Re: Why all the Alt bindings by default?

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull
<stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> Tim Cross writes:
>
>  > One question I do have - what happens if you do have a keyboard that
>  > is setup to have both meta and alt (as well as super and hypa) and you
>  > want to do a real alt binding using one of these keys?
>
> Most PC-based systems do define Alt as well as Meta, but good luck
> using them if you have a desktop installed: the desktops typically
> grab a couple dozen for their own use, leaving Meta free for the
> programs.  Also, accessibility features often use Alt to access the
> menus (XEmacs does this).  So I would say "binding Alt is not
> something that Emacs devs should worry about, although users are
> welcome to do it themselves".

Yes, the very first thing I do whith a new system is remove most of
the desktop shortcuts. 80% of my work is done inside emacs and it is
inside emacs I need as many key binding options as possible, plus most
of the desktop shortucts I never use, so they are wasted.

>
> As for what happens, I believe translations happen at a lower level
> (ie, earlier in the event-processing pipeline) than binding, so to use
> those Alt-KEY combinations you would need to disable their
> translations as well as bind the keys.
>

I think the main issue here is that if I do have real alt bindings and
I want to use C-h b to verify or remind me of what bindings are
available in a mode, I now have no easy way of knowing which are real
bindings and which are 'fake' bindings i.e. key translations. While I
personally am aware of the translation entries, many other users would
not. Less experienced users are also likely to be the more frequent
users of C-h b.

For me, its really just a minor annoyance as I have to scroll past
lots of 'fake' alt bindings to see the real ones.

Tim



-- 
Tim Cross