Genera 8.5 Zmacs keybindings

Scope and notation

• C-, M-, S-, and H- mean Control, Meta, Super, and Hyper; Sh- means Shift where case is significant.
• Named keys such as Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, Redo, Scroll, Find, Complete, Help, and Abort are Genera characters, not guessed PC keys.
• A range is stated once and covers every cell generated by the source form. In SET-COMTAB, the second number is a count, not an endpoint; these bare source numerals are read in Base 8. The three standard ranges (0 200), (301 310), and (312 317) therefore expand to octal 000 through 177, 301 through 610, and 312 through 630. Later specifications win where ranges or individual cells overlap.
• Commented-out entries are not bindings. Explicitly undefined local entries are listed because they shadow inheritance.
• The source configures 212 literal standard entries plus C-X, 40 standard prefix entries, 13 Zmacs direct entries plus C-X and a mouse menu, and 22 Zmacs-prefix entries. Counts are constructor entries, not runtime-active keys: ranges, inheritance, aliases, modes, patches, optional systems, and user files alter the effective environment.
• The subordinate contexts add 50 literal configured cells: 21 minibuffer, pathname, and FQUERY cells; 28 extended-search cells; and one synthetic keyboard-macro-mover event. Five are explicit undefined shadows.
• “Complete” below means the configured fixed source base within this boundary. It does not mean that every optional product, patch, site/user form, or installed-world omission has already been dumped. The 64 ZWEI translators and two ZWEI actions are enumerated below. The incorporated Dynamic Windows catalog closes its selected-source three-module denominator at 54 definitions/66 records and its ordinary-Zmacs inherited subset at 47/59; live residency, redefinitions, applicability, equal-score order, gesture remaps, and additional handlers remain runtime layers.

Standard Zwei direct table

Standard Zwei Control-X table

The prefix enables Control indirection. Word Abbrev mode additionally installs C-X U Unexpand Last Word, C-X C-A Add Mode Word Abbrev, and C-X + Add Global Word Abbrev.

Zmacs direct overlay

The main Zmacs named-command list is supplemented by Execute CP Command and Edit CP Command in a second installation step.

The right-button menu is initialized with 15 actions: Arglist; Edit Definition; List Callers; List Definitions; List Buffers; Kill Or Save Buffers; Split Screen; Compile Region; Indent Region; Change Typein Style; Change Style Region; Uppercase Region; Lowercase Region; Mouse Indent Rigidly; and Mouse Indent Under. These are menu actions, not 15 additional fixed keyboard cells.

Zmacs Control-X overlay

Unlisted prefix cells inherit the standard Control-X table.

Mini-input and recursive contexts

The old completing-reader table is enclosed in a source block comment. The active local mini-input table instead defines:

ZWEI minibuffer and pathname contexts

These are distinct from the mini-input editor table above. They are initialized by comtab.lisp.~589~; child tables inherit every cell not listed.

Extended-search contexts

The hierarchy in search.lisp.~152~ composes an input table with a C-H operator prefix, then adds string-search options.

The inspected source file is 62,618 bytes with SHA-256 4b98387119a754d74f388a5b94e435b4f492a296859ad009984b2fae80c04279.

Keyboard-macro mover

comg.lisp.~96~ creates a transient sparse table with one synthetic entry: the internal BLIPS:a/ sentinel exits Keyboard Macro Mover. It is not a physical key. Before use, the sparse table inherits the current active comtab, so a recorded mover retains the editing context in which its motion commands were entered. The source file is 17,848 bytes with SHA-256 66007d528c90407fb162df152e6dfc383282981c0162abd67ebd3c6702784043.

General mode deltas

The disabled Bolio form conflicts with its nearby command description, which still says Control-Meta digits and punctuation perform font changes. The code is the stronger assertion for this inspected revision; runtime verification is still a TODO.

Two other release-specific qualifications matter. The source defines a Scribe class and command, but maps :MSS files to Text and says that Scribe does not really exist yet. The manual describes Macsyma comments as /* ... */ with Tab running Indent Relative; the inspected source instead configures //* ... *// and Indent Nested. Both remain runtime TODOs rather than being resolved in favor of either text.

