Question

When Emacs runs under terminal, it sees different names for certain keys compared to when it’s running as a GTK app (RET instead of <return>, TAB instead of <tab>, etc.) For some custom keybindings that involve these keys, I have to define them twice, one for the “GTK” form of return or tab, once for the “terminal” form. Also, org-mode appears to override the <tab> keybinding, but not the TAB binding, leading to inconsistent behavior. Is there a way to translate the “terminal” keys to the “GTK” keys (for lack of better terminology) or somehow avoid this mess otherwise?

Answer 1

There is a system in place for situations like this. Emacs defines two keymaps key-translation-map and function-key-map that are intended to translate keys from one form to another.