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Comment by bloopernova | Hacker News Reader

Very cool!

What keys do ~ and ^ represent?

    {
      "^w" = "deleteWordBackward:";
      "~f" = "moveWordForward:";
      "~b" = "moveWordBackward:";
      "~d" = "deleteWordForward:";
      "~<" = "moveToBeginningOfDocument:";
      "~>" = "moveToEndOfDocument:";
      "~w" = "copy:";
      "^y" = "yank:";
      "^t" = "transpose:";
      "^p" = "moveUp:";
      "^n" = "moveDown:";
      "^u" = "deleteToBeginningOfLine:";
    }

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If it's anything like readline/Emacs, then:

^ = Control

~ = Escape

In this file `~` is meta (option key on macs). Not sure why it's not escape like it is in emacs.

Because on a particular three/four-decade-old physical terminal[0], Alt-$KEY was transmitted as "1B [sequence for $KEY]". Eg, Alt-X was "1B 58"[1]. The escape key happened to also transmit "1B" on its own. Consequently, "Alt-$KEY" and "Esc, $KEY" were indistinguishable unless you went out of your way to engineer a race condition. This has never really been fixed, despite intermittent attempts.

0: I think VT100, but don't quote me on that

1: or possibly "1B 78", depending on how it handled shift; I don't remember exactly.

On Linux, Meta is activated on modern keyboards by both ESC and ALT.

Also on macOS and (at least within emacs) Windows.

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