[haiku-development] Re: Keymaps and Command key
- From: "David McPaul" <dlmcpaul@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:12:43 +1000
On 2008-08-20, Dustin Howett <alaricx@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 1:53 AM, Ari Haviv <arielbhaviv@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > We should have something like this in the FAQ:
> > Why don't keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-C for copy, work?
> > Answer: Haiku uses the Alt key (such as alt-c to copy) instead of
> > control by default in order to be consistent with the terminal, which
> > uses the control key for other functions.
> > Here is a list of common Haiku keyboard shortcuts: Alt+C Copy, etc
> > Here is a list of terminal control sequences:
> > http://dshowgirl.highend3d.com/2008/01/09/linux-terminal-control-sequences/
This is certainly a good question for a FAQ. But part of the answer
needs to include the fact that it is configurable so if you want to
use CTRL then change it.
> But then, one would have to ask-
> "Why was the decision to change the global shortcut modifier based on
> the behaviour of a single program?"
Because Ctrl-C is not an arbitrary choice.
Ctrl-C has a special meaning (SIGINT) that was determined long before
xerox decided that under some circumstances (text editing) it can mean
something else and then microsoft decided to expand those
circumstances to allow file manipulation. Maybe under windows you
cannot send a SIGINT to a program but under Haiku you can.
So now we have a problem how to use Ctrl-C to send SIGINT and how to
use Ctrl-C to copy text and copy files. The BeOS answer was to
seperate out the functions and use ALT-C for copy etc. Haiku follows
the BeOS guidelines.
We are always going to be constrained by the question "But windows
does it this way". I am afraid that it is up to us to have clear
guidelines as to why we don't follow what windows does.
End users might also have to understand that sometimes doing the right
thing is different to how everyone else does it.
Lots of stuff that can go in a FAQ I guess.
--
Cheers
David
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