Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] new SDL keyboard shortcuts to start and stop VM

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 12:40:08PM +0200, Kevin Wolf wrote:
> Am 20.10.2009 00:20, schrieb Anthony Liguori:
> > Mulyadi Santosa wrote:
> >> IMO, it would be faster if we provide keyboard shortcuts that will
> >> stop and resume VM execution right from SDL guest interface, rather
> >> than switching to console monitor first and type "s" or "c"
> >> respectively.
> >>   
> > 
> > Is this really common of an operation that you would need an escape key 
> > for it?
> > 
> > Why are you so frequently stopping and continuing a guest?
> 
> Why are you all trying to explain to him that actually he doesn't want
> to have this feature? I could have used it, too, at times (stop the
> guest to have enough time to attach gdb, for example). There are other
> ways to do it (although they are not as simple) and I used them, but
> that doesn't make this feature less useful.
> 
> Does it take anything away for you? Or do you have plans to use those
> keys otherwise? If not, why not add a feature that some might find
> useful, even though others don't?

The problem with adding lots of magic key-sequences, is that the more
you add, the more likely they are to clash with something that the 
guest OS wants to use. You may make this use case work, but break
someone else's use case. Thus, IMHO, magic key sequences should be kept
to the bare minimum neccessary to access functionality for which there
is no other viable access method.

Regards,
Daniel
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