Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Bannister]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 07:47:04PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:
 In these difficult times, if I could afford a typing teacher, they'd
 better keep their mouth shut.
 
 :-)
 
 And in any case, if they were not able to teach me computer keyboarding,
 as opposed to the ancient art of ruling the typewriter, I would fire
 them on the spot.

I think the typing teacher would have a difficult time trying to teach
you if they had to keep their mouth shut, or do you understand sign
language? :)

-- 
Chris.
==
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other
possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
   -- Stephen F Roberts


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 11:02:03AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
...
 
 Yes, C-h in Emacs should perform some kind of backspace operation
 (back-deletion or at least movement), since C-h in ASCII is the
 Backspace character.
 
 I believe that like C-S/C-Q and friends this belongs in the terminal
 driver's psyche - it's at a lower level and already lived there long
 before the applications came along.

Yeah, I was going to mention Stallman's rant about C-s and its
invalidity due to exactly what you menion--that C-s/C-q were used
in modems and serial port drivers long before Emacs existed.


 I use  and  to move between tabs in the Elinks browser.. both
 mnemonic and useable. Ctr+PageUp/PageDn in seamonkey is somewhat
 mnemonic, but does not quite deliver in terms of useability.
 
 And please don't get me started on discoverability..

You mean like when Windows, for some idiotic reason, _stopped_ putting
underlines under keyboard accelerator-key letters in menu items?



Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 05:41:20PM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:

  Yes, C-h in Emacs should perform some kind of backspace operation
  (back-deletion or at least movement), since C-h in ASCII is the
  Backspace character.
  
  I believe that like C-S/C-Q and friends this belongs in the terminal
  driver's psyche - it's at a lower level and already lived there long
  before the applications came along.
 
 Yeah, I was going to mention Stallman's rant about C-s and its
 invalidity due to exactly what you menion--that C-s/C-q were used
 in modems and serial port drivers long before Emacs existed.

The wikipedia article about ASCII provides some roundabout info as to
why things are the way they are re: the tty driver.

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens
remains an excellent place to acquire in-depth understanding of terminal
I/O.

Xah Lee, one rather famous internet troll, wrote some stuff about
emacs in general  its keyboard mappings. Not emacs savvy enough myself
to decide, but if you haven't read his rant about emacs you could check
his web site.

  I use  and  to move between tabs in the Elinks browser.. both
  mnemonic and useable. Ctr+PageUp/PageDn in seamonkey is somewhat
  mnemonic, but does not quite deliver in terms of useability.
  
  And please don't get me started on discoverability..

 You mean like when Windows, for some idiotic reason, _stopped_ putting
 underlines under keyboard accelerator-key letters in menu items?

Hmm.. not sure it's idiotic.. perhaps not from the saleman's viewpoint

:-)

Fact of life.. Letters with underlines on menu items or toolbars look
less cool than letters without underlines. Perhaps I shouldn't be this
critical.. to be honest, M$ do such a much better job of making GUIs
keyboard-navigable than their *nix counterparts that it's embarrassing.

When I wrote discoverability I was really referring to a marketing
concept that postulates that most everything in a modern interface
should be made such a cool trip for the user that he becomes capable
of finding out for himself how he's supposed to achieve whatever they,
the designers of the modern interface have imagined that he or she,
our naive user should be doing. Since our naive user intially has no
clue what he should be doing in the first place, discovering how he or
she could do it, and therefore where the designer is concerned,
designing a GUI that makes such tasks discoverable for said naive user..
should be fun... As I understand it, not only is the modern gui
designed to do the original job well, irrelevant of what the prospective
job might be, but it does feature one additional priceless piece of true
wizardry, namely that it effectively teaches the user how to actually do
it.. without explicitly resorting to teaching the naive user.. since
teaching would actually not be cool.. etc.  

I looked for real-life examples.. and I.. discovered.. that notepad and
pico/nano are pretty much the only editors that come close to the ideal
of discoverability.. 

Unfortunately.. respectable tools such as vim and emacs fall short of
our expectations.

:-(

Mind you, discoverablity is not just marketspeak.. with an interface
that's discoverable, users can save themselves the indignity of
reading manuals, and conversely feel empowered by the experience..

Satisfaction across the board.. since decent doc is expensive.. also
saves software manufacturers millions.

I don't know how relevant this is to the software interface, but a
barebones example of discoverability that clashes with the final
useability of the product is those pesky arrow keys that were added at
some point to the traditional typewriter keyboard.. easy to discover..
highly mnemonic in case you are forgetful.. but unless I'm blind drunk
or in such an alien context that I cannot function anyway, I don't like
them very much. 

