On-Screen Help like Good Ol' WordStar?

Howdy. Looking for a mode that will put EMACS help on screen (not WordStar) like the way WS did. Context-aware, limited sets of high-use combos. I am not looking for a wordstar / ws-hybrid emulation mode. I want to learn emacs, and I know that this is a good way for me to learn. In my desperation I am now firing up X just to run emacs with the GUI in order to ease into it, which just goes right up my crack, because the whole point is to get away from ever using the @!(#*#& mouse again. Thanks for any help, suggestions, etc!

I've never used WordStar, but I think you're looking for `which-key`. It's also not the same, but you can get a summary of the mode-specific keybindings by pressing `C-h m`. Is this what you want? If not, can you describe what you would like done differently?

GUI Emacs is best Emacs. It doesn't require using the mouse any more than Emacs in the terminal does.

I don’t think this exists. I’d try it out if it did. Emacs contains no metadata about what key bindings are “high value” and which aren’t. The other reply, that mentions `which-key` is the closest thing.

On top of `which-key`, I would recommend some package or set of packages that make the M-x menu a bit better. I'm not 100% sure if I got the packages right but I tried on a fresh config and installing and enabling `vertico` and `marginalia` give a much nicer M-x that displays a searchable list of commands, a small description of the command and also a keybind (there might be multiple keybinds though, it only shows one keybind for each entry). I used that functionality a lot when learning and still do when learning something new. Forgot how to "kill" a line/word/whatever? Just `M-x kill` to quickly glance over all the different ways you can "kill" something and a keybind for doing so. Another thing I used in the beginning is the menubar. I think most people turn that off in their configs (I do too) but it can be useful when starting. I would recommend not clicking on the entries though, but just using it to look up keybindings 😆. For example, if you forgot how to "yank" ("paste" in most editors) text, just click on Edit and see that it's C-y and then actually use the keybinding instead of clicking so you start to develop muscle memory for the bindings. Off-topic: it's kind of confusing that the menu in Emacs says "Paste" even though AFAIK that's not Emacs terminology at all.

1+ for the menubar. I can't fathom why users turn it off. Sensitive to the current buffer's major mode, the menubar is a valuable discovery tool. Consider e.g. the menubar dropdowns for Org and Dired. This is no less true for packages. Package authors often go to the trouble to provide keybindings that will show up on the menubar, i.e. with annotations.

As others suggested, which-key is one of your best friends. It is a minimal package and tremendously useful. Should be really included by default in Emacs core. Invest a couple of minutes in learning how to use Emacs manual in info mode within Emacs. If you install Helm, you can navigate really easy through menus with completion, or just press '?' and see which are built-in shortcuts. 's' - search, and 'i' to jump to index and search there are really useful. Learn also how to use C-h m, C-h k, & Co. These will tell you about active modes, which key is bound to what, and if you need some more detail help about some function or variable. Keep the help window open in a corner of Emacs, and you can use it as a small browser to go back and forth between already seen items. If you would like to learn Emacs lisp too, I can suggest Helpful too, which will add some other useful extras, like showing the source code, symbols property lists, you can instrument for debugging, profiling etc. You can do all that without Helpful too, but Helpful makes it one keystroke away. Also with Helpful, you can have an ordinary help window, and a helpful window open at the same time. Helpful allows for several help windows opened at the same time.