Task-mode bindings

The five task tables in this section plus the Word Abbrev Control-X mutations contain 94 constructor specifications, expanding ranges and aliases to 112 local cells: Edit Buffers 36, Dired 60, Edit Word Abbrevs 2, Mail 6, Patch Description 5, and Word Abbrev 3. Patch Comment Editor and the generic standalone editor-frame mode table each add one direct Abort overlay, bringing the broader task/special-context total to 96 specifications and 114 cells. Named commands without fixed keys are stated separately rather than counted as bindings.

Minor modes without large command maps

Effective lookup and failure tree

After Zmacs initialization, ordinary fixed-table lookup is:

raw editor character
└─ shared sparse mode table
   └─ Zmacs direct table
      └─ Standard Zwei direct table
         └─ unbound

C-X
└─ shared sparse mode C-X table
   └─ Zmacs C-X table
      └─ Standard C-X table
         └─ unbound

A NIL cell falls through to the parent. :UNDEFINED terminates lookup. A list cell is an alias, and alias resolution restarts at the original top comtab; therefore a top-level override can shadow the destination of an inherited alias. A symbol is a command. Both an exhausted lookup and :UNDEFINED clear pending input and report a not-defined key; a command symbol without a function binding produces the distinct not-implemented error.

Table installation processes specifications in order, so later cells win. It also creates lowercase-to-uppercase aliases and can append extended-command candidates. An unresolved named command is warned about and omitted. The 140 Standard plus 135 Zmacs source candidates are therefore not an installed-world count.

Help dispatcher tree

The editor's Help leaf enters another input tree:

Key documentation follows aliases and prefixes, accepts mouse characters, and has no timeout. * at a prefix enumerates all leaves. The stored prior Help request initializes to B, but B is absent from this revision's accepted dispatcher operations. Consequently fresh Help Space substitutes B, finds no dispatch function, and prints the dispatcher prompt again without an explicit beep. After a valid non-Space operation, Space repeats that persisted operation. C-X Help documents the active prefix; C-X Abort exits the prefix/no-ops and terminates keyboard-macro collection, while C-X C-G beeps and also terminates macro collection.

Pointer and Dynamic Windows presentation tree

The Dynamic Windows reimplementation specification is normatively incorporated for the complete 96 raw cells formed by 32 modifier states times three buttons, their aliases, physical-button rules and mutable gesture map. Its configured built-in handler catalog is also normative: the selected three modules define 54 handlers/66 emitted records, of which the ordinary Zmacs input context can inherit the bounded 47/59 subset. Seven Presentation Inspector translators require a compatible nested Command Processor context and are conditional child edges rather than ordinary Zmacs leaves. Zmacs then adds:

• M-Mouse-Middle Editor Describe;
• M-Mouse-Right Editor Presentation Menu;
• the fixed Standard double-left Move Region and double-middle Kill/Yank cells; and
• unmodified right button's 15-item Zmacs Editor menu listed above.

A presentation translator is eligible only when its required comtab is present in the active parent chain. A NIL gesture is menu-only. Type, tester, input context, priority and the current gesture map further gate selection. A generic compatible-comtab translator routes eligible pointer input through the same effective fixed lookup.

Clicking a different editor pane temporarily makes that pane and interval current for dispatch, except for the right-button menu path. A minibuffer can fall back to Standard so the surrounding application does not capture its mouse input. Blank-area, buffer-pointer, typed-expression and task-row presentations therefore have different trees even at identical coordinates and buttons.

Known loaded-system and mutable overlays

The inspected source distribution includes overlays that are not part of the four base table constructors:

Optional C, FORTRAN, Pascal, Joshua, Concordia, conversion, and version-control systems can add further mode, named-command or presentation layers. Users, patches and site initialization can install keys and keyboard or mouse macros. M-X traverses the effective extended-command parent chain; C-M-X can reach loaded global ZWEI commands. No base-constructor count closes those namespaces.

Source and runtime status

The binding facts come from the licensed source revisions and hashes recorded in the Zmacs article. The fresh 8.5 Xvfb session confirmed Select E, Help, Control-X 3, Control-X Control-B, and the presentation/mouse behavior described there. It did not execute every leaf, so this page distinguishes configured binding from runtime-confirmed effect.

