14.1 infokey format

Here is an example .infokey file which specifies the key bindings that are activated by the --vi-keys option to Info (see --vi-keys).

#info
g       first-node
G       last-node
\mb     beginning-of-node
\me     end-of-node
j       next-line
k       prev-line

f       scroll-forward-page-only
^f      scroll-forward-page-only
\m\     scroll-forward-page-only
z       scroll-forward-page-only-set-window

b       scroll-backward-page-only
^b      scroll-backward-page-only
w       scroll-backward-page-only-set-window

\kd     down-line
^e      down-line
^j      down-line
^m      down-line
\ku     up-line
^y      up-line
^k      up-line

d       scroll-half-screen-down
^d      scroll-half-screen-down
u       scroll-half-screen-up
^u      scroll-half-screen-up

^xn     next-node
^xp     prev-node
^xu     up-node
'       last-node
\mt     top-node
\md     dir-node

^xg     goto-node
I       goto-invocation-node

n       search-next
N       search-previous

\mf     xref-item
^xr     xref-item

\mg     select-reference-this-line
^x^j    select-reference-this-line
^x^m    select-reference-this-line

^c      abort-key

\mh     get-info-help-node

:q      quit
ZZ      quit

#echo-area
\mh     echo-area-backward
\ml     echo-area-forward
\m0     echo-area-beg-of-line
\m$     echo-area-end-of-line
\mw     echo-area-forward-word
\mx     echo-area-delete
\mu     echo-area-abort
^v      echo-area-quoted-insert
\mX     echo-area-kill-word

The file consists of one or more sections. Each section starts with a line that identifies the type of section. The possible sections are:

#info

Key bindings for Info windows. The start of this section is indicated by a line containing just #info by itself. If this is the first section in the source file, the #info line can be omitted. The rest of this section consists of lines of the form:

string whitespace action [ whitespace [ # comment ] ] newline

Whitespace is any sequence of one or more spaces and/or tabs. Comment is any sequence of any characters, excluding newline. string is the key sequence which invokes the action. action is the name of an Info command. The characters in string are interpreted literally or prefixed by a caret (^) to indicate a control character. A backslash followed by certain characters specifies input keystrokes as follows:

\b

Backspace

\e

Escape (ESC)

\n

Newline

\r

Return

\t

Tab

\ku

Up arrow

\kd

Down arrow

\kl

Left arrow

\kr

Right arrow

\kU

Page Up

\kD

Page Down

\kh

HOME

\ke

END

\kx

Delete (DEL)

\mx

Meta-x where x is any character as described above.

Backslash followed by any other character indicates that character is to be taken literally. Characters which must be preceded by a backslash include caret, space, tab, and backslash itself.

#echo-area

Key bindings for the echo area. The start of this section is indicated by a line containing just #echo-area by itself. The rest of this section has a syntax identical to that for the key definitions for the Info area, described above.

#var

Variable initializations. The start of this section is indicated by a line containing just #var by itself. Following this line is a list of variable assignments, one per line. Each line consists of a variable name (see Manipulating Variables) followed by = followed by a value. There may be no white space between the variable name and the =, and all characters following the =, including white space, are included in the value.

Blank lines and lines starting with # are ignored, except for the special section header lines.

Key bindings defined in the .infokey file take precedence over GNU Info’s default key bindings, whether or not ‘--vi-keys’ is used. A default key binding may be disabled by overriding it in the .infokey file with the action invalid. In addition, all default key bindings can be disabled by adding this line anywhere in the relevant section:

#stop

This will cause GNU Info to ignore all the default key commands for that section.

Beware: #stop can be dangerous. Since it disables all default key bindings, you must supply enough new key bindings to enable all necessary actions. Failure to bind any key to the quit command, for example, can lead to frustration.

Note that some keys (such as C-c) have special meanings to terminals, and any bindings for these would not be effective. See Special Characters in GNU Coreutils.

The order in which key bindings are defined in the .infokey file is not important, except that the command summary produced by the get-help-window command only displays the first key that is bound to each command.