Use the hand that is not hitting the key: for C-s use your right hand for the Ctrl, and left for s. C-n the other way round. For Meta, make sure that both alt keys work, and use your thumbs: M-x right thumb and left fourth finger.
- You can't do this for C-M combinations, but they are few and far between.
- You have to have a keyboard where the keys "stick out" a little. So it does not work on laptops.
The only real issue I had was that moving around is a little slow and awkward: When going back and forth from C-f/b to C-p/n your hands are moving a lot. So I remapped C-f to C-; and C-b to C-j (and similarly for M-f & M-b) and now I can press Ctrl/Meta with my left hand and move around with my right one: bliss.
Also, if you're not using C-M-... shortcuts, you're missing out:
C-M-{s,r} isearch-{forward/backward}-regexp (indispensable)
C-M-% query-replace-regexp (indispensable)
C-M-\ indent-region (indispensable for when M-q would mess up your line breaks)
C-M-x eval-defun (for running changes to your .emacs without restarting)
C-M-q indent-pp-sexp (pretty-print and reindent sexp at point)
C-M-{f,b,u,d,a,e,k,t} forward/back/up/down/beginning/end/kill/transpose sexps
C-M-{n,p} {forward/backward}-list
C-M-v scroll-other-window
And so on. C-h k (describe-key) is your friend.
I would be the first one to buy.
(custom-set-variables '(mac-command-modifier (quote control)) '(mac-option-modifier (quote meta)) )
And now your command key is a control and your option key is a meta.
The optimal solution I've come up with is to use the two keys adjacent to the space bar (typically Alt, but actually Command on the Apple keyboard I generally use) as Control, since that's easily the most important modifier key, so it should be the easiest to access. This makes C-w, C-s, C-r, C-a, C-e, C-p, C-o, C-j, C-l and so on very, very comfortable compared to the corner positioning. As far as I know, this is the way many keyboards were before the extended IBM PC keyboard came up with its insane control key positioning. (My comfort with these keys may also be linked to my use of Macs and ubiquitous command-key shortcuts before I switched to Ubuntu. Ironically, Emacs is much more comfortable now in Ubuntu than it ever was on my Mac, because I can use the most readily accessible modifier key as God intended, rather than the third-tier relegated modifier that Control is on the Mac.)
The two keys adjacent to the new Control keys (ie. 2 away from the spacebar) then become the Alt keys. Whatever is left over (the original ctrl keys, plus Caps Lock and any silly Windows keys left over) can be bound to Super, which is useful for window manager shortcuts so that they don't clobber emacs/bash/screen bindings.
These changes are trivially easy to put in a simple .Xmodmap file to load whenever you log in, and copy to all the other computers you have to use regularly. If you're using Windows, I guess you may have to fiddle with the registry, but it would be worth it.