Twisted wrote: > At least Windows 3.1 had most apps have the same keys for the vast > majority of commands, and those were the right keys. Emacs has all the > applications have the vast majority of their commands use the same > WRONG keys. Including whatever you'd use to rebind them. And the help > you'd use to find out what the damn keys are in the first place. ;) > You're mis-remembering this.
Apple, first with the Lisa and then with the Mackintosh, had extremely consistent menus, menu shortcuts and other key assignments. It was possible to teach almost anybody to use them in 15 minutes flat. A major reason for the consistency was the Programmer's Toolbox, a piece of ROM that contained all the stuff an application needed to handle keyboard, mouse and menus. It was there and easy to use, so of course all applications programmers used it. Windows 3 and 3.1 were the first usable Windows versions. Windows 1 and 2 were a bad jokes. Win/286 worked but had no applications. Win 3.x worked a lot better. However, it lacked any equivalent of the Programmers Toolbox and as a result the applications were anything but consistent. MS applications were self-similar, but other apps used wildly divergent ideas about menu structures, shortcuts and key assignments. Compare 3.x versions of Word with Wordperfect, or the Borland IDEs and this is obvious. MS finally kicked applications providers into more-or-less consistency but that wasn't before Win 95 appeared and they then spoilt the record by arbitrary and capricious menu changes as each version of MS Office appeared. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org | -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
