The "loop and a half"

[Mikhail V]

bartc wrote:
>> Your job is to port an editor that people have been using for 30 years to
>> Linux. The first thing you do is to change all the commands and
shortcuts to
>> match what is typical on Linux? So that no-one who was familiar with it
as
>> it was can actually use it?

Chris Angelico wrote:
> Is it graphical? Does it use any well-known toolkit? If so, then yeah,
> the first thing - and the automatic thing - is that it will respond to
> the host platform's keys and so on.

In case of a toolkit probably, but generally there is no such thing as
"host platform's keys" in context of a desktop application. There are keys
which the application defines.
OS is used only to run the application, (some system keys, e.g. Alt-Tab,
Ctrl-Alt-del, are of course better left alone).

The first thing a developer should provide - the keys and mouse input
should be
*customizable* by the user. It is so by most serious application I have
ever used.
(I don't know though if it is so in Bart's application)
Anything that can not - is for me 'below the bar' usability straightaway.
(With the exception when the defaults are so good that there is no much
need to redefine them, or it is a very simple app with only few input
commands)
Some frameworks do not provide such customization and that is simply bad
design.

The second thing - the default keys should be optimized for
the input efficiency and ergonomics.

Other issues, e.g. whether the keys are same as in some other app or not,
becomes irrelevant if the app fulfils the first two criteria (see above).
If not, I would consider looking for an alternative app with
customizable keys.

bartc wrote:
>> * Under Windows, if you press Shift while Caps Lock is on, you get lower
>> case letters. I've never, ever wanted to do this (probably no one else
has).
>> My own editor doesn't obey that convention: shift-A will always come out
as
>> 'A' whatever the caps lock setting.
>>
>> There are dozens more, yet you are surprised why sometimes I prefer doing
>> things my own way? There are good reasons!

Chris Angelico wrote:
>Yep. Good reasons like that you're a moron. You assume that
> since *you* have never needed to produce one lower-case letter
> in a block of upper-case, that "probably no one else has",
> and then you make it impossible to do that in your editor.
> I have wanted to produce a lower-case letter by holding Shift.

I think I've never advocated anybody on the list, but here
I really don't understand why you are attacking Bart.
In this particular Caps lock example - it's pretty clear for me that the
input of lowercase letters with Shift is historically there just for the
'symmetry'.
Obviously there is zero practical need for that in general case,
so "probably no one else need this" is quite appropriate statement.

> I have wanted to produce a lower-case letter by holding Shift.
Ok, once in my life I have wanted too, just to see what happens, which
does not mean that this feature has any value.


Mikhail