Re: Key bindings proposal

[Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:39, Uday S Reddy <u.s.reddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> In that case, I would like to understand at least the key binding
>> aspects of this divergence.
>
> I don't think they are the main reason behind the fork, but I could be wrong.


Yes, it is.

There were three main things I wanted to work:
- Using the windows keys (or other key, for example shift-lock) as
Emacs META so that Alt key could be freed.
- Getting sticky keys (accessibility) to work.
- Getting menus to work. The events where handled in wrong order, but
I think it is hard to notice this unless you use the Alt keys to acces
the menus. (BTW Firefox had a similar bug.)

Later I have put some other patches there too.


And once again: I do not consider it a fork. Some people have indeed
asked me to make it a fork but I have stayed here, hoping things
should change.

In the beginning some of my libraries came only with my patched
version of Emacs. I did not think that was good so I instead created
nXhtml where nearly all my librarries now are. (The name is
unfortunate since there are quite a few things that is not about XHTML
or web development, but it is too much work to change it.) This can be
used everywhere where Emacs can be used (but requires often a newer
version).


>> How do you think Lennart could have
>> changed the key bindings for the needs of W32 users?
>
> What are the specific key bindings needs for W32 users that standard
> Emacs does not support? We have CUA mode, and it's not hard to load a
> package to rebind whatever is necessary. AFAIK, Lennart has code to
> make using the Alt key as alt easier, but I'd like to know what are
> the specific troubles that require so, and how necessary it really is.


Please excuse me, Juanma, but I find this a bit annoying. I have
explained this several times before here.

And I also find it a bit hopeful. Using the right and left windows
keys as Emacs META requires that a low level keyboard hook is used.
Just read the documentation at MS to see that. (I have given link to
it previously.)

This is actually a rather simple change. The other two changes above
are more complicated.


> Also, note that I've said "to make it appealing to Windows users", not
> "to make it a clone of every Windows application". Of course if you
> need that *everything* works in Emacs *exactly* as in Notepad, then
> use Notepad.


I would be glad if you (and others) did not try to make other people look silly.