From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Griepentrog Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Proposal: merge [S-tab] and [backtab] Date: Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:22:31 -0700 Message-ID: <4C564807.7020903@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1280767823 10640 80.91.229.12 (2 Aug 2010 16:50:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 16:50:23 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 02 18:50:22 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 1OfyDT-0007db-1s for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:50:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:44407 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OfyDR-0002hU-NO for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:50:17 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=58033 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OfmXq-0005XX-KX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:22:35 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OfmXp-0000zA-Lt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:22:34 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-pv0-f169.google.com ([74.125.83.169]:34291) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OfmXp-0000z4-Hf for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:22:33 -0400 Original-Received: by pvc30 with SMTP id 30so2788968pvc.0 for ; Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:22:32 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=h6ALRCpGT5m/NqldflpwP72VqPp1j7B2bn5wq1tBd+M=; b=rkxlgIxYUVNrw03vIwlNKrMbbiVoq4j7vq5dtyAyB2Bg6saml6ouZPU5uEx9TkbKsg ctNLVgfwjRhsOwbVCRVYije0BNQP5dipa5MUO75m1rxuagfbaAhG5Yy7SfyOEi5iuAoa brK4+v4LZIAU17n4r+IyuyPz2YF0Yz20T2p+I= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=nPFA4C7ruK+n4UmhbFaC2VkeFpPr/ZF/rq4EooBvMW5F4rOVCdzf1X2F/us05Q9UAd 81EqRO/41HwEyOFoA/xqX6Vo45lzw7rhonmwrxKUepEH+yjNaYI5cxU34E8Xqr4hLVOG MLYXoXxkkUWj8qU7uPFGbXoqU94w5qtnLBUoE= Original-Received: by 10.114.103.7 with SMTP id a7mr6701087wac.184.1280722952547; Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:22:32 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from walnut.local (c-76-102-20-45.hsd1.ca.comcast.net [76.102.20.45]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id c10sm10571660wam.13.2010.08.01.21.22.31 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:22:32 -0700 (PDT) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.7) Gecko/20100713 Thunderbird/3.1.1 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Mailman-Approved-At: Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:50:03 -0400 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:128135 Archived-At: Just a tidbit of computer evolution: the [backtab] key does not exist on modern keyboards. Of course, Emacs uses this key in several modes (grep, compile, erc, ...). So, in the place of [backtab] within Emacs, [S-tab] is the conventional binding for a poor man's backtab. For convenience, some terminals (X, Windows, and recently: NextStep) translate the keypress of [S-tab] into [backtab] and nobody is the wizer. Unless... you want to bind [S-tab] in a mode. Then you find out [S-tab] is NOT the key sequence you thought it was. The binding worked on X and Windows, but not at the terminal (or another platform which did not link [S-tab] to [backtab]). What happened?! Well, so you bind [backtab] as well. My proposal is to universally translate [S-tab] and [S-iso-tab] into [backtab] across all terminals. At least then you can bind [backtab] and know it will work across platforms and terminals. Included in this proposal is removing obsolete bindings to [S-tab] and [S-iso-tab] for modes within Emacs and updating the documentation. I include [S-iso-tab] since it is yet another abused synonym for [backtab]. Note: this change will NOT ADD or REMOVE any bindings. It is to unify the keypresses of [S-tab], [S-iso-tab] to [backtab] where they already exist. I don't pretend to know the history of the keybindings or specific terminals, but a uniform view of [S-tab] vs [backtab] makes sense to me. Thoughts?