Re: Default Emacs keybindings (was: Re: Menu suggestion)

[storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm)]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> Me neither.  If we have a need for a separate significantly different
> traditional mode, we lose most of our advantage.  CUA-mode, IIRC,
> assigns special meaning to its characters only when there is an active
> selection.  

Right.

>             It is a compromise, of course.  (I think we still are not
> there with regard to consistent selection behavior where we should be,
> but that's a somewhat different problem).

Can you emphasize on what's missing...


> If what I think I understood from the CUA descriptions is correct, no
> key sequences starting with C-c or C-x can be used with an active
> selection.  For example, selecting an active region and using
> C-c C-e in AUCTeX (inserts environment around an active region, if
> there is one) would not work in CUA mode, ever.  

That's completely untrue!!

There are actually three ways to enter C-c C-e even when the region is
active:

1) Type the C-c C-e very quickly (the quicklyness is configurable).
2) Type C-c C-c quickly, followed by C-e
3) Type S-C-c C-e

1 can be used for a sequence of control characters (i.e. where you hold
  down CTRL during the whole sequence).

2 can be used generally, typing C-c C-c (or C-x C-x) very quickly is
  trivial, then you can complete the rest of the sequence at your own pace.

3 can be used generally, at any pace.

Which method to prefer is a personal choice.  I use all of them, but
in reality, I use them VERY rarely -- and I have cua mode turned on
permanently, and have been using it (in many versions) since 1997.

One reason I don't need them is that cua has integrated register and
rectangle support in the normal C-c and C-x bindings, i.e. I never
use any of the standard register or rectangle commands.

Example:  Mark a rectangle, copy it to a register, move to another
place and insert the rectangle from that register:

S-RET (start marking of rectangle)

move the cursor to extend the rectangle (notice that with cua you
can extend the rectangle beyond the end of the current line).

M-2 C-c  => copy rectangle to register 2

.. move somewhere else

M-2 C-v  => insert rectangle from register 2


It's just so simple, that I don't need the "efficient" emacs
bindings (that I never manage to remember anyway).

So for me, this is practically a non-problem.

> > Emacs is very solidly in the "easy to use, a pig to learn" camp.  If
> > you make make CUA bindings default so as to make it easier to learn
> > superficially, you'll make it harder to learn "properly". 


I don't see how C-x r r 2 is "easier to use" than M-2 C-c -- but I
agree that it is "a pig to learn" :-)

> > Even if Emacs was equipped with CUA bindings, it still wouldn't be a
> > good tool to give nitrogen hackers.
> 
> So we need more changes if we want to have Emacs at one time something
> which does not require turning people into hackers before they can
> expect to be comfortable using Emacs.

Could we have some comments from users of CUA, please!

The current thread of emacs users who have never used CUA discuss
whether it is useful or not seems like a waste of time...

> 
> That's ok.  Nobody expects that we will finish this task in a single
> step.  And blindly enabling any mode that is supposed to make things
> more mainstream-like, without assessing its drawbacks and trying to
> remove them where possible, would be insane.

Please list those drawbacks -- so I can fix them.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk