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I am trying to override Control-Meta-Down Arrow and Control-Meta-Up Arrow in emacs.

I've tried all sorts of combinations of: (global-set-key [C-M-down] 'function) and: "\C-\M-<down>" etc... but it always says: ESC undefined. This means it is only taking into account the M-<down>. Why is it ignoring the Control?? I've been working on this for 3 hours and emacs online documentation with regards to key bindings is surprisingly absolutely terrible.

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  • when does Emacs say ESC undefined? To see what bindings have been made, type C-h b, and then you'll see what (if anything) 'function was bound to. (alternatively C-h w function) Commented May 21, 2012 at 19:31
  • If I hit: C-h k then hit Ctrl-Meta-down, it says ESC undefined. Meaning, it never even got the ctrl key press. Why is that? Commented May 21, 2012 at 19:34
  • Does it work when you start Emacs without your init-file? Commented May 21, 2012 at 20:08
  • Can I ask you who got you started using Emacs in a Terminal? This question and the one about TERM export are the most asked questions here about Emacs. Commented May 22, 2012 at 4:47

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When using Emacs in the terminal (which you mentioned in a comment), you are limited to the key sequences that the terminal is capable of. Unfortunately, C-down is not one of them...

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So what sequences is the terminal not capable of? And so what would you recommend to bind scroll-other-window and scroll-other-window-down to in a logical manner, where scroll-other-window scrolls down and scroll-other-window-down scrolls up?
Well, C-c LETTER is reserved for your own bindings, so maybe C-c p and C-c n?
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Some versions of Emacs on Mac OS X have had problems with the qualifier keys. Try to update it to a newer version.

I tested this on an Emacs built from the source archive, and it works as intended. (In this case, it simply says that function is not defined, which is what expected.)

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Which distribution? I just tested this on the one from emacsformacosx.com and it works correctly.
I am using the terminal based one. That Emacs (I tested it too) works fine. Why doesn't it work with the terminal based Emacs?

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