Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!bbn!husc6!m2c!wpi!aej
From: aej@wpi.wpi.edu (Allan E Johannesen)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: This is Bad (isearch-forward & query-replace)
Message-ID: <3523@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 13 Aug 89 18:07:25 GMT
References: <1042@bimacs.BITNET>
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass.
Lines: 28
In-reply-to: sprecher@bimacs.BITNET's message of 13 Aug 89 13:17:51 GMT

> The most annoying thing about emacs is that when you use incremental search
> to find some string you must end it with an Escape. If you instead use an
> arrow to move around the screen it generates junk (the reason is that the
> arrow keys are implemented as a character sequence starting with an Escape,
> e.g. ESC O C. Therefore, when you press an arrow emacs uses the ESC to end
> the search and plugs in the OC charcters in the file, as if they were keyed
> in from the key-board). This is really annoying. It happens so many times
> that it's not funny.

> Is there a way to replace the ESC with some other control-character as the
> stop character for the search?

	.. many expressions of frustration are deleted above ..

I never use the arrow pad since I like to keep my fingers over the
keys, but do find that I often do want to issue meta-prefixed commands
when I've positioned via search.  So, if I had a terminal with a META
key, I'd have no problem at all.

Your problem, then is choosing the keystroke that you are least likely
to want to issue when you've reached some point in a buffer via
search; other commands will just dispatch and drop you out of search
naturally.  Personally, I like to exit search with a NUL, since I
think that emacs' feature of dropping a mark where the search started
is really where I would have put a mark anyway.  I do have to stroke
NUL NUL to drop a mark after search, but I manage to live with that.

(setq search-exit-char ?\C-\@)