dunno, yesterday I bought a new license for Source Insight v4 (upgraded from v3, but on a different laptop), and ... I am still using it with a great satisfaction and productivity. I tend to avoid Eclipse CDT &C, I really prefer SciTools Understand (Ada), Source Insight(C), HDL companion (VHDL) on Windows, and Geany (C) + HDL Scriptum (VHDL) on Linux.
I still have to learn Emacs from scratch, since I am afraid I lost the minimal practical know/how (keys shortcut and tricks) I got 10 years ago when I used it at my university.
2018-12-04--18-50-20---2018-12-04--19-26-00 - [ app-editors/emacs ] - success - @2.29.1/7.3.0
But it's up on my Linux/HPPA workstation, thus I am ready
The good thing about emacs is that (with X or a decent terminal setting) you can largely use it just like NotePad or MS Word or whatever: type a character to insert it, backspace to delete left, arrow keys to move around, Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert/Delete all work exactly as you'd expect. The default editing modes mean that most types of text files are automatically recognised and hitting Enter moves you to the next line and also properly indents it. Hitting TAB while at the start of a line will also properly indent it.
The only weirdness you absolutely need to know is:
C-k where k is any letter means press and hold the Control key and while it is pressed also press and release the "k" key. M-k means to press the "ESC" key AND THEN the "k" key. Holding "META" on a special keyboard or more likely "ALT" on a PC one (or option on a Mac) while you press and release "k" might also work for M-k, depending on your terminal setting, but the "ESC" version will always work.
C-x C-u for Undo
C-x C-s for Save
C-x C-c to exit emacs
C-g to cancel any partially entered command
Then kinda useful :-)
C-s to start an incremental forward search, C-r for incremental backward search. Then just start typing what you what to look for. A 2nd C-s or C-r with an empty search string will search for the last thing you searched for.
C-s or C-r again to search for the next/previous of the same thing.
Type some more characters at any time to narrow the search, or C-w to add the next word in front of the cursor to the string being searched for (this is SUPER HANDY) or backspace to remove something from the search string.
At any time C-g to cancel the search and go back to where you started, or ENTER to cancel the search and stay where the cursor is now.
To move text around:
C-space on the first character you want to move (or one character after the last character you want to move) starts a selection. Then use arrow keys or PgUp/PgDn or C-s/C-r searching to move around. The selection between where you started and where you are might or might not be highlighted (depending on settings). You can use C-x C-x to move to the other end of the selection to extend or reduce it -- or just to confirm where it is if the selection is not highlighted.
Once you're happy press C-w to Cut the select or M-w to Copy it. Move to where you want it and press C-y to Paste it. (I'm using modern terms here, not emacs terms.)
Modern | Emacs |
C-x | C-w |
C-c | M-w |
C-v | C-y |
I'd say that's enough for someone to be immediately reasonably productive in emacs.