[Geany] default keybindings, revisited

John Gabriele jmg3000 at xxxxx
Fri Aug 31 14:45:21 UTC 2007


On 8/31/07, Enrico Tröger <enrico.troeger at uvena.de> wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:46:31 -0400, "John Gabriele" <jmg3000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On 8/30/07, Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > > I noticed in the Balsa email client they used Ctrl-Alt-F for one
> > > shortcut - are there any problems with using Ctrl-Alt-[a-z0-9]? I
> > > know that Ctrl-Alt-F[1-12] are taken for consoles. If there aren't
> > > any important conflicts with window managers, perhaps we should use
> > > Ctrl- Alt instead of Alt-Shift for some bindings - Alt-Shift seems
> > > more difficult to hold down because they are diagonally separated.
> >
> > It seems to me that GUI programs usually use the Shift key, with
> > either Ctrl or Alt, whereas terminal-based programs only use the Shift
> > key to reach various non-alphanumeric symbols.
> >
> > For example, Emacs most often uses pairs of keys to do complimentary
>
> Did I ever mention Geany != Emacs? ;-).

Right. For the purposes of the discussion though, I was just using it
as an example of a system that does key combos differently than Geany.

> > Using only Ctrl-foo and Ctrl-Alt-foo key combos is pretty
> > self-consistent (note, Emacs also uses Alt-foo keys, which for Geany
> > are only used for manipulating GUI elements). And it's pretty easy to
> > remember too, since you never have to consider, "was that capital or
> > lowercase?"
> >
> > Using Shift along with various Ctrl-foo and Alt-foo keys is also
> > pretty self-consistent. Though, one problem I have is, every time I
> > try to hit Shift-Ctrl-r, I keep getting Ctrl-R instead! ;)
>
> Because it is the same. I don't understand the problem. How could
> Ctrl-Shift-r and Ctrl-R be anything different?

Whoops. Failed attempt at me trying to make a joke. Also, maybe I
should start putting a hyphen in my smilies. :) err... :-)

> > If you start having Ctrl-Alt-foo keys in Geany, you begin to get a lot
> > of keys to remember ("Can't remember that key combo. Was it Ctrl-L?
> > Shift-Ctrl-L? Shift-Alt-L? Ctrl-Alt-L? How about Shift-Ctrl-Alt-L?").
>
> I don't see the difference. Does it matter whether you remember
> Ctrl-Alt-key or Ctrl-Shift-key?

I don't think so, no. If you change *all* Shift-Alt combos to Ctrl-Alt
combos, then I guess it doesn't matter.

Note, Gnome uses Ctrl-Alt-L to lock the screen, and Ctrl-Alt-D to hide
all windows.

> And as an Emacs user you should be used to remember a lot of strange
> key combos ;-).  (SCNR)

Hardy har har. :-) Actually, since Emacs doesn't use the Shift key to
change commands, the key combos seem pretty simple. The only extra
complication you get with Emacs is prefix key combos, which does a
pretty good job of sectioning off various commands.

---John


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