On Wed, May 09, 2001, Oded Arbel wrote about "Re: Bidi support for Linux":
> This is sick ! come one. let's take a look at a more commonly used
> Modifier used as a 'command' - the innocent Alt key. what happens if you
> want to press Alt-F, and in the middle change your mind ? releasing the
> Alt key would cause the focus of most GUI applications to go to the menu
> bar - a very common behaviour indeed. it's so anoying isn't it ? wouldn't
> it be better to map the "goto menu" behaviour to F10, like TurboVision
> used to do ?
>
> (this whole message is a bit on the ironic side, and if you missed that,
> it's not my fault ;-)
Thanks for the irony, but it is you who missed something...
The Alt behavior you describe is tolerable only in the following case (and
please pay close attention to this): when an Alt-F takes you to the "F" menu
in the menu bar, and Alt, without F, takes to to the whole menu bar.
In that case, just pressing the "Alt" committed you to using the menu bar (in
chess this is known as "Naga'ta Nasa'ta"), and the optional "F" just takes you
to one of these menus. You can even press and release Alt, and then press and
release "F", and you'll get the same effect.
This is indeed the common bahavior in Windows, and unfortunately also in KDE
(but _not_ in Gnome, nor in Motif or Tk, and indeed this cannot be called
a common Unix behavior).
But the Alt behaviour you describe is completely unreasonable if the "Alt"
and "Alt-something" are completely unrelated. For example, in XEmacs Alt-E
jumps to the end-of-line. It has nothing to do with the menubar on top.
It would be rediculous for Alt, on its own, to pop up a menu, because I
wasn't planning to use a menu at all! In XEmacs, Alt has no connection to
the menubar whatsoever.
Similarly, because the Alt-Shift (say) of changing language and Alt-Shift-7
of turning the the next word yellow (for example) have absolutely no
connection, then it doesn't make sense, in my opinion, for both of these
bindings to exist at the same time.
This is just the way I see it...
--
Nadav Har'El | Wednesday, May 9 2001, 16 Iyyar 5761
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |(On the back of a VW Beetle) Don't honk,
http://nadav.harel.org.il |I'm peddling as fast as I can.
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