Re: w32-pass-lwindow-to-system (& ...rwindow)

[Lennart Borgman]

B. T. Raven wrote:
> "Lennart Borgman" <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se> wrote in message
> news:mailman.7293.1159059034.9609.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org...
>   
> > Mathias Dahl wrote:
> >     
> > > Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> > >
> > >
> > >       
> > > > Looks like the trick we play around line 3005 of w32fns.c isn't
> > > > working.  What Windows version is that?  Is there someone on this
> > > > list who can make LWIN-r combo work for them in Emacs, in any
> > > > version of Windows?
> > > >
> > > >         
> > > I just tested with emacs -q and it works as for the parent poster,
> > > i.e. Win+s gives me `search-backward-regexp' but Win+r opens up the
> > > Run dialog. The same applies for Win+e (open Explorer.exe).
> > >
> > > I use CVS Emacs from 2006-03-20 on Windows XP.
> > >
> > >       
> > This behaviour is consistent with MS documentation. To avoid that
> > windows left and right keys open for example the run dialog with Win+r
> > you have to implement a low level keyboard hook.
> >
> > That is what I have done in the patched version of Emacs that you can
> > download together with EmacsW32. I think we made a decision that this
> > part of my patches should not go into Emacs 22. Actually my own opinion
> > is however that it should.
> >
> >
> >
> >     
>
> >From the EmacsW32 page:
>
> "The design of Emacs makes it very hungry for keyboard keys. Normally on
> MS Windows Emacs grabs the Alt key for its own use as the Meta key.
> However the standard use of Alt in MS Windows is thereby impeded. If Emacs
> grabs Alt you can not switch window with Alt-Tab and you can not reach the
> menus with Alt. This is very annoying to many MS Windows users. "
>
> But this does not describe Emacs behavior on my ver. 21.3 w32
> installation. With w32-alt-is-meta set t, I can switch between msw
> processes with Alt-<tab>. 
Thanks, you are right. I should change that part of the documentation 
now. As you can see from other parts of this thread this behaviour has 
changed in MS Windows with the emergence of Windows 2000 and Wiindows 
XP. The behaviour above for Alt-Tab was how this worked in previous MS 
Windows.

However this instead now mean that you can not use Alt-Tab in Emacs on 
MS Windows. (You can however with the patched version.)

> I would prefer that w32 Emacs work as much as possible like the real one
> in case, some day, I am able to escape from all those legacy apps.
>   
No problem. You can either use the unpatched version or the patched 
version without turning on the feature that you can use the windows keys 
as meta. Both will work as you want.