Emacs in XP Guest in Unity

[MHorowitz]

I would like to use emacs in xp in unity mode, but I am having two showstopper problems:

1. M-x (Cmd-x) is mapped to C-x. Emacs without M-x is a fish out of water. (ESC x works, but my fingers would require substantial retraining.) I've done the pref.mapMacShortcutKeys = "FALSE" thing to make this work properly in full-screen mode, but I would like to be able to use Unity mode as well.

2. In Unity mode, Emacs doesn't show up in the list of apps in Alt-Tab. Not being able to Alt-Tab isn't as catastrophic a failure as M-x not working, but it is quite frustrating.

Have any emacs users out there been able to make Emacs work well in this environment? Thanks!

[bgertzfield]

Hmm. If I recall correctly, Meta is supposed to be bound to Option (Alt) by default in Windows Emacs:

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Windows-Keyboard.html

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By default, the key labeled key. If you wish it to produce the Alt modifier instead, set the variable w32-alt-is-meta to a nil value.

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Perhaps you've set w32-alt-is-meta to nil? Try that and see if you can't use Option-x instead of Cmd-X.

Good luck,

Ben

[MHorowitz]

I'm sorry, I should have given the full picture. I am using a PC keyboard, with no option key. I am using the tip in http://communities.vmware.com/thread/67539 to swap Command and Option, and the tip in http://communities.vmware.com/thread/123805 to disable the mapping of Command to Control. As a result, Alt on my keyboard becomes Alt in Windows, as I expect, in Full Screen and Single Window modes. However, the tip in 123805 does not seem to take effect in Unity mode, and that's what I want. Or, some other approach which gives the same outcome.

[bgertzfield]

Gotcha. Unity doesn't currently support the kind of key remapping you're looking for. But we're always working hard to make the experience better, especially for users with non-Mac keyboards like yours.

You could just get a PC keyboard that has both an alt and a GUI (Windows) key..