At Mon, 20 Mar 2006 05:55:09 +0900, Dae San Hwang wrote:
> 
> For all you emacs/PowerBook users, how do you live with your  
> PowerBook?  I've been thinking about buying a powerbook for four  
> years now but didn't only because using emacs key bindings seems  
> extremely awkward on Apple's laptops.  On the lower left side of  
> powerbook, there is a 'fn' key which confuses my figures on the  
> correct positions of control/meta(option) keys.  On the lower right  
> side of powerbook, there is no control/meta keys due to the placement  
> of near useless arrow keys.

I have an iBook, but I actually use Linux 99.9% of the time on it.
So, on linux with X, I just remap the small "enter" key on the right
to right control. Then I have the keyboard the way I like it.  I tend
to use the left and the right control key, but only the left meta
key.  But you could as well remap the command-keys to meta too of
course.  It's just what I'm used to.

I have used MacOSX exlusively on my iBook for a couple of months.
However, I just ended up running a full screen X server with fluxbox
and using emacs on X.  You can remap keys with xmodmap in the X
server.  You can actually do that even if you don't use X fullscreen.
(thus the windows from the X server just look like native OSX windows)
It does mean that you need to use an Emacs which runs on X.  If I
remember right, you can select text and use the menu of the X-server
to copy-paste with native OSX applications.  You'll notice however
that X-applications are, what I call, second class citizens on
OSX. You can install an X version of emacs with darwinports.

Anyways, if I need to use OSX these days, I use the emacs from
http://homepage.mac.com/zenitani/emacs-e.html, which is a recent
version from cvs bundled with a number of packages.  This is more to
have a decent editor, just in case I need one.  It's not comfortable
to use for me due to the keyboard layout.  As a "native" OSX Emacs, it
is a nice package though.  I'm not sure, but I believe you can
configure it to use the Command key as Meta (which gives you left and
right Meta).

And then there's also a couple of utilities for OSX to remap keys (OSX
Tiger has a built-in feature to remap some modifier keys).
* DoubleCommand from http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net
  a kernel extension which allows you to do certain key remappings
  I used this for awhile for enter->right control mapping
  However, if I remember right, it was not very stable in the sense that it
  would sometimes lose the remappings after some time. And you have to
  be careful when doing upgrades: if the kernel has been updated, the
  kernel extension cannot be loaded anymore, and you can only boot in
  safe mode.  But this is documented on the website. (you can disable
  the extension when booted in safe mode)
  (don't take my word about the stability, this is some time ago with
   the first version of doublecommand for OSX Tiger)
* uControl
  The website is currently down, but this is another tool to remap
  keys under OSX.  Didn't try this though.

I hope this helps...

Ruben