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

[Pat Rogan <rogan lycos com>]

What if there was one big GTK_EDIT_MODE variable in the ~/.gtk file that
had exactly 3 options?

  emacs
  vi
  windoz

Then EVERYBODY'S happy.  Those who want to use something that they are
familiar with can, and those who are afraid of letting the user do
things the way they want get to limit the user's choices to "3".

I think being able to define text widget key binding flavors is a
fundamental and legitimate desire.  That's why the EDITMODE and EDITOR
environment variables exist.  That's why every real shell has both vi
and emacs modes.  This particular feature is not bloat, i would EXPECT
this feature to exist (especially if I was a vi-head living in an emacs
world (or worse, a Microsoft world) :).  If you look at the "New
Kornshell" book (for instance), you'll see that there's NOT an
overwhelming number of basic keystrokes for either flavor of editor.

What the Amulet tookit (written at Carnegie Mellon) does, is define
keystroke to function mappings in a header file.  Then the same
functions are reused for whatever keybindings you want.  No bloat. See:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/amulet/amulet3/manual/interactors.html#997073 

The Amulet source code is in the public domain, and we have been given
permission to borrow both ideas and code from it by Amulet's main
author, Dr. Brad Myers. This seems like a very good opportunity to do
so.

Most Windows apps are bloated because of... many factors that are
unrelated to features that are either useful or requested by actual
users.  (see O'Riley's "Word 97 Annoyances" for a more in depth
discussion).

I don't understand why some of you so intent on hindering the user's
productivity?  Why do you code and who are you coding for?  The user, or
yourself?

(If you're looking for bloat, I don't know what I ever did before
Netscape added the spell checker to it's compose window!  A spell check
widget might be a good topic for our next major discussion.  I'm
thinking a gtk front end to ispell, or something like that...)

~p@