Re: C-l while in menu?

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Robert J. Chassell wrote:

> On the keyboard that I am typing on now, the left hand key labeled
> `Ctrl' is to the left of the key labled `Alt', and is in a very
> awkward position.  No one who uses the key in that position as a
> control key will ever like Emacs.  That control key position is too
> painful.

FWIW, I'm using such keyboards for a long time, and I don't have any 
significant problems.

> I can imagine a default binding in which the key to the right of the
> space bar operates a menu and the key to the left of the space bar is
> meta.  On my keyboard both keys are labeled `Alt'.  

Unfortunately, the right Alt key is used as AltGr on national keyboards 
(it produces non-ASCII characters and characters which have no keys).  So 
it's not free to be usurped for the menus.

But there are 3 more keys on most modern PC keyboards--one is called left 
Windows key, the other right Windows key, the third one is "Apps".  They 
usually have pictures on them.  Do you see them?  We could use one of 
them for the menu.

>     Sometimes the CONTROL key is labeled CTRL or CTL; at other times it is
>     labeled differently:  often as CAPS LOCK.  

I think users who read the tutorial (novices, I'd expect) will be 
tremendously confused by that, since most of them don't have their keys 
remapped.  I also expect that users whose keys are remapped know about 
that remapping and should have no difficulty understanding what key are 
we talking about.

So I think we should at most add a footnote saying something about the 
possibility of remapped keys, and that the tutorial assumes that they 
aren't.  Anything else will cause more confusion than there might be now.