Re: [CVS] f7, f8 bound..

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

On Sun, Sep 01, 2002 at 06:58:29AM +0200, huug wrote:
> Hmm..  Maybe someone could explain why start-macro ought to have a
> different binding then end-macro?  As far as I can recall, you can't
> start a macro definition when you are recording a macro, so..

If the macro start/end-definition keys are separate from execute-macro, as
with the standard emacs bindings, then you could combine them for the reason
you say.  However, Kim's scheme puts end-definition and execute-macro on the
same key, so you can't combine that with start-definition (because then it
wouldn't know if you want to execute the macro again, or define a new macro).

In other words, you need at least two keys for macros.

> Having learnt Emacs under OS/2, <f11> means (call-last-kbd-macro) to
> me (not to mention <f2> is (switch-to-other-buffer), <f3>
> (emx-search-forward) and <f4> (emx-search-backward) ;) , so something
> like [C-f11] (start-or-end-kbd-macro), [C-u C-f11]
> (extend-last-kbd-macro) and [M-f11] (name-last-kbd-macro) would be
> more logical to me.

Those bindings are completely meaningless for the great majority of users
(just like Kim's).  This is exactly the reason why we should just avoid
making standard bindings for function keys altogether -- they're not mnemonic
at all.

-Miles
-- 
P.S.  All information contained in the above letter is false,
      for reasons of military security.