From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Uday S Reddy Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Key bindings proposal Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 12:16:32 +0100 Message-ID: <19545.19472.187000.199606@gargle.gargle.HOWL> References: <19534.1494.627000.357123@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <19537.40472.267000.563053@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <176EDAD3B9E54E39870FA3F84A5DDF3C@us.oracle.com> <19542.56658.583000.394397@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <19544.1015.468000.280770@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <87lj8nsndb.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <19545.14451.62000.682223@gargle.gargle.HOWL> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1280920660 3389 80.91.229.12 (4 Aug 2010 11:17:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 11:17:40 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Uday S Reddy , "Stephen J. Turnbull" , Drew Adams , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: joakim@verona.se Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Aug 04 13:17:38 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ogbya-0002RE-9y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:17:36 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:42775 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OgbyY-0004cW-TX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:17:34 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=56446 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OgbyP-0004cG-Ba for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:17:30 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OgbyK-0000ZY-0K for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:17:25 -0400 Original-Received: from sun60.bham.ac.uk ([147.188.128.137]:61883) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OgbyJ-0000ZE-SQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:17:19 -0400 Original-Received: from [147.188.128.127] (helo=bham.ac.uk) by sun60.bham.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1OgbyA-0004YW-Mp; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:17:10 +0100 Original-Received: from mx1.cs.bham.ac.uk ([147.188.192.53]) by bham.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OgbyA-0001ti-Cw; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:17:10 +0100 Original-Received: from gromit.cs.bham.ac.uk ([147.188.193.16] helo=MARUTI.cs.bham.ac.uk) by mx1.cs.bham.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.51) id 1Ogby9-00068d-Kb; Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:17:09 +0100 In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM 8.1.92a under 23.2.1 [EmacsW32 Version 1.58 2010-08-02] (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 (beta) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:128223 Archived-At: joakim@verona.se writes: > I dont understand this. I normaly have menus disabled, but I enabled > them now to see. In the File menu I have an entry like: > > "Visit new file... C-x C-f" > > Isn't that a "keyboard accelerator"? No, that is what I have been calling a "key binding". The "keyboard acceleration" (Stephen's term) is what you get by menu-bar-open. (Sorry, I didn't realize that it was bound to . I had disabled for some reason.) So, " f v" gets you to find file, and you don't need to remember C-x C-f. There, "f" is for "File" and "v" is for "Visit...". The problem I am pointing out is that using the first letter of the menu titles/entries is kind of a "poor man's keyboard acceleration". It breaks whenever there are other titles and entries beginning with the same letter. Then the user has to repeat the key stroke to get to the right entry and hit RET to confirm a selection. Lennart's menu accelerators, which are standard on Windows applications, provide designated key strokes as the access points for each menu title and entry. In the Firefox file menu, for instance, you will find: N underlined in New Window C+N T underlined in New Tab C+T The developers chose different keys as the access points for these two menu items so that there is no conflict between. If Gnu Emacs were to do the same menu, there would be conflict. I made a mistake in my previous response to Stephen, it seems. XEmacs does provide menu accelerators and it probably did it since 2001. So, the infrastructure has been there. However, the menus don't seem to have been designed all that carefully to avoid conflicts. (I got fooled because the examples that I tried all had conflicts.) When menus are designed carefully to avoid conflict, keyboard accelerators become competitive with key bindings. Then one doesn't need to remember key bindings any more. That can make a BIG difference. Cheers, Uday