emacsKeyBindings

[Alex Tweedly]

Richard Gaskin wrote:

> I'm curious:  How many of you use the emacsKeyBindings property, and 
> for what sorts of apps/audiences?
>
>
I've thought about using it - mostly for apps targetted at me.

But I ran into some problems the first time I tried, and never got back 
to it to try again (so I guess it's not that important to me :-).

1.  In the IDE, there are clashes with the menu accelerators, so some 
key bindings won't work. (The docs say this - so not a surprise or even 
a complaint - just a limitation). I usually sit in the IDE, so that 
would impact my own use.

2. Can't figure out what key bindings are supposed to be supported. The 
docs say

> (For a complete list of supported key bindings, see the Emacs Key 
> Bindings Reference.)

but I can't find the "Emacs Key Binding Reference". It's listed in the 
"See also" list - but clicking on it doesn't do anything.

3. Not enough key bindings supported.

Experimentation suggested that the number of key bindings supported 
wasn't as much as I would have hoped - so I gave up on it. In 
particular, neither of the standard keys for "undo" works, and the mark 
/ cursor bindings don't appear to be supported either, so you can't 
copy/cut/paste properly.



The big problem is that if you're a long term Emacs user, when you are 
"in emacs mode", you let your fingers take over the thinking and "stuff 
just happens" without conscious thought. So when you unthinkingly use an 
unsupported key combination, you are three or four keystrokes ahead 
before your eyes (and brain) catch up with the fact that the screen is 
wrong. And then you have to unwind the commands to figure out what went 
wrong - oh, oh - one of the unsupported keys bindings is "undo" !!
So I don't use it , but I nearly did, and I'd like to some day ....
And if I did it would be only for my own use.

-- 
Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net



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