Re: Concern about new binding.

[Joost Kremers <joostkremers@fastmail.fm>]

On Fri, Feb 05 2021, Gregory Heytings wrote:
> It seems to me that the root problem of this thread, and similar ones in 
> the past months, is the lack of a convention for external packages in 
> `(elisp) Key Binding Conventions'.  There is a convention for users, there 
> are conventions for major and minor modes, but there is no convention for 
> external packages such as Magit, Drew's packages, and so forth. 
> Consequently, the only solution for such packages is to use the currently 
> empty slots, 

Actually, there is another option, which AFAIK has been the unspoken "rule" for
such cases: leave the binding up to the user.

What we're talking about here are basically applications that run inside Emacs.
They have an entry point, i.e., a function that the user can run to start the
application (some may have multiple entry points, but that doesn't change the
argument), which users can bind as they see fit. That's what the `C-c <letter>`
keys are for. I mean, even applications that come with Emacs (Gnus, Rmail, Ediff
come to mind), don't have standard key bindings.

Perhaps a better way to update the documented key binding conventions is to add
the rule that packages should generally not create global key bindings.
Reserving keys for external packages won't solve the fundamental problem here:
two external packages may still decide to use the same key bindings, causing
similar conflicts for users that install both.


-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments