GNU Info 4.2: 12. Customizing Key Bindings and Variables

[ < ] | [ > ] |  | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] |  |  |  |  | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ]

# 12. Customizing Key Bindings and Variables

For those whose editor/pager of choice is not Emacs and who are not entirely satisfied with the –vi-keys option (see --vi-keys), GNU Info provides a way to define different key-to-command bindings and variable settings from the defaults described in this document.

On startup, GNU Info looks for a configuration file in the invoker’s HOME directory called ‘`.info`’(7). If it is present, and appears to contain Info configuration data, and was created with the current version of the `infokey` command, then Info adopts the key bindings and variable settings contained therein.

The ‘`.info`’ file contains compact, non-textual data for reasons of efficiency and because its design was lifted wholesale from the GNU Less program, which also does it that way. It must be created by compiling a textual source file using the `infokey` command.

[ < ] | [ > ] |  | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] |  |  |  |  | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ]

## 12.1 Invoking `infokey`

`infokey` compiles a source file (‘`$HOME/.infokey`’(8) by default) containing Info customizations into a binary format (‘`$HOME/.info`’ by default). GNU Info reads the binary file at startup to override the default key bindings and variable definitions. Synopsis:

    infokey [option…] [input-file]

Besides the standard ‘`--help`’ and ‘`--version`’, the only option is ‘`--output file`’. This tells `infokey` to write the binary data to file instead of ‘`$HOME/.info`’.

[ < ] | [ > ] |  | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] |  |  |  |  | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ]

## 12.2 `infokey` source format

The format of the source file read by `infokey` is most easily illustrated by example. For instance, here is a sample ‘`.infokey`’ source file suitable for aficionados of `vi` or `less`:

    #info
    j       next-line
    k       prev-line
    l       forward-char
    h       backward-char
    \kd     next-line
    \ku     prev-line
    \kr     forward-char
    \kl     backward-char
    \       scroll-forward
    \kD     scroll-forward-page-only
    b       scroll-backward
    \kU     scroll-backward-page-only
    g       beginning-of-node
    \kh     beginning-of-node
    G       end-of-node
    \ke     end-of-node
    \t      select-reference-this-line
    -       history-node
    n       next-node
    p       prev-node
    u       up-node
    t       top-node
    d       dir-node
    #var
    scroll-step=1

The source file consists of one or more sections. Each section starts with a line that identifies the type of section. Possible sections are:

`#info`

  Key bindings for Info windows. The start of this section is indicated by a line containing just `#info` by itself. If this is the first section in the source file, the `#info` line can be omitted. The rest of this section consists of lines of the form:

      string whitespace action [ whitespace [ # comment ] ] newline

  Whitespace is any sequence of one or more spaces and/or tabs. Comment is any sequence of any characters, excluding newline. string is the key sequence which invokes the action. action is the name of an Info command. The characters in string are interpreted literally or prefixed by a caret (`^`) to indicate a control character. A backslash followed by certain characters specifies input keystrokes as follows:

  `\b`

    Backspace

  `\e`

    Escape (ESC)

  `\n`

    Newline

  `\r`

    Return

  `\t`

    Tab

  `\ku`

    Up arrow

  `\kd`

    Down arrow

  `\kl`

    Left arrow

  `\kr`

    Right arrow

  `\kU`

    Page Up

  `\kD`

    Page Down

  `\kh`

    HOME

  `\ke`

    END

  `\kx`

    Delete (DEL)

  `\mx`

    Meta-x where x is any character as described above.

  Backslash followed by any other character indicates that character is to be taken literally. Characters which must be preceded by a backslash include caret, space, tab, and backslash itself.

`#echo-area`

  Key bindings for the echo area. The start of this section is indicated by a line containing just `#echo-area` by itself. The rest of this section has a syntax identical to that for the key definitions for the Info area, described above.

`#var`

  Variable initializations. The start of this section is indicated by a line containing just `#var` by itself. Following this line is a list of variable assignments, one per line. Each line consists of a variable name (See section Manipulating Variables,) followed by `=` followed by a value. There may be no white space between the variable name and the `=`, and all characters following the `=`, including white space, are included in the value.

Blank lines and lines starting with `#` are ignored, except for the special section header lines.

Key bindings defined in the ‘`.info`’ file take precedence over GNU Info’s default key bindings, whether or not ‘`--vi-keys`’ is used. A default key binding may be disabled by overriding it in the ‘`.info`’ file with the action `invalid`. In addition, all default key bindings can be disabled by adding this line anywhere in the relevant section:

    #stop

This will cause GNU Info to ignore all the default key commands for that section.

Beware: `#stop` can be dangerous. Since it disables all default key bindings, you must supply enough new key bindings to enable all necessary actions. Failure to bind any key to the `quit` command, for example, can lead to frustration.

The order in which key bindings are defined in the ‘`.info`’ file is not important, except that the command summary produced by the `get-help-window` command only displays the first key that is bound to each command.

[ << ] | [ >> ] |  |  |  |  |  | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ]

This document was generated by a tester on a sunny day using texi2html.