Devil-mode for Emacs
BSAG posted recently about an Emacs mode I’d never heard of called “Devil mode” and it looked like a fun thing to try, so I did.
Devil mode trades your comma key in exchange for a modifier-free editing experience in Emacs. Yes, the comma key! The key you would normally wield for punctuation in nearly every corner of text. Yes, this is twisted! It would not be called the Devil otherwise, would it?
Installation using use-package was pretty straightforward.
(use-package devil
:ensure t
:config
(global-devil-mode)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-;") 'global-devil-mode)
(devil-set-key (kbd ";")))Note that I changed the binding to use ; rather than the default comma because I found that the default configuration messed with the default Howm bindings and I’m not changing those yet. Also, all my text expansion shortcuts start with , so that would be a pain to change.
After the first hour or so, I’m not sure if this will work for me. I need to give it a few days, to be sure. It’s great having some optional, nicer bindings for certain things. For example, I don’t like any C-x chords on my HHKB keyboard (or any, really). It feels awkward, even after a decade of use. Using ; x instead feels better already.
The problem for me is getting used to it. Right now it feels like every time I need to invoke some command, I need to decide if I want to use the native bindings or Devil mode. That friction is going to be a problem for a while.
Another issue is that the which-key package doesn’t fire when using the ; binding. The BSAG post mentioned a which-key fork that fixes this, but I’d prefer to avoid forks for things as important as which-key.
I’ll let you know how I’m feeling after using Devil mode for a few more days.