Re: C-z (Re: Two GTK related feature requests)

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Karl Eichwalder <ke@gnu.franken.de> writes:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > Basically I don't see any benefit in this change.  If you want to
> > redefine it, as a prefix key or any other way, you can already do
> > that.
> 
> Sure, but the current implementation will continue to confuse new
> users.  Pressing C-z by accident makes Emacs disappear out of the
> blue.

It is exactly what one expects on a tty.  Now iconifying and stopping
a process are different things, and on X, there is no C-z binding
expected, too.

On the other hand, on a tty one would expect C-c to end a program
(well, some of us old geezers perhaps even the DEL key), and we need
C-x C-c to do that, too.

> And there is now way to cancel this command using C-g.
> 
> At least, please add something to ask the user for confirmation:
> 
>     "Do you really want to inconify Emacs? (y/n)"

That would defeat the idea of C-z in the first place.  It turns out
that we have different keybindings on the tty and X, anyway (in the
first case, suspend-emacs, in the second case
iconify-or-deiconify-frame.

The first binding might be more or less what one expects, and people
exposed to the command line will know exactly what happened and how to
revert it, the second binding is a complete surprise and may take some
effort to undo.  In addition, it is completely arbitrary: deiconifying
a frame will force the user to revert to his window manager's
mechanisms of iconification (unless he can get keyboard focus on an
iconified window, which again will require the cooperation of the
window manager), so a method of iconifying that bypasses the window
manager methods for it only gets you half way there.

> All hackers who speak up in this thread confirmed that they are
> using redefinition for C-z - thus ther must be something flawed with
> the current key binding ;)

I am not, but I am lazy.  And I have yet to remember a single occasion
when I indeed used C-z for iconifying a frame.  I actually would
consider it _more_ likely to use C-x C-z for that purpose, now that I
think of it: it has a more Emacsy feeling to it.  In contrast, C-z
gets ingrained into your fingers as a "don't touch, ever, taboo"
combination.  Because it is too easy to type you learn to never type
it.  And thus C-z on X is more or less associated for me with "does
weird things, avoid" rather than "iconifies".

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum