Making iTerm to translate 'meta-key' in the same way as in other OSes

ejel_27274 0
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In bash shell with emacs key-binding, you can use key combination like M-f, M-b to move one word forward or backward on the shell prompt respectively. Usually, the meta key is mapped to Alt key on Windows and Linux. However, in iTerm, I could not find a way to map this meta key to either Option or Command key on my MacBook Pro.

It seems that in OS X, the meta key is by default mapped to ESC key. So you can use ESC-f, ESC-b on iTerm. However, ESC key is apparently not practical to use. In addition, iTerm does have option that allow you to modifier mapping for the meta key (Bookmarks > Profiles > Keyboard Profiles > Global > Option Key as...), this setting does not seem to work at all.

Therefore, if anyone know what is the solution to this problem, please let me know.

I have upgraded to the latest release, 0.9.6.1012, and this behavior is still persist.

Edit: Some clarification to my question. The key-binding I'm talking about is for bash shell, not in emacs. It just happens that, by default, bash shell also use the same key-binding as emacs.

keyboard-shortcuts macos command-line
14 Answers
  1. Open "Preferences" (⌘,) -> Profiles -> Keys -> General tab.
  2. Set Left Option key: to act as Esc+.

Works for me in Emacs, though I'm not sure if it will have any other undesirable effects.

Admin1

Go to Bookmarks > Manage Profiles. Then select Keyboard Profiles > Global and choose Option Key as Meta. This works for me in version 0.9.6.1201.

user_221460

In Menu bar Iterm2 => Preferences => Profiles choose the keys tab and select

left Option key act as +Esc

enter image description here

worked for me as well in irssi.

Admin1

For iTerm2 users this answer just partially solves the problem.

Cmd+., Profiles, Keys and choose Left option Key acts as: +Esc.

In addition to that, you have to go to Preferences (Cmd+,) ➔ Profiles ➔ Keys and in the Key Mappings find these Key Combination's: enter image description here and enter image description here. Double click on each mapping and change their Action and Esc+ to the following:

enter image description here

enter image description here

user_78379410

Go to your iTerm preferences select "profiles" then "key" and change your presets in "Natural Text Editing"

iTerm Preferences

It should work immediately after.

It works with iTerm version 3.3.12

user_130959500

It's easier in iTerm2. Go to preferences->bookmark->keyboard and select Option sends +ESC. In iTerm2 you can configure the left and right option keys separately, so remember to change both if that's what you want. Link for iTerm2: http://sites.google.com/site/iterm2home/

user_3219840

Go to Bookmarks > Manage Profiles. Then select Keyboard Profiles > Global and choose Option Key as +ESC.

Works in iTerm Build 0.9.5.0611 & Build 0.9.6.20090415

Admin1
nobody_6580

I was struggling with Meta + Left or Meta + Right. The context was for keystroke in Emacs utilized in an iTerm2 session.

I tried Esc+ and Meta for the left Option key with no luck. I tried with and with out the hex mappings. No luck.

But then I tried "Report modifiers using CSI u". (Documentation here). That allowed me to use the meta + Left and meta + right keys in Emacs, which is the behavior I have on my Linux machine.

user_20900450

The common answers of setting the options key to ESC+, didn't work for me out of the box. At some point I realized that it doesn't work only when opening the floating iterm terminal (using F12). The trick to fix it was setting the options key to ESC+ also for the "Hotkey Window" profile.

enter image description here

user_24763730

Try "export LANG=C". I'm not emacs expert, but I found this enables emacs on OS X to recognize the Option key as the Meta key in iTerm,

Admin1
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