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Re: [Nano-devel] wishlist


From: David Lawrence Ramsey
Subject: Re: [Nano-devel] wishlist
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 19:48:22 -0400
User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (X11/20051201)

Benno Schulenberg wrote:

<snip>

> Nice.  Thanks.

No problem.

<snip>

> My idea was that most keyboards have only 12 function keys.  Plus:
> these are the twelve that are shown in the bottombar.  And: this
> little dense group of four lines would make a nice landmark in the
> otherwise about equal-sized groups of keys.

A landmark that small looks somewhat choppy, though, which is why I
didn't do it.

<snip>

> Okay, I concentrated more on the word "Move", but this is fine too.

That's good.  We're at least partially on the same page :)

> One step better would be to group the keys more to their functions:
> for example, put the five keys that delete or insert characters in one
> separate group together.  This can't be done for the first 16 keys, if
> one wants to stick to the Fn order, but I don't see any problem for
> the rest of the keys.  The resulting mix of Control and Alt
> combinations might look messy, but I think it will help to break the
> monotony and make the list clearer.  What is the reason for the order
> that they're in now?

I've looked through them again, and I found two inconsistencies in the
order they're in, both of which are now fixed in CVS: ^L is now after ^M
in the shortcut keys, and M-C is now after M-O in the toggle keys.

After the sixteen function keys, almost all of which are in that order
because either Pico follows it or nano has since the beginning, the
shortcut keys are in the following order:

^P to ^E: basic movement keys
^D to ^H: basic deletion keys
^I to ^M: basic character insertion keys
^L: basic miscellaneous key

^Space to M-D: advanced word movement keys
M-- to M->: advanced text movement keys (from lines to paragraphs to
   entire buffers)
M-V: advanced character insertion key
M-T to M-J: advanced text operation keys for functions that Pico oddly
   includes only in the Search menu
M-]: advanced miscellaneous key

> For the enable/disable series of keys, if there is no logical ordering
> to be found, it may be best to order them alphabetically (keywise):
> some order is better than none.

The toggle keys are in the following order:

M-X to M-O: toggles that increase available editor space (disabling help
   makes more space available than using the second line, so it
   goes first, and these toggles go first because available editor
   space is the most important)
M-C to M-Z: unrelated basic toggles in alphabetical order
M-I to M-Q: toggles related to spacing (these toggles go here because
   they're both basic operations as well)
M-N to M-B: toggles related to file operations (DOS/Mac format affects
   files more than backups, so it goes first)
M-S to M-H: toggles related to movement (smooth scrolling has more of an
   effect than smart home, so it goes first, and these toggles go after
   the file operation toggles because movement operations go after
   file operations in the main shortcut list)
M-Y to M-P: toggles related to cosmetic display, both of which are
   turned on by default instead of off (color syntax highlighting
   affects more than whitespace display does, so it goes first, and
   these toggles go last because they're advanced enough to only be
   configurable via the nanorc)

I hope these explanations make some sense.  Comments appreciated,
though :)





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