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Re: Unuseful keybindings


From: Dmitry Gutov
Subject: Re: Unuseful keybindings
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 03:32:40 +0400
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Thunderbird/17.0

On 23.12.2012 2:46, Drew Adams wrote:
Oh how I hate typing C-w in Firefox when trying to cut some
text from a form, and making the page disappear instead. Or
typing C-s and seeing the "save" dialog. I do like these
keybindings, though, so moving to cua-mode or etc is not
exactly an option.

Me too.  And I mentioned `C-w' for about the same reason as you.

I probably would have been happier if somewhere around the beginning of time, Emacs chose the same keybindings for the basic editing operations that most of the other programs use now.

I don't think I'm going to use the new binding much, but I
totally support moving toward compatibility with other
programs, at least where there are no pre-existing keybindings.

So you buy the argument that if there is no default binding for some key (ANY
key), and someone uses it conventionally outside Emacs (for ANYthing), then
Emacs should hurry to get on board and have the same binding by default.

"Conventionally" usually means that it's not "someone", but a lot of other programs. And yes, if the binding is unused, we might as well use it.

Doesn't matter what the key is, other than it has no default binding?  Doesn't
matter what the conventional binding does, assuming it is an action that can be
done in Emacs?

I would buy an argument describing how the new binding doesn't work with existing Emacs bindings - like it's too similar to another one, or too hard to press after a command you usually want to prepend it with.

This is not the case here. The <f> buttons don't clash with anything physically or semantically, and most of them are still unused.

So no need to discuss particular keys and actions any further - just bind them
all following any conventions we can find outside Emacs?

Conventions found in GUI programs, especially text editors? Yes.
At least those that don't clash with existing commands and bindings.

Following conventions is good when you're switching during the course of the workday, and it's especially good for new users.

Emacs development deserves better.

I think the resistance here can be explained by the correlation
between people who like to keep their Emacs fullscreen and
people who try to do everything in Emacs, and so don't care
about other programs (and their keybindings) as much.

You think wrong.  At least regarding this person.

My Emacs is as far from fullscreen as can be.  And I definitely do not try to do
everything in Emacs - I do almost nothing in Emacs.  And I do care very much
about other programs.  And I use other programs and their keybindings all the
time.  And I too get bit by different bindings (but `f11' is not one of them!).

What I am in favor of is for Emacs Dev to think.  And discuss.  And take
seriously the different properties of particular keys and particular actions
that keys might be bound to.  In the context of Emacs.

Discussions are good, but I don't think this particular deserves the amount of attention it got.

Do the existing bindings for <f10> and <f1-4> take the "properties" you mention seriously?



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