If keyboarding skills mean anything, check out Benedetti Michelangeli's
rendition of Debussy's La Cathedrale Engloutie.. was on youtube last
time I looked.. I doubt he learned his stuff on an enhanced piano
keyboard with discoverable keys.. but what do I know..

Never fancied myself as a champion typist, reason I thought I should
become more intimate with the keyboard was that I found it odd that I
could write with a pen effortlessly, an obsolete skill if there ever was
one.. and suffered from a crippling case of keyboarding incompetence.

:-)

Thanks,

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 11:49:34AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
 On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:04:44PM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
 [..]

 ... homo sapiens ... opposable thumb. 
...
 The indirect relationship is that thumbs are both very flexible and
 underused in keyboarding.

Yes.

...
 ... you seemed to find Emacs' modifier keys inconvenient.
 
 That I don't know.. what I _do_ know is that it took me months to
 assimilate a minimal subset of vim keyboard actions to the point where
 anything I want to do is done before I have a chance to start thinking,
 now how do I do this.. and when I look at emacs tutorials, it looks like
 I would need quite some time to unlearn my vim habits and acquire emacs
 ones ...

Yes, to be proficient will probably take a while.

  that might prove to be unsuitable from an ergonomic standpoint and

Well, I don't know how the ergnomics would work for you, but for
me long-term use of Emacs (with the control in its pre-PC traditional
position, of course) hasn't caused any hand RSI problems.


 would therefore require that I start remapping - which is absolute hell...

Yep, although in composing e-mail messages in Mozilla Seamonkey's
mail composition editor, which doesn't use Emacs or vi bindings (oh
for Netscape 4.7, which did use Emacs/Bash bindings!), I don't get
confused often.  Of course, that's not equivalent to your potential
vi-vs.-Emacs case (since Seamonkey has many fewer editing key
bindings).



 How hard is it to put your left pinky on the key immediately to the
 left of the A key and then put your left ring finger on the A key?
 That leaves those fingers right next to each other.
 
 Yes, that is quite feasible, although hitting the A key with the ring
 finger is also known as blasphemy.

Well, if you use Emacs, you just don't let a typing teacher see you.
Or you tell him or her that you're in some typing mode other than
standarding typing mode.


 Or was your comment not implying that it was hard but just reacting
 to its difference from proper (per typing class) fingering?
 
 Well, that's basically the issue. Since typing tutorials say nothing of
 the Control and Alt keys, 

Do they address computer typing (with modifier keys other that the
shift keys)?  (My last typing classes were 30 years ago, so of source
they only dealt with plain typewriters.)

  ... I felt that I had to be creative and that's
 where I realized that curling each thumb to reach them was not only
 much easier than doing it via my pinkies (even with the left Control key
 remapped to CapsLock) but also provided a mechanism that was consistent
 across both hands.
 
 My curling ability only extends about two keys-widths to the left of
 right of the keyboard comfortably, so I had to remap the Winkeys to
 Control.

Well, you definitely want to do at least that.  Trying to use Emacs
with the Control keys in the default PC-style position is essentially
impossible.



 Hmm.  I think I have Emacs control-key mode vs. regular mode.

 I notice that I shift my left hand left a bit (to put my pinky on
 the left-of-A control key) and widen my fingers (some fingers stay
 in their normal columns (e.g., index finger for F key)).
 
 Pretty much what I'm trying to avoid. 
 
 Note that I don't typically shift to control-key mode for just a
 single command (one control-key sequence).
 
 Not sure what you mean.

When I shift my left hand left for control-key mode, I'm not
usually doing that for just a single control key; that is, the
it's not one pair of hand shifts for a single control key, it's
usually a pair of hand shifts amortized over several control
key hits (those in the next paragraph).


 
 More typically, I shift my hand left for move-around and cut/copy-
 and-paste mode (e.g, C-a, C-e, C-p, C-n, C-w, C-y, etc.) and
 then shift back to normal touch-typing position for typing words
 mode.
 
 Is this in bash..? vim..? emacs..?

Emacs.  Those are some common movement and cutting/pasting key
combinations.  (Bash is somewhat similar.)


...

 Ctrl-h in vim that back deletes one character is a good example of
 this.  Unless you absolutely need to have something engraved on the key
 that describes its behavior, I clearly find it preferable to the
 Backspace key, which is a lot harder to reach.

Yes, C-h in Emacs should perform some kind of backspace operation
(back-deletion or at least movement), since C-h in ASCII is the
Backspace character.

