I use my .emacs file to set some key bindings: (global-set-key [M-delete] 'kill-word) (global-set-key [M-backspace] 'backward-kill-word) This works as expected if I start emacs from the command line. However, if I use the emacs-daemon, then these keys are not set correctly: In fact, they are switched (which seems to be the standard behaviour if I put nothing into .emacs at all). A workaround is: Start emacs after the daemon has loaded, open .emacs and execute these two lines by hand. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: This also happens if I start the emacs daemon after initializing X (so in particular it should have nothing to do with xmodmap). I used to have this problem before with different keys, namely the buttons XF86Back and XF86Forward on my ThinkPad laptop, which used to be mapped to F19 and F20 some xorg-server-versions before.
Some things never change. Backspace and Delete are a mess since 20 years at least. :-( I can reproduce the problem as follows: 1. Create ~/.emacs containing only the two mentioned lines. 2. In a X session (using XFCE here), start Emacs with "emacs --daemon". 3. Open an Emacs frame with "emacsclient -c". 4. "C-h k" will show that the keybindings are swapped. However, I don't really see what we could do about it at the distro level, so I suggest that you report this problem upstream ("M-x report-emacs-bug" or send it to the <emacs-devel@gnu.org> mailing list). Some background reading is here (may be useful for a workaround): - Function documentation of "normal-erase-is-backspace-mode" - Emacs manual, section 59.1 "If <DEL> Fails to Delete" - <http://www.ibb.net/~anne/keyboard.html>
Resolving as UPSTREAM, for the time being. Please reopen when an upstream fix is available.
An upstream fix seems available: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2009-10/msg00511.html I tried app-editors/emacs-cvs-23.1.9999-r1, and the bug is gone.
(In reply to comment #3) > An upstream fix seems available: > http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2009-10/msg00511.html I'm a bit worried about the following comment in that patch: + ;; Not sure if input-decode-map is really right, but + ;; keyboard-translate-table (used below) only works + ;; for integer events, and key-translation-table is + ;; global (like the global-map, used earlier). So before including it in a 23.1-r1 ebuild, let's wait for some days if there's any followup on the upstream mailing list. > I tried app-editors/emacs-cvs-23.1.9999-r1, and the bug is gone. Thanks for testing it, this is appreciated.
Fixed in emacs-23.1-r1.
