emacs in terminal meta arrow keybindings

Question

I have just switched from using Emacs.app to emacs server and emacsclient in terminal mode using iterm2 as my terminal emulator. I am having some trouble with some keybindings though. Particularly M-left arrow prints the character D, M-right arrow prints C, M-up arrow prints A, and M-down arrow prints B. M-ret seems to work though, at least for org mode. I am using the xterm defaults for keys in iterm2 and have the left and right option keys bound to +Esc. I can get the M-left functionality in org-mode with Esc-left or Esc-right This is particularly annoying in org-mode. Am I going to have to just rebind the keys in my .emacs? How would I go about doing that?

I have looked at this http://orgmode.org/manual/TTY-keys.html#TTY-keys, but I don't understand why the arrow keys should be unavailable in the terminal.

edit:

Cat meta-up: ^[[1;9A Cat meta-down: ^[[1;9B Cat meta-right: ^[[1;9C Cat meta-left: ^[[1;9D

Main problem solved, but I am now having trouble with shift-up. "<select> undefined". I tried a similar mapping with the escape sequence I got from cat: ^[[1;2A. Reluctant to create another question for a similar problem.

Type cat on the command prompt and press the meta-arrow keys. This will show you the esc-sequences that your arrow keys output. Please add these to your question. For example on my terminal M-up outputs: ^[^[[A. — Casper
ok done, this seems to comport with the output that I am getting in emacs when I try to use meta — Zach
Hmm..no, type cat, hit enter, and THEN press your arrow keys. — Casper

Casper Casper · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-03T01:58:02

Solution 1

Based on the info you provided here's one thing you can try. You tell emacs to map those escape sequences to the proper key sequences:

(add-hook 'term-setup-hook
  '(lambda ()
     (define-key function-key-map "\e[1;9A" [M-up])
     (define-key function-key-map "\e[1;9B" [M-down])
     (define-key function-key-map "\e[1;9C" [M-right])
     (define-key function-key-map "\e[1;9D" [M-left])))

Solution 2

I also found another possible solution with a little googling: redefine the iTerm bindings instead to match what emacs is looking for.

http://offbytwo.com/2012/01/15/emacs-plus-paredit-under-terminal.html

Quote from the above page:

Go back to the profile key bindings under iTerm2 and add bindings for the following:

M-up      : Esc-[1;4A
M-down    : Esc-[1;4B
M-right   : Esc-[1;4C
M-left    : Esc-[1;4D

emacs in terminal meta arrow keybindings

2 Answers