RE: Why are <next> and <prior> not called <page down> and <page up>?

[Drew Adams]

    >     > <prior> and <next> are standard names, which means that users
    >     > can find things out about them (e.g. Google).
    >
    >     Are you seriously saying that it is more simple to find
    >     something about
    >     the usage of these keys if you use "next" than "page down"?
    >
    > Well, I don't know whether it is easier to search for one or
    > the other. The point is that one is a standard name, so _if_
    > you can find doc on it then you have found doc about many things
    > (e.g. apps) involving that key.

    Can you please explain what standard you refer to?

Didn't Stefan mention X11?

    > And? Most users don't know that the `left' key is the
    > left-arrow either. Should we call it `<-'?

    Are they not mostly called "left arrow" etc? Talking about them
    together as just "up, down, left, right" makes it rather easy to
    understand I guess. At least that was the case for me.

And yet you had trouble getting from Page Down to Next?

Between the downward-pointing arrow (no label mentioning "down") and Page
Down, you guessed that the former was the same as the `down' key, and not
the latter? Good guess ;-).

    > With your argument, we would not distinguish numeric keypad
    > keys from the identically labeled keys on the main keyboard pad. The
    > keyboard labels only get you so far; they don't get you to any
    > technical info on the key definitions (standard), and they aren't
    > even sufficient to uniquely identify keys.

    Good point, but maybe stretched to far. Of course we should be
    clear enough.

To be clear, we need to give them unique names. And since they already have
unique names, from the standard, why not use those? And, then, why use those
standard names in some cases but not in others?

    > And what about all the variants of the TAB key (ISO this and
    > that, <tab> vs C-i, etc.)? In terms of key labels, they might all
    > be labeled "Tab", but Emacs users must sometimes distinguish them.

    Are you not mixing different levels here? Can't we be clear enough by
    just talking about the physical keyboard?

It's the signal sent by the physical key that's important, no? How can you
even tell if your keyboard has an `prior' key - do you just look for a Page
Up label? That might not be sufficient, depending on what that key is mapped
to.

I'm no expert on keys. It just seems to me that the proper response to this
issue is to document that the abstract keys `next' and `prior' are sometimes
labeled Page Down and Page Up on keyboards, and not to rename the abstract
keys to "Page Down" and "Page Up".