From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: kai.grossjohann@gmx.net (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kai_Gro=DFjohann?=) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Will default key bindings spell the death of Emacs? Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 07:13:48 +0200 Organization: University of Duisburg, Germany Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <84znl5ggoj.fsf@lucy.is.informatik.uni-duisburg.de> References: <3ED67422.7060305@math.ku.dk> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1054274213 9236 80.91.224.249 (30 May 2003 05:56:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 05:56:53 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Fri May 30 07:56:50 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19Lcsj-0002Oe-00 for ; Fri, 30 May 2003 07:56:49 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 19Ld7k-0008IK-00 for ; Fri, 30 May 2003 08:12:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19LcrP-0007Nd-5B for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Fri, 30 May 2003 01:55:27 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19Lcql-00077K-LX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 30 May 2003 01:54:47 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.20) id 19Lcqf-0006qG-MB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 30 May 2003 01:54:43 -0400 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.224.249]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.20) id 19LcqG-00064D-Pc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 30 May 2003 01:54:16 -0400 Original-Received: from list by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19Lco9-0002EL-00 for ; Fri, 30 May 2003 07:52:05 +0200 Mail-Followup-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Received: from news by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19Lco5-0002Ds-00 for ; Fri, 30 May 2003 07:52:01 +0200 Original-Lines: 38 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org Mail-Copies-To: never User-Agent: Gnus/5.1003 (Gnus v5.10.3) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:lldfuTYqoqSXSqotX7+5UCuLk+w= X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:14456 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:14456 Lars Hansen writes: > Emacs is said to be customizable, and key bindings is the first > thing users want to customize. But key bindings are much to hard to > change! When I started using Emacs some years ago, I spend several > weeks trying to figure out how to bind the most basic operations to > the keys I wanted. In particular I wanted ESC to do > keyboard-escape-quit and C-z, C-x, C-c, C-v to do what they do on MS > Windows. That ought not to be difficult at all, it should be a piece > of cake, especially to new users! So we do indeed have a problem! I'm not so sure it's desirable to make it that easy. I have fairly strong feelings about my window manager keybindings, for instance. So when I started to use KDE, I also started to configure its keybindings. KDE has a very intuitive interface for doing this, so I had no trouble to do the changes themselves. But it was not so easy to find a consistent set of keybindings. I also started to use Gnome a short while ago, and there I also changed the keybindings to my liking. I had similar problems, only fewer of them, because Gnome doesn't allow for configuring so many bindings. Given that Emacs has *hundreds* of keybindings, people are going to have real problems with the rebinding. For example, if you rebind ESC and C-x and C-c, then you lose a lot of other bindings that you somehow need to make accessible. These days, there is the cua package which tries hard to make C-z, C-x, C-c and C-v available. It was hard work. I like the Gnome approach where you can select some flavors of keybindings and don't have to change each one of them individually. This is also offered by Emacs, via cua and crisp-mode and wordstar-mode and so on. -- This line is not blank.