Re: emacs21, backspace/delete and tty settings

[Miles Bader]

address@hidden (Kai Großjohann) writes:
> Seriously, think about it.  What you need is an abstraction layer:
> something that represents the "backwards delete" functionality.  In
> Emacs, it's the DEL character, but that's only an implementation
> detail.

I've always thought it would be useful to have a _real_ layer like this --

for instance, in the Hemlock editor (an emacs-like editor that came with
spice-lisp), you could bind functions to something like :help (instead
of directly to a key), and then somewhere else (probably in the global
keymap) it would bind whatever key you wanted to :help, so you'd get a
`double' key lookup:

      ,---- lookup in the global-map
      |
  ^H ---> :help ---> my-mode-help-function
                 |
                 `--- lookup in my-mode-local-map

This made changing `special' bindings like :help, or say, :del very easy
(by simply rebinding them in the global-map) without all the wierd
hassles you get in emacs.

Note that in the above scheme, I can easily change the global help key
without worrying about each mode but if any mode (or, say, ^Q) wants to
directly bind ^H for some special reason, it can.  Of course, you can
still have problems with conflicting local and global bindings, but
that's really no worse than things already are.

Is Kim's new `remap binding' stuff functionally equivalent to this?

[Note that it's been a _long_ time since I used Hemlock, so I may have
the details wrong; lets just say that the above represents what I think
is a neat idea inspired by Hemlock.  Maybe there's a problem with it,
though; I really haven't thought it through.]

-Miles
-- 
`Life is a boundless sea of bitterness'