> < Rant> ... > Ctrl in Windows is (usually) the counterpart of Cmnd (⌘) on the Mac. > But nowadays Mac keyboards offer a Ctrl key also, as a concession to > ex-Windows customers (...growing) -- particularly users of M$Word,
Ian, I realize that your email was a rant, meant to express frustration and not necessarily logic or facts, but I also feel the need to set the record straight: in that the CTRL key predated both Windows and Mac OSes by quite some time. For example, running WordPerfect on a CP/M system required a fairly strong left "pinky" because most of the editing was done with the CTRL key being pressed semi-contantly. Furthermore, even while MS-DOS was the primary OS for large, clunky desktops, the CTRL key was very much in use on BSD 4.2 Unix at the very least for line editing (e.g., CTRL-C, CTRL-U, CTRL-\, CTRL-Z), and was widely available at most colleges and universities. IMHO, the Mac OS X support of the CTRL key is (was) not a concession to Windows, but rather a simple recognition the Terminal app users on Mac OS X (which is really a Unix system), as well as the users of the larger non-Mac OS world, which increasingly included other Unix variants as well as Windows systems absolutely require the CTRL key, at the very least for command line editing. > which has been re-ported to the Mac with little or no understanding of > novice needs. There's no good reason for a novice ever to buy M$Word: > the kludge is aimed at an existing audience. I'm no MS fanboy, but you should know that 2011 MSWord is actually a decent Mac app port. The 2004 MSWord was .. okay ..; the 2008 MSWord was terrible. > But on the Mac: Ctrl+J to advance a Lab is Ctrl+J in JGTK not ⌘J ...it > appears to be the sole exception to the "rule" Ctrl+ --> ⌘ . As Chris B. already replied, any of us, individually or collectively, can customize JHS as we like. However, I do believe that there is a benefit to having the "out of box" experience be as intuitive as possible. As Joey said in a later email, CTRL-J to advance a Lab seems perfectly fine to me, and somewhat mnemonic. > I'd have pointed this out before but I don't know if anyone's > listening. (How many Mac users are there on this list? Four?) > </ Rant > Count++ me as a Mac user too. Since serial number 300 of the original Mac line. But, I was also chained to a Windows XP laptop for 6 years, as part of long visit with Dante in the Inferno. -- Alan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
