Re: Proposal: new default bindings for winner and windmove

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2024 10:05:13 +0000
> Cc: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>,
>  Daniel Colascione <dancol@dancol.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
> 
> Hello, Stefan and Stefan.
> 
> On Fri, Jun 21, 2024 at 15:39:09 -0500, Stefan Kangas wrote:
> > Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
> 
> > > A few years ago, Daniel suggested:
> > >> Likewise, for windmove, we can bind C-x 4 {left, right, up, down} and DWIM
> > >> for people automatically, enabled by default.
> > >
> > > AFAICT we still don't actually provide any keybindings for the windmove
> > > commands by default.  Did I miss a controversy about that, or did it
> > > just fall through the cracks?
> 
> > FWIW, I don't remember any controversy either, so my guess is that it
> > just fell through the cracks.
> 
> I would be against using C-x 4 <arrow keys> or C-x 5 <arrow-keys> for
> windmove (or anything else) by default.  Key sequences with arrow keys
> are too few, and too precious, to use for anything not critically
> important.

I'm not sure we all are on the same page regarding what is being
proposed.  For that matter, I didn't see a detailed proposal, so I'm
not surprised people are arguing against something that probably isn't
on the table.

For starters, windmove is not a preloaded package (neither is winner,
but since this seems to be only about winmove, I guess winer needs a
separate discussion).  To have it available, you need to load it,
either explicitly or by invoking one of the commands (which are
autoloaded).  I presume that the proposal for giving windmove commands
key bindings means that the bindings will become in effect once the
package is loaded, because nothing else makes much sense to me.  Is
that indeed what's being proposed?  Does anyone have a problem with an
optional package which, when loaded, binds some keys to its commands?
That's a far cry from a naïve interpretation of "giving default key
bindings to windmove".  because a user who loads a package expresses
his/her interest in using that package, and so binding some keys for
that makes sense, and doesn't affect users who are not interested in
the package.

Now, windmove already has the windmove-default-keybindings command,
which installs key bindings for its commands.  They are not "C-x 4
<ARROW>" bindings, though.  If the proposal is to perform key bindings
when the package is loaded, and use "C-x 4 <ARROW>" for that, then we
need to make sure windmove-default-keybindings will reset the bindings
back to their current defaults, because otherwise users of windmove
will not be happy.

Any objections to the above detailed proposal?  Assuming there are no
significant objections, would someone like to take upon themselves to
submit a patch along those lines?