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Re: lynx-dev Which key for textarea external editor? (was: textarea no w


From: Kim DeVaughn
Subject: Re: lynx-dev Which key for textarea external editor? (was: textarea no wrap ...)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 03:21:22 -0700

On Wed, Nov 10, 1999, Klaus Weide (address@hidden) said:
|
| Looking back at the ^E^E thread in the February archives, I count:
|  1 proponent (me)
|  1 "Hmm, good idea !" (you)
|  1 "sounds good enough" (Philip Webb)
|  1 "That's certainly confusing! ... against illogical commands..."

| I don't remember any others.  Were there?

Somewhere in that discussion, I objected to ^E as the TEXTAREA escape
char, since it is commonly used to move the cursor to the EOL.

Remember that what we're talking about here is NOT an "edit escape char",
but rather a general command escape char that is used in a TEXTAREA (as
well as in a TEXT field), that allows the following keystroke to be any
valid lynx command keystroke.

I often use ^V followed by the UP/DOWN HALF/TWO command keys, as well as
others (eg, INSERTFILE).

Ideally, the user should be able to specify what key they want to use as
the TEXT/TEXTAREA escape key.  Since there are problems when using the
ESC-key, I like the suggestion of using ^X as the default.


| > IMHO textarea editing key should be assigned by default, otherwise a
| > majority of users will lost the feature.
|
| You have a good point.

I was going to bring this up when the current effort moved from -dev.N, to
-pre.N, but since it's been mentioned now ...

I too believe that external TEXTAREA editor invocation should be enabled
by default.

One reason being is that is enabled in the 2.8.2rel.1 release, and I think
subsequent -rel.N releases should continue that.

The other reason being that since reverting to the behavior that existed
prior to the 2.8.2rel.1 release, there have been ~half-a-dozen inquiries
on how to reenable external TEXTAREA editing.  There have been NO inquiries
on how to achieve the pre-2.8.2rel.1 behavior with the 2.8.2rel.1 release.


| I do dislike ^Ve as the default binding, for various reasons.  (Briefly:
| ^V doesn't work for some; it's not logical; it takes away 'e'=EDIT.
| For more elaboration, see the "^Ve considered harmful" thread in the
| achive for February, also other messages with "^V" in the subject.)

Agreed.  Again though, I'd like to emphasize that the choice of an escape
key should have nothing to do with "edit".  It is the general-purpose
command-escape-key (thus the e=EDIT mnemonic value is of questionable
value).


| ^X as a prefix is a natural for anyone familiar with emacs, or a shell
| that uses emacs bindings.  That should be a lot of users.  Unfortunately
| ^X as prefix is incompatible with the historical Lynx binding as ERASE.
| (Is anyone actually using it for that purpose?  Note it duplicates ^U.
| Personally I'd like to ditch ^X=ERASE, or ditch the Lineedit Bindings
| that use it completely...  but I didn't presume to make such a radical
| change.)

^X is a good 2nd-best choice for an escape key, IMHO.  1st choice would be
the ESC-key itself, but due to timing problems, etc, probably isn't a good
default choice.


| That leaves (if ^X is unditchable) ^E^E.  There is no technical reason
| why that can't be the binding in all three current Lineedit styles.
| It just isn't, currently, but adding it is a simple change in two
| tables.

I do NOT want to loose ^E as the goto-EOL key.


| So there you have a brief rehash of my reasoning.  I come to the
| conclusion that, if there is to be one "standard" default, it ought
| to be ^E^E.  Or, alternatively, get rid of ^X=ERASE.  Or, alternatively,
| make Bash-like the default.  Discuss...

Is there some fundemental problem in allowing the user to specify the
TEXTAREA escape key of their choice, a`la a KEYMAP entry ...?

/kim

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