From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Miles Bader Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Default Emacs keybindings Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 07:01:52 -0400 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <20040503110152.GA6467@fencepost> References: <20040503092848.7F3BFBEDE9@imf.math.ku.dk> <40961FD9.4040902@math.ku.dk> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1083582505 23615 80.91.224.253 (3 May 2004 11:08:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 11:08:25 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Mon May 03 13:08:10 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BKbIw-0001si-00 for ; Mon, 03 May 2004 13:08:10 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BKbIv-0005rp-00 for ; Mon, 03 May 2004 13:08:09 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1BKbIg-0006TI-Lh for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Mon, 03 May 2004 07:07:54 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1BKbHb-00061E-6m for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 03 May 2004 07:06:47 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.30) id 1BKbGM-0005Rj-5L for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 03 May 2004 07:06:01 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1BKbCq-0003av-Gj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 03 May 2004 07:01:52 -0400 Original-Received: from miles by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.24) id 1BKbCq-0002Xp-54; Mon, 03 May 2004 07:01:52 -0400 Original-To: Lars Hansen Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <40961FD9.4040902@math.ku.dk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Blat: Foop X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:22606 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:22606 On Mon, May 03, 2004 at 12:32:57PM +0200, Lars Hansen wrote: > In my dreams Emacs comes with two ore more keybinding schemes that one > can choose in the option menu. Moreover, they are easy to modify so you > can create your own one. > > Do you agree with me that this would be good? > What are the problems in doing it? Well it's not like there's just a big list of bindings somewhere that can be switched, emacs it has many interacting components, each of which makes some assumptions about how things work -- and lots of external add-on packages that do the same. Some of the assumptions are obvious, e.g., code that does something with ctl-x-map obviously assumes that C-x is a prefix binding, but others are less so, e.g., when a package binds `C-c n' to move forward in some way, it's building on a common assumption that n/p are used for vertical forward-back. Morever, if you're attempting to emulate another existing standard, you run into the problem that different interfaces simply have different functionality and divide up the problems with different granularity. E.g., emacs has C-s, C-r, etc., but windows has C-f-and-check-a-button-in-a-dialogue-box. How on earth do you reconcile those? I think that there are probably limited spaces where you could do something easily, but that whole-sale re-theming of keybindings is ... hard. -Miles -- We live, as we dream -- alone....