How can one-handed work in Emacs be eased?

Question

My right hand is temporarily immobilized and I would like to do some minor work in Emacs, mostly in Org-mode, but also in AUCTeX. Are there ways to ease one-handed work in Emacs, such as some mode or particular work flow? For instance I noticed that for undoing it is easier to press C-x u than C-_ and that it is easier to mark text with methods involving C-Space than with combinations of S- and movement commands.

I have found https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2391805/how-can-i-remain-productive-with-one-hand-completely-immobilized but that is not exactly what I am asking for. I want to ease whatever little time spent one-handed in Emacs (not in any program) and this is also interesting for situations where there is no injury involved, such as when one hand is occupied. I do realize that I should avoid unnecessary strain.

I am using GNU Emacs 23.3.1 in Ubuntu 11.04.

Answer 1

Sticky keys can help. I use them even with two hands, because they put less strain on your hands when pressing complex key combos. The main advantage of sticky keys is that you don't have to press all the keys of complex shortcut at the same time. So when you press C-x C-c you can do it by pressing Ctrl, releasing it, then pressing X, etc.

Answer 2

I assume you'll want to use different keyboard shortcuts - you can bind key combinations to commands with xbindkeys , and its gui

As for simulating keystrokes with commands askubuntu suggests xvkbd would work, but xte sounds like a better bet.

with xte the syntax is rather simple (though there's some scriptability xte "keydown Control_L" "key u" "keyup Control_L" would press down on control (well the left side one), press down u, and release control after that. I'm having trouble working out how to get xte to simulate - (will update when i know).

I'm also having trouble getting xbindkeys-config to run xte commands properly, but once again, that'll be sorted out eventually. Apparently i need to escape commands in xbindkeys with " but that somehow interfers with the quotes needed by xte.