On 11/30/2012 10:48 AM, Marcus Denker wrote: > I am sure the Emacs user will be violently against it.
Actually, that's the thing: Namespacing. You could install vi keys on emacs and an emacs user would never notice without hitting the Escape key. Emacs keys, on the other hand, *do* conflict with existing Pharo bindings. > Another thing is that I personally think that one of the things that Smalltalk > did very early is to not have modes for editing… > > Are editing modes really something people want in 2012? Think of modes as a monkey that sits by your keyboard. Every time you bop him on the head (that is, you hit Escape), he obediently reaches over and holds down a special keyboard modifier for you, and continues to do so until you tell him to stop. Since bopping him on the head takes no more time than hitting the modifier key itself, hitting [Bop],[Key] is always going to be an equally concise way of entering a string of commands compared to chording [Modifier+Key]. But generally it's more concise, because you tend to do big sequences of one or the other: edit a bunch, or input a bunch. That is, in real life you do [Bop],[Key],[Key2],[Key],[Key3], which is better than [Modifier1+Key],[Modifier2+Key2],[Modifier1+Key],[Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Modifier+TurboDrive+Footpedal+☝+Key3] The critical point is that users that don't enter command mode would never be bothered by it. Users who do stumble upon it could get an additional leg up with the help text, and they don't even really have to know it's "Vi Keys", just that it's a non-chorded interface. I know it's radical, but that's how we roll. (Right?) —☈
