From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/23293 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: B [backspace] should act like B [delete]? Date: 14 Jun 1999 23:49:33 +0200 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035161053 1204 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 00:44:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:44:13 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from farabi.math.uh.edu (farabi.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.57]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA28787 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 17:51:08 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by farabi.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id QAB02490; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 16:50:53 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Mon, 14 Jun 1999 16:51:37 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA13783 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 16:51:22 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de (waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de [129.217.4.42]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA28777 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 17:50:15 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from petty.cs.uni-dortmund.de (petty.cs.uni-dortmund.de [129.217.20.161]) by waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de with SMTP id XAA03309 for ; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 23:49:35 +0200 (MES) Original-Received: (grossjoh@localhost) by petty.cs.uni-dortmund.de id XAA09564; Mon, 14 Jun 1999 23:49:34 +0200 Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: Karl Kleinpaste's message of "14 Jun 1999 12:23:07 -0400" Original-Lines: 92 User-Agent: Gnus/5.070086 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.86) Emacs/20.3.10 Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23293 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23293 Karl Kleinpaste writes: > Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE writes: > > Normally, and both generate DEL, and DEL (\177) > > is bound. Binding or overrides that generation > > of DEL. > > No, not so. In what way is my explanation wrong? I think saying "emacs-20.3 -q -no-site-file" then hitting C-h c and C-h c will show you that I was right. Hm. Maybe I should have said `by default' instead of `normally'... > Under X, the key labelled "<-" generates keysym Backspace and the one > labelled "Del" generates keysym Delete. XEmacs knows the difference, > annoyingly. Experiment with xev(1), and you'll see what I mean. If > Emacs hides the distinction, it has done you a disservice. I know about the keysyms. Emacs can also tell the difference. But it's just that by default there is no difference. I think that binding two keys to do the same thing by default is not a bad thing per se. Cf. C-h and F1, or TAB and C-i, or RET and C-m, or even C-x u and C-_. > Having grown up on the VT100 (aka "God's") keyboard¹, I inverted the > sense of these 2 keys on X keyboards for many, many years, because > Delete Belongs At The Upper Right Of The Main Keyboard². The number > of conflicts this causes, with applications which want to react to > keysym Backspace but are blissfully unaware of Delete, has gotten > large. So I finally gave in, tweaked my stty(1) invocation in > .bash_login, undid the key inversion, and went in search of unexpected > misbehavior with respect to Backspace and Delete. > > My hands still want desperately to type "B <-", which is why I'd like > for the B summary submap to do -delete-article in that case. Well, that's what you can do with the default setup of Gnus under Emacs. The key generates DEL, and B DEL is bound to -delete-article, and Bob's your uncle. No problem there. Btw, DEL is also bound to scroll-down (or something similar) in view-mode, and since generates DEL by default, the intuitive keybinding works fine. On Emacs. The fact that *also* does all of this is of little impact to the key. The default behavior that also generates DEL should be turned off. But why turn off the behavior, too? The key already does the right thing. > Generally speaking, Backspace and Delete both do deletion-related > things, so it seemed to be a sensible suggestion. Well, I don't really know how XEmacs handles all this. I vaguely remember that it works differently there. But I don't recall any details. I hope I have explained in sufficient detail what I think should be done in Emacs. But let me say it again: - Default Emacs behavior: and generate DEL, and all keybindings refer to DEL, neither to nor to . - Kai's suggested Emacs behavior: generates DEL, all keybindings refer to DEL. is rebound to delete-char in most modes. As you can see, my suggestion means that all existing DEL bindings continue to be used, and the key retains the `delete in a backward direction' meaning it used to have all along. (By this I mean that the key in that position used to have that meaning, though that key used to be called DEL and not .) > ¹ I have a VT102 of my very own. Really. > ² Under X, I *still* invert the placement of the `~ and ESC keys -- I > even switch their keycaps -- because Escape Belongs At The Upper > Left Of The Main Keyboard. :-) He, at work I've got a Sun type 5 kbd, and there the ESC key is to the left of the 1 -- that's what you're talking about, right? I admit that I also get along with the default PC kbd placement of ESC. PS: I tried to consistently use different spelling: and refer to keys on the kbd, and DEL and ESC and RET refer to names of ASCII characters. After all, you can type C-[ to get ESC, too. kai -- Abort this operation? [OK] [Cancel]