[haiku-development] Re: Keymaps and Command key

  • From: "John Scipione" <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:04:43 -0400

This debate goes back to the beginning of computing and is equivalent
to the debates about the one true line ending \r\n, \n, or \r. People
familiar with Windows or Linux use ctrl as the default meta key and
find cmd to be strange and people who are familiar with MacOS or BeOS
are used to cmd being the default meta key and think that people who
use ctrl are wierdos. When BeOS moved to the Intel platform they had a
decision to make, either change  the meta key to ctrl or use the
quasi-equivalent key alt. The Be engineers chose alt and the
Jean-Louis Gassee  made a stink and made the engineers change it to
ctrl. The engineers balked and created a map so that the default meta
key could be changed to ctrl but left the default as alt.

This is the situation that we enter. There is no good answer to this
problem. Unfortunately no matter what gets chosen there are those who
are going to be left out. I think the most appropriate answer is to
leave the default as alt (or cmd on Macintosh computers) and allow the
user to change the default to ctrl if they wish. I don't see how we
can any do better than the Be engineers on this point.

John Scipione

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Ari Haviv <arielbhaviv@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Axel Dörfler <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Calling it the command key is platform independent, though. Not that we
>> yet ship with a PPC version, but the Apple key should be used on Apples
>> for it (or the Amiga key on Amigas, once François gets this far with
>> his port).
>>
>> Bye,
>>   Axel.
>>
>
> oh it's great for the API but for users, it would be best if every
> platform received special treatment in the FAQ.
>
>

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