Re: Backspace direction reversion

P> - A majority of new users are coming from IBM-clone, Macintosh or P> Amiga backgrounds now, and they are all used to the 'backspace P> deletes the character before the cursor and moves backwards' P> functionality. If we wish to attract new users or at least make P> them feel more comfortable, supporting this as a default they don't P> have to think about is a win. M> Well, the problem is that, on Unix, this behavior disagrees with the M> rest of the system. It might be a good idea on NT, but not on Unix. The person who originally pushed me to change the default was Ben, who was unable to actually type the change himself. So consider the original change to make delete-key-deletes-forward to default to yes to be Ben's. I am merely strongly defending his opinion. The only other applications that use Delete to delete backwards are shells and other Emacsen. Shells are special because of historical tty legacy braindamage - the only editing possible was backward deletion, using exactly one designated backward erase key (no way to define two). Commercial software tends to be Motify, which uses the industry standard user interface for Backspace and Delete. New free software will use libraries like GTK or Qt, which I have never used, but would be surprised if they didn't also use the industry standard user interface. Martin P.S. Oh, yeah, xedit on Unix (not VM/CMS) does things Steve's way. An editor I would rather not be associated with.