On Wed, May 09, 2001, Shai Berger wrote about "Re: Bidi support for Linux":
>
> Ilya suggested,
>
> > Is there any chance you guys will add Left/Right-Ctrl-Shift
> > bindings for changing the editing widgets' strong BiDi directionality?
>
> Suggestions along this line have come up many times, but they are problematic.
> Many X and non-X *NIX utilities treat Ctrl-shift or Alt-shift as key modifiers,
> not keyboard events (which makes more sense IMHO), and so setting Ctrl-shift to
>...
This is an excellent point.
> Do we really want to break consistency with the *NIX world for consistency
> with Windows? Doesn't that make you feel the least bit awkward? Don't we
> ever want to pose a viable, independent alternative?
>
> The alternative, of course, is the perfectly useless Scroll Lock key, which
> even has a unused led attached to it on most keyboards.
This is a good suggestion, and I've been in fact using it for many years.
True, scroll-lock _should_ have a meaning related, somehow, to scrolling,
but I've never seen anyone actually using this in the unix world (where
Control-S and Control-Q were always the favorite flow-control characters),
so I never minded using it for other purposes.
Some time ago I was also using the Caps-Lock (which I find a totally useless
key ever since I stopped programming in Fortran ;), and worse: a key which
I constantly press by mistake) as a shift-like Hebrew modifier. But I don't
suppose this would become a popular suggestion...
But note that modern (read Microsoft-influenced) keyboards also have other
useless keys which we could "confiscate" for Hebrew use, such as the right
Alt key (which is commonly used for multiple language support), the "Windows"
key and the "Menu" key. If switching to Hebrew was "Rightalt-rightshift",
or "Windows-shift", or "Menu-F1", or something crazy like that, we'll have
no chance of it conflicting with XEmacs (which is the program that binds
nearly every conceivable key combination...).
--
Nadav Har'El | Wednesday, May 9 2001, 16 Iyyar 5761
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
http://nadav.harel.org.il |
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