RE: Emacs conventions (was: Re: Overriding emacs key bindings)

[Drew Adams]

> > What Emacs reserves (by convention) are keys
> > from modes. It says that major modes should
> > use only these keys and minor modes should
> > use only those keys. And neither major nor
> > minor should use a third set of keys, which
> > are _only_ for users (again, by convention).
> 
> Are those "Emacs conventions" - and not just
> those who deal with keys - summarized somewhere?

(elisp) `Key Binding Conventions':
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Key-Binding-Conventions.html

> Because they are obviously good to be aware of,
> so when you disregard them, it is something you
> do because you think it'll benefit you, and not
> because you are unaware of something that on
> the contrary makes sense...

Yes, they are good to be aware of.  But again, they are
for someone writing a library for more than personal use.
They are in no way restrictions on users.

There is no convention (that I know of) that restricts
key bindings for users or even suggests that users
should stay away from certain keys.

The exceptions I can think of, in terms of suggestions,
are `C-u' and `C-g'.  You might get into some difficulty
if you try to bind `C-u' (and a few users seem to want
to do that).  You can use another key in place of `C-g',
but there are some hard-coded bindings of `C-g' to its
usual behavior, AFAIK.

I would recommend that no one try to use `C-g' or `C-u'
for something else.  (But there is no restriction against
trying to do that.)