (temporarily removing it from the place); 3) when writing, use side of your left palm to press that key - now this key is higher than others and you can do it easily. That way you don't need to buy uber ergo-keyboards, or remap ctrl key to capslock (which you eventually will push with your pinky anyway)...
So much discussions about such a small problem.
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