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Meow: Yet another modal editing on Emacs

113 points by Bogdanp

by lvass

3 subcomments

It's one of the best designed packages I've seen. Except 'repeat' that was horribly broken last time I checked but can be fixed by using the repeat-fu package. Manages to cleanly implement the kakoune model in an incredibly flexible manner and without interfering with anything else.
I still have my meow config, but currently disabled. The kakoune model is definitely what you're looking for if your desire is to edit text with the fewest keystrokes, it's far better than vim. I think the vim model is better, though, because motion-as-selection is fundamentally exhaustive, and in vim, by the time you realize what you're going to do, you go into operator pending mode (e.g. pressing d) and the next keystroke also feels obvious, while in meow you may have to reset the selection by doing some movement.
What works best for me is no modal editing at all. Definitely requires the most keystrokes, but that's not a limiting factor for me. It just feels nice never having to think about modes or constantly pressing Esc, and instead navigating with a mixture of default Emacs keybinds and great, joyous to use packages like Avy, smartparens, tempel and combobulate. Meow's KEYPAD is also not really helpful, it does save some keystrokes but doesn't make anything easier to remember or reach for. For the commands that it is worse, it is much worse.

by jasperry

0 subcomment

I gave Meow a fair shake a year or so ago. I'd say it's currently the most robust mode for implementing Kakoune or Helix-like bindings in Emacs, but you can customize it to be like vim or anything else. It's more lightweight than evil-mode. At present, however, I'm not using modal editing in emacs; just lots of Meta-key shortcuts for movement and a hydra with a key-chord for common commands.

by smlavine

2 subcomments

The god-mode minor mode that is linked is also mind-boggling: https://github.com/emacsorphanage/god-mode

by ksynwa

0 subcomment

I really wish it had a first-class visual mode. Meow's way of handling selections went over my head and I had to drop it since I rely heavily on visual mode for visual feedback. Other than that the package is very neatly designed and didn't create too heavy an abstraction over the usual emacs experience.

by skulk

0 subcomment

The reason I like evil-mode is the huge amount of work put into adding vim-style bindings for other nodes (like magit, etc). Would I lose that by switching to something like meow?

by smlavine

0 subcomment

It's really cool to see this and other recent experimentation towards breaking past the local maximum of modal editing we've been in since Vi. Really neat stuff!

by globular-toast

5 subcomments

Is there someone who's gone from Emacs style to modal editing who could sell the idea to me? I just don't see the point, personally.
When I was looking for my text editor 15 year ago I did try vim first because it was the hipster choice back then. I really tried and told myself it would be like learning a new language or something: it sucks today but one day I'd be talking the language of text editing.
It didn't seem to be happening so I tried Emacs instead. As soon as I disabled the awful GUI stuff my love affair started. It all just made complete sense. Key "chords" just work for my brain. I must know hundreds of them without really trying. And Emacs's version of a "mode", as in major modes and minor modes, is just perfect (I think other editors like VS Code have copied this aspect).
I've tried evil mode since but I still just don't see the point. Other than Emacs pinky (which is mostly solved by the caps/ctrl key switch) is there any other advantage at all?

by eviks

0 subcomment

> Meow aims to blend modal editing into Emacs with minimal interference with its original key-bindings
Given how bad the defaults are, that's not a good aim