Re: C-l while in menu?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> writes:

    Simon> Yes, but menu accelerators doesn't seem to work by default
    Simon> in XEmacs [undex unix].

They don't; you have to explicitly enable them (on a one-shot basis)
with `accelerate-menu' or (permanently) by setting the
`menu-accelerator-enabled' variable.  The option was part of the
design; defaulting to off was equal parts backwards compatibility
stubbornness on my part, and my horror at having M-f turned into File
Menu when I first tried the accelerators.

    Simon> IMHO the F should only be underlined if it is possible to
    Simon> press Alt-F to open the File menu.

A detail.  Important, but relatively easy to describe and fix.

    Simon> Using M-S-f to open the File menu seems like a bad idea, as
    Simon> it is a step =away= from modern UI behaviour.

That depends.  In my case, it's a step =toward= it, as I want M-f to
mean forward-word.  I will only use the accelerators if the
traditional bindings are still available.  If I have both Alt and Meta
keys, I'll use A-f to get the file menu, and M-f to move.  If I don't,
I'll arrange that the key engraved Alt generates the Meta keysym, and
use M-S-f for the accelerator.

I'd be willing to bet that "newbies" would learn this _very_ fast, as
they'll find it much easier to remember "M-S- accelerates the menu"
compared to the output of M-x wallpaper.  If you want to get oldtimers
to accept accelerators at all, they had better not interfere with
muscle memory.  So this seems like a reasonable compromise.

I'm not clear whether I actually _like_ M-S-f as a normal way to do
it.  But I think it's less of a defect than you seem to think.  There
are much uglier things in the 21.4 implementation IMHO (such as the
way Alt o t ESC ESC ESC generates an ESC keystroke, and the way ESC h
gives me the Help Menu and not `mark-paragraph').

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
              Don't ask how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.