Re: Keybinding styles (was: [External] : Re: Gitlab Migration)

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:

>> On Sep 4, 2021, at 6:26 AM, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>> 
>>> This would probably be a good candidate for the profiles idea.
>> 
>> FWIW, binding `kill-region` to `C-x` (and `copy-region-as-kill` to
>> `C-c`) is a hard problem in Emacs.  `cua-mode` tackles it in a pragmatic
>> way, and it's pretty good at it, but it comes with enough caveats that
>> I don't think it's a satisfactory solution.
>> 
>> If people are serious about trying to make Emacs easier for newcomers
>> accustomed to other tools, I think it might be worth developing
>> a package which starts with those C-<zxcv>` bindings and works its way
>> to create a complete new set of keybindings.
>> 
>> It's a work comparable to what is done for god-mode, Evil, etc... where
>> you'll need to have ad-hoc tweaks for many (most?all?) modes.
>> So it's a long-term maintenance challenge.
>> 
>> I keep wishing someone came up with a clever way for modes to specify
>> their key-bindings in such a way that Emacs can automatically derive from
>> it the keys to use "normally" as well as the keys to use in Evil or the
>> keys to use in god-mode, or the keys to use in this hypothetical new
>> `really-cua-mode`, ...
>> So as to finally address this long-term maintenance challenge.
>> 
>
> On Mac I never had the problem because C-x/c/v and other system shortcuts are
> bound to the Command key, not Control. So I can use Emacs bindings with Control
> and system shortcuts with Command. Can we do the same in Windows and Linux? We
> can use the win key as Control for Emacs—seems that was where the Control key
> back in the day anyway.
>

The problem I see with this approach is that many desktop environments
have already adopted using the 'wind' key for window manager shortcuts.
I've seen many 'problems' for new users where the documented key binding
does not appear to work when what is actually happening is that the
window manager is steeling the key presses, so emacs never sees them.
Therefore, I think adopting use of the win key could just increase
confusion.