The ignored reproducibility output contains a 43,174-byte JSON table (SHA-256 4e7454e68ee4a007e44829d6ebff73e942e627ac43cc8fad8b55b7fe9baa2b5e) and a 13,655-byte Markdown rendering (SHA-256 d711273780f3144d994b620313513c676be4626c0350d5a76c6c351c6d3df33e). They retain every literal row and source-line location from the four principal Standard/Zmacs direct and Control-X blocks; the JSON also retains the two named-command candidate arrays. They do not cover the subordinate, mode, and task tables added by the broader audit on this page. Neither artifact is tracked because it is mechanically derived from licensed source.

TODO: under the isolated licensed harness, enumerate pristine live comtab inheritance in Fundamental, Lisp, Text, every D05 recursive/input context, and representative D06 task contexts. Record every keyboard cell and sparse mouse cell, NIL/:UNDEFINED/alias/prefix/command state, recursively expand every prefix, and retain base versus patch/site/user overlays separately. Enumerate installed extended names and omissions. Then inject all 96 raw pointer characters over blank area, buffer pointer, expression, buffer row, and file-row fixtures, recording direct versus menu-only handler, translator, tester, priority, gesture-map revision, and Help/Where-Is result. Keep the complete generated dump only under ignored build/genera-computer-use/; publish counts, diffs, hashes, and original analysis.

Public cross-checks

• Symbolics, Editing and Mail, Genera 8, verified 2026-07-18.
• Symbolics, Genera 8.0 Reference Cards, used as an 8.0 comparison rather than proof of 8.5 state; verified 2026-07-18.

The principal locally inspected licensed files for the effective-tree additions are sys.sct/zwei/comtab.lisp.~589~, 100,220 bytes, SHA-256 5101f5a25a7222d6d0f8f48401522fa418576eb27d145f659513eb80660ca2b1; sys.sct/zwei/coma.lisp.~148~, 56,742 bytes, adcf794d01715aef8278dea5a333046248de57dd519b61366f8c8845ca860737; sys.sct/zwei/mini-buffer.lisp.~98~, 59,753 bytes, 202c9494c9ef54f82df12d319183bda65c451a0272a785941d218766d293fa88; sys.sct/zwei/doc.lisp.~110~, 24,234 bytes, 571f3fe9114376c9e13434e1825f4610198c227594cc3cb44eb35fc65edd0bcd; sys.sct/zwei/com-dw.lisp.~20~, 8,228 bytes, 6582f3abc73528a5528d7d5611a1c91606418187151486085931d87e0714e7a5; sys.sct/zwei/mouse.lisp.~224~, 44,507 bytes, 5eec190f9456ac6bb73cf19c2c9531190b7f39f3f97c1018227a173c20fa7364; sys.sct/zwei/macros.lisp.~276~, 71,023 bytes, c7db63e24f706e2fa102db25026a8556ebfbc950d18592c0817f7b48274ad59d; sys.sct/nsage/sage-ui.lisp.~287~, 24,922 bytes, af2f4a124bdfdaa14625c8758829cbe7edf516ba65030d61b5197ea64247773a; sys.sct/dynamic-windows/dynamic-input.lisp.~498~, 55,058 bytes, a79805ece6844ccb568ecf97e2d818a0c6095e539e51fbf74423944a32b6dd8f; sys.sct/dynamic-windows/accept-substrate.lisp.~19~, 53,779 bytes, 3cc5c405bac3dc98d321cef309d51e4f9b1ec77369c3a82019e0fbd983376a33; sys.sct/dynamic-windows/completion.lisp.~206~, 103,114 bytes, 1af865c9149920a4a47090e2aea50d2db70ebf05550e2ed9a1c1e7fe6c62b07f; and sys.sct/io/input-editor.lisp.~332~, 110,515 bytes, 856548d945403aa4f5fa3036bd2e8b936890b07b231673c9e2cab5f9e42707b3. Presentation-action semantics were also checked in sys.sct/dynamic-windows/define-handler.lisp.~12~, 25,689 bytes, SHA-256 00d7c33ea97a342ff53877b8c33106f2b1730bb0fd86963d1a086e4bac883ab0.