Re: Semi-unhelpful error message given when trying to (provide 'CUA-mode)

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    > You use arrow keys to navigate the menu and enter/return to select an item.
    >  Using the keyboard is the right thing.
    > 
    > Some X toolkits have conventions for using the keyboard to activate menus
    > and menu items.  I am not sure what they are; do you know? To what extent
    > do they work with Emacs?  Is your patch coherent with them?  Could it be?

    The patch is coherent in that it implements opening menus on F10, which is 
    standard for many toolkits.

I see that my words were unclear.  The issue I meant to raise is
specifically about the use of arrow keys and RET to select menu items.
How does that compare with what various X toolkits do?

    When a menu has been opened there may be 
    more accelerators (like S for Save), so instead of using the arrow to navigate 
    down to Save and then press RET, you can press just S or Alt+S to select Save.

That answers the question I meant to ask.

    My patch does not implement this, but it is quite easy to do in Lesstif/Motif 
    and Gtk+ (harder in Lucid).  The thing is to decide which accelerators to use 
    and how to represent them in the current lisp menu structures.

Since the motive for this would be compatibility with various
toolkits, I think it ought to try to choose the accelerators in the
same way that the toolkit in use does it.

You say this is "harder in Lucid".  Why is that?  Do the Lucid menus
support navigating within a menu with the keyboard using accelerators?
If not, then the arrow key solution you have already implemented is as
compatible as any other would be.

    This is more work, so I have not started to look in to it.  I'll
    will do that after the release though.

Ok.

    Another way to activate menus is with accelerator keys, usually Alt + the 
    first letter in the menu entry (the letter in question is underlined in the 
    menu).

I don't think we want this in Emacs, in general.  On terminals where
Alt is different from Meta, it could be useful to be able to set this
up; but that is not very important.