[rmunn]

What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Emacs in much depth at all). Is that annoying, or is it easy enough to do that the annoyance fades into the background?

Also, is there a preconfigured config for Android that can be downloaded so that you don't have to spend too much time in the Customize mode to get started? (I'm assuming, though the article didn't go into detail, that much of the reason for spending time in Customize would be to remap some of those shortcuts to be easier to type on a virtual keyboard, e.g. fewer modifiers).

[PaulHoule]

You can connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an Android device -- somehow everybody thinks you have to buy some special $300 keyboard to attach one to a tablet but the basic keyboard from Amazon Basics does just ifne.

[rmunn]

Good point, though I don't always have my Bluetooth keyboard available so I'm still interested in hearing people's experiences with those virtual keyboard apps.

[chamomeal]

Yeah when I think of “emacs on android” I kinda imagine a touchscreen. If you’re using a real keyboard, why not just use a real computer?

[PaulHoule]

A tablet, keyboard and mouse together with a cheap plastic clip can substitute for a laptop whenever you can sit at a table. If you have a fast internet connection (hotel WiFi, phone tethering in a good location) you can connect to a home or work computer or rent whatever size cloud instance you want —- connect with RDP or an ssh client.

It turns heads when you go to a hackathon and everyone else has a samey laptop or a gaudy gaming laptop. Sleeker and lighter and you’ve got 4x the RAM and cores.

Granted the laptop hinges is good if you are in the passenger seat of a car but you can use a tablet like that as a tablet in those cases so you lose some utility but can still do a lot. This weekend I was traveling and usually used my tablet the ordinary way but I RDPes into my home computer whenever I wanted.

[medstrom]

Big difference in portability between a foldable keyboard and a full laptop.

[brendyn]

I used to have a flexible silicon keyboard I could roll up and carry but some of the keys died

[lugu]

Yes. USB also works just fine too.

[abyssin]

How much current does it draw?

[getpokedagain]

Its slow there are some keyboard like unexpected keyboard that make it easier. There's also modifier-bar-mode which displays a little bar you can click to get modifier keys.

[getpokedagain]

(menu-bar-mode 1)

(tool-bar-mode 1)

(scroll-bar-mode 1)

(modifier-bar-mode 1)

(menu-bar-set-tool-bar-position `bottom)

[getpokedagain]

Honestly these things are not the biggest worry.

You can use a pretty standard config. You are likely not going to be writing pages of code and for prose there are better things on a phone than the keyboard. You can get pretty far though github searching Emacs lisp files with android in the text.

More interesting is dealing with androids permissions. The original article mentions this and I have some notes here. https://gsilvers.github.io/me/posts/20250921-emacs-on-androi...

[HackingWizard]

I primarily use Hacker's keyboard to use Emacs in Termux. Bluetooth keyboard is also an option. But, for some text editing sessions software keyboard is sufficient.

[procaryote]

Termux allows me to remap the volume buttons to control and meta which makes it much easier

[spit2wind]

Emacs lets you remap the volume keys:

  (global-set-key (kbd "<volume-down>") 'fill-paragraph)

You can use the usual C-h k <key> to see what Emacs calls the key.

[rrix2]

hardware or software keyboard I don't think I've ever used a binding like that and if I did I would almost immediately bind them to something more reasonable.