How to move by whole line rather than within a wrapped line (emacs 23.1+)

Question

I think this is mostly just a question of how to word the question...

Prior to emacs 23.1, when pressing down-arrow or up-arrow the cursor would move up a whole line at a time even when that line was wrapped.

As of emacs 23.1, when pressing up or down-arrow at the head of a wrapped line, the cursor moves to the position within the same "line" which happens to fall beneath it's previous position. So instead of moving to the beginning of the next line, the cursor actually moves to character 81 (depending on the width of your buffer) within the same line.

I would like, very much, to restore the older behavior of always moving a whole line at a time.

Answer 1

You need to modify the line-move-visual variable.

You need to set its value to nil if you want the up/down line navigation happen logically (not visually).

When line-move-visual is set to nil

▮his is a very very very very very long line
and it wrapped around here.
This is the next line

After hitting C-n (moving the cursor to the next line) ..

This is a very very very very very long line
and it wrapped around here.
▮his is the next line

When line-move-visual is set to t

▮his is a very very very very very long line
and it wrapped around here.
This is the next line

After hitting C-n (moving the cursor to the next line) ..

This is a very very very very very long line
▮nd it wrapped around here.
This is the next line