Re: OS X: Change default key bindings of CMD and ALT

[Anders Lindgren <andlind@gmail.com>]

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>
> Btw, can someone explain in greater details what exactly is the intended
> outcome of this change. Frankly, it's not quite clear to me (
> and as an Emacs and Mac user, such changes are of general interest to me.
>

The main problem with the default layout is that on European keyboards, you
can't type normal characters like "|" and "{" as they require the OS X
"compose" key.

I've read a number of bug reports, questions, and comments regarding this.
The motivation behind the proposed change is for Emacs to provide a decent
default behaviour so that it doesn't scare away first time users. (Power
user can easily reconfigure the keys using the `ns-xxx-modifier' variables.)

Of course, one can consider other layouts as well, including mapping the
left and right keys differently (e.g. right ALT is compose and left ALT is
meta). However 1) not all keyboards have all modifier keys and 2) many
users want the modifier keys on either side of the keyboard to perform the
same action. (Again, a power used can easily configure their keyboard to
work this way.)

    -- Anders Lindgren

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