Re: [gtk-list] Re: vi bindings for text widgets

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

James Gardiner <jamgard@sprintmail.com> writes:

> I'm reading this thread with some amusement: I always thought that
> key bindings are something the app programmer is supposed to be
> concerned about.  If you want to change a core widget, in this case
> GtkText, to have Vi bindings only I will refuse to use that widget
> all the time...I will have to reimplement a NEW GtkText widget.  If
> the designers of GTK+ want to allow key bindings to be
> user-definable that's much better, but guess what: Most newbies will
> *not* change them. 

There is a general principle that I like to keep in mind in such
circumstances:

 "Anything that a user might want one way or the other, should either
  be fixed to a decent default by the toolkit, or should be 
  configurable by the user for all applications"

Users can adapt to almost anything, if forced, but if key bindings
are inconsistent between applications, they must adapt every
time they switch applications.

The last thing we want to do is to have some GTK+ applications
have Text widgets with VI bindings, and some GTK+ applications
have Text widgets with emacs bindings.

Configurability is generally good, but can be intimidating
to new users. So ideally:

 - It must be possible to provide a GUI for doing configuration.
 - If configuration is at all complex, the user should be able
   to select from a list of pre-made configurations.

The binding system that we are working on, I'm afraid is
a bit on the complex side; but hopefully we can keep it
manageable for the newbie as well.

Regards,
                                        Owen