Re: BUG in scroll-lock-mode?

[Ralf Angeli]

* Juri Linkov (2007-06-08) writes:

>> ,----[ http://mid.gmane.org/E1Dnaf1-0007am-Cg%40neutrino.iwi.uni-sb.de ]
>> | An open issue is the key binding for toggling the mode.  If the minor
>> | mode should be able to be activated in some major modes but not in
>> | others, it doesn't make much sense to bind this to the Scroll Lock key
>> | which in my understanding means to enable or disable it globally (not
>> | just for Emacs but for other applications aware of it as well).
>> `----
>
> I see that <Scroll_Lock> does nothing special on X so it's safe to bind it
> to this key.

I doubt that this is the case for any X server.  There are likely people
or distributions using the key as a modifier or something else.

As far as I understand the Scroll Lock key was originally supposed to
toggle scroll lock globally, i.e. for the desktop as a whole, just like
Caps Lock or Num Lock.  There are even keyboards which provide an LED
for indicating if scroll lock is active.

I'm not sure if it is actually possible to configure an X server like
that.  (Some research on the interweb did not really reveal useful
results.)  But if this is the case, the behavior I'd expect would be
that Emacs recognizes a globally activated scroll lock (even when not
having focus) and activates Scroll Lock mode for all buffers.

But as mentioned before I'd find this behavior less useful as the
current one.  And while I am using the Scroll Lock key for toggling
Scroll Lock mode in specific buffers, I would be very careful in making
that the default.

-- 
Ralf