Re: Backspace direction reversion
>>>> "SL" == SL Baur <steve(a)xemacs.org>
writes:
SL> Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof(a)math.ethz.ch> writes in xemacs-beta(a)xemacs.org:
> Please, Guys. Let's get NOT get emotional about this please!
(It must
> be the spring air. There is even an endiannes flamewar on linux-kernel).
SL> Well, Spring was starting to come here in Japan and then the past few
SL> days it has returned to Winter. Maybe that's it.
I don't remember ever being as emotional about a technical issue.
Perhaps because I really feel we are screwing the users. Those guys
are thinking, "What are these guys thinking?". I sympathize with them.
SL> right of the keyboard and getting help sucks. I think we should be
SL> conservative about it and leave the setting as it is in 21.0. It is a
SL> lot safer, IMO.
> Personally i think we have been conservative about it way too
long. We
> really should have done it for 21.0 because we had a good reason then:
> The NT port (which is a good justification) and a major version
> number increase.
SL> That's a good reason. I reject and continue to reject pleas to
SL> emotion. Make me *want* to change it by convincing me logically and
SL> we'll do it for 21.0, even now, days before release.
> The argument _against_ doing it in 21.0 (and maybe 20.4) is that
the
> tty-erase-char stuff has not been tried in the field yet.
SL> That's not a good excuse, it's not an excuse I would consider
SL> acceptable, and it's not an excuse I'm citing.
> Anyway, Steve, How come it is broken for you? This is the code
that is
> used
> (defsubst delete-forward-p ()
> (and delete-key-deletes-forward
> (or (not (eq (device-type) 'x))
> (x-keysym-on-keyboard-sans-modifiers-p 'backspace))))
SL> There are keyboards that can fake this code out. I consider it every
SL> bit as broken for the Big Key on the upper right side of the keyboard
SL> to not delete backwards as to enter the help subsystem.
The Happy Hacking keyboard
http://www.xemacs.org/~mrb/nhk/happy-hacking.jpg has a Fn key that
when pressed, changes the keyboard layout. X11 is completely unaware
that the user has pressed Fn+Delete to get backspace. XEmacs is
unable to determine that there is a Fn `modifier' key.
> So apparently XEmacs thinks that on your keyboard Backspace can
be
> generated without a modifier and thus that it is safe to change the
> keyboard. This is not a question of defaults. This looks like a real bug.
SL> Perhaps. Someone fix it if you want this patch in.
I don't think this can be done. We could try to guess that the user
has a Happy Hacking keyboard from their xmodmap signature, but I don't
think this is a good idea. By the way, I implemented
x-keysym-on-keyboard-p and x-keysym-on-keyboard-sans-modifiers-p so
that we could have a reasonable chance of detecting Backspace keys
that need to be shifted.
Steve, it's not like this keyboard doesn't have a backspace key.
Fn+backspace is perfectly typable. And it's not like you actually use
this keyboard very often. And it's not like this keyboard has lots of
market share. And it's not like you can't simply change your own .emacs.
> P.S. Let's all remember that set-mark-command is also bound
to a key
> which can be close to impossible to generate. Can you say 'telnet.exe'?
SL> `telnet.exe'? We removed VMS support well over a year ago. What do
SL> you mean?
SL> P.S.
SL> set-mark-command was bound to Control Shift 2 on the AT&T Unix PC keyboard
SL> and I survived. Having *anything* wrong with delete-backward-char is
SL> unacceptable.
The current default *is* that something wrong.
Martin