It annoys me so much to have learned that GTK text fields used to have an Emacs editing mode, which they've hidden behind an unaccessible configuration option, and now it's hopelessly broken in modern GTK version.

I spent a day or so hacking around with kanata[0], which is a kernel level keyboard remapping tool, that lets you define[1] keyboard mapping layers in a similar way you might with QMK firmware. When I hit the control or meta/alt/option key, it activates a layer where Emacs editing keys are emulated using the GTK equivalents. For example, C-a and C-e are mapped to home/end, etc. I preserve my macOS CMD-not-control-key muscle memory this way too.

The only problem is, this is not the behavior I want in terminals or in GNU/Emacs itself. I wrote a small python daemon (managed by a systemd user service) which wakes up whenever the active window changes. Based on this info, I send a message to the TCP server that kanata (also managed by a systemd user service) provides for remote control to switch to the appropriate layer.

[0]: https://github.com/jtroo/kanata

[1]: https://gitlab.com/spudlyo/dotfiles/-/blob/master/kanata/.co...