LF Tip: Emacs keybindings to edit the url in firefox

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Guido has still a few tips he can post here but not in unlimited numbers. If you like this one or any previous tip and you have also some ideas for tips that could be useful then send them to me in an e-mail. They will be posted here under your name. A picture of you does not have to be included. It is optional.

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This is a small tip. From now on LinuxFocus will have at least one new tip every month. If you have some ideas for a new tip then send them to guido(Q)linuxfocus.org

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Introduction

All versions of Netscape, Mozilla and then Firefox supported emacs keybindings to edit the URL. All versions? No, as of Firefox-1.0 the keybindings have changed unless you use the gnome desktop and you have configured "gnome-control-center->Keyboard Sortcuts->Text editing shortcuts->Emacs".

I use xfce as a desktop and Firefox-1.0 looked like a nice and advanced web browser but became unusable for me. The shortcuts which I used all the time to edit the url did suddenly not work anymore:

crtl-a  go to beginning of the line
crtl-e  just to the end of the line
crtl-u  delete the line
crtl-d  delete to the right
crtl-k  kill the text from cursor to the end of the line
...

Those key combinations had worked for a decade of Linux web browsers and until Firefox-0.9. Now they were gone. A disaster when you are really used to them. They made maneuvering around the web fast and easy. Suddenly surfing the web was a pain. I was really furious that Microsoft seemed to have taken the Linux desktop.

The solution

Firefox respects gtk-2 keybindings as of Firefox-1.0. If you are not using gnome or kde then you can create the file .gtkrc-2.0 in your home directory and write in there:

include "/usr/share/themes/Emacs/gtk-2.0-key/gtkrc"
gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs"

Restart firefox and you have a friendly browser which respects your commands :-)