[haiku-development] Re: Keymaps and Command key

  • From: "John Scipione" <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:10:12 -0400

Alt is the traditional BeOS default meta key

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 6:58 PM, Ari Haviv <arielbhaviv@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 6:04 PM, John Scipione <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 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
>
> What's wrong with making control the default and if you want alt, you
> can switch to that? Because most future Haiku users will be used to
> control as default, learned how to touch type with it and will
> complain about it or told to look up a FAQ  and that's something to be
> minimized.
>
>

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