Re: arrow keys vs. C-f/b/n/p

[Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 9:58 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>> When selecting a region with the two end points in parts with
>> different directions you instead split the visual region on screen.
>
> The important part is that the logical-order region is contiguous.
> The seeming ``split'' on the screen is just the effect produced by
> reordering characters for display.
>
>> However it has nothing at all to do with the visual movements when
>> using the arrow keys. That movement can (and in my opinion should)
>> still be visual.
>
> See my question in my other mail: with visual-order movement, the
> region highlight and other similar features will behave
> non-sensically.


So this is perhaps the most essential part of the argument  for not
having the arrow keys moving visually.

As I said I think your solution with one internal region split
visually on screen is the best solution. You have convinced me of
that.

I can now see the argument better for not letting the arrow keys move
visually, but I think I still disagree on that part. The reason I
disagree is the same as I stated from the beginning and that was
explained on the web page that said READING IS NOT CURSORING. Moving
the cursor depends on lower level memory in our brains.

 And of course: without letting the arrow keys move visually on the
screen there is no easy way at all to move visually on the screen.

This is actually a bit fun. Try creating with only blanks, just
spaces, tabs and newlines. Set some of the those chars to arabic and
let some be latin. Now try moving around the page using only the
visual keys. Try to go to the end of the page. (I suggest this as an
alternative to sudoku...)


As I said before: extending the region has nothing in per se with
letting the arrow keys move visually. The arrow keys is instead an
established way to move visually. And that is needed sometimes.