I still Stallman went a little bit too mnemonic in some of the
control-key choices (e.g., using C-h (the Backspace character) for
help instead of using it for backspacing/deleting).


...

 Well, actually, C-z isn't that frequent.  
 
 That's no excuse.. in any case, background a process..? precious.

What do you mean?  Emacs copied C-z's assignment from the shell, so
any key-choice problem isn't Emacs' fault.


 Thanks for your interest.

Roger.



Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Daniel Burrows wrote:
 ...: one of my colleagues bought a keyboard with pedals a
 few years ago.  As I understand it, the pedals are used for shift
 states and control characters -- I haven't used it myself, but it seems
 like an interesting idea, and it continues the pianistic angle here. :-)

Are you trying to sustain the discussion. :-)


Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 09:38:36AM EDT, Daniel Burrows wrote:
 On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:08:59PM -0400, Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com 
 was heard to say:

I didn't say anything..

  There appear to be keyboards where some keys are physically located
  in a spot that's easily accessible with the thumbs. 

  Maybe I should buy one?

   On that note: one of my colleagues bought a keyboard with pedals a
   few years ago.  As I understand it, the pedals are used for shift
   states and control characters -- I haven't used it myself, but it
   seems like an interesting idea, and it continues the pianistic angle
   here. :-)

Pity you didn't film him in action. 

I'd love to see that.


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 11:02:03AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
  On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 11:49:34AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
  Chris Jones wrote:

  [..]
 
  ... homo sapiens ... opposable thumb. 
 ...
  The indirect relationship is that thumbs are both very flexible and
  underused in keyboarding.
 
 Yes.

But thanks for reminding me that we share this feature with our less
troubled/toublesome cousins.

  ... you seemed to find Emacs' modifier keys inconvenient.

  That I don't know.. what I _do_ know is that it took me months to
  assimilate a minimal subset of vim keyboard actions to the point
  where anything I want to do is done before I have a chance to start
  thinking, now how do I do this.. and when I look at emacs tutorials,
  it looks like I would need quite some time to unlearn my vim habits
  and acquire emacs ones ...
 
 Yes, to be proficient will probably take a while.

Aye, there's the rub.

   that might prove to be unsuitable from an ergonomic standpoint and

 Well, I don't know how the ergnomics would work for you, but for
 me long-term use of Emacs (with the control in its pre-PC traditional
 position, of course) hasn't caused any hand RSI problems.

I'm not one of the RSI-prone people. Rather, I'm one of the otherwise
challenged types with hands like shovels that don't seem to be fully
connected.  Before I went through this nightmare of learning to type
propah.. I clocked myself somewhere in the vicinity of 15 words per
minute - and that was for regular simple everyday English text.

  would therefore require that I start remapping - which is absolute
  hell...

 Yep, although in composing e-mail messages in Mozilla Seamonkey's
 mail composition editor, which doesn't use Emacs or vi bindings (oh
 for Netscape 4.7, which did use Emacs/Bash bindings!), I don't get
 confused often.  Of course, that's not equivalent to your potential
 vi-vs.-Emacs case (since Seamonkey has many fewer editing key
 bindings).

I do know how to tell seamonkey - or gtk apps rather how to use emacs
key bindings.. but this probably only afffects the gui and not the
seamonkey editor.

  How hard is it to put your left pinky on the key immediately to the
  left of the A key and then put your left ring finger on the A key?
  That leaves those fingers right next to each other.
  
  Yes, that is quite feasible, although hitting the A key with the
  ring finger is also known as blasphemy.
 
 Well, if you use Emacs, you just don't let a typing teacher see you.
 Or you tell him or her that you're in some typing mode other than
 standarding typing mode.

In these difficult times, if I could afford a typing teacher, they'd
better keep their mouth shut.

:-)

And in any case, if they were not able to teach me computer keyboarding,
as opposed to the ancient art of ruling the typewriter, I would fire
them on the spot.

  Or was your comment not implying that it was hard but just reacting
  to its difference from proper (per typing class) fingering?
  
  Well, that's basically the issue. Since typing tutorials say nothing
  of the Control and Alt keys, 

 Do they address computer typing (with modifier keys other that the
 shift keys)?  (My last typing classes were 30 years ago, so of source
 they only dealt with plain typewriters.)

No... I'm self-taught mostly via gtypist .. politically correct app..
that teaches nothing beyond good old typewriter stuff that goes back
some 30+ years.

The good thing is that it lets you create you own drills/lessons.. 

I think I should focus on something like C programming drills, bash,
possibly python, etc. that I could practice over and over so as to
acquire muscle memory for that kind of stuff.

Becoming proficient with all the {}/[] .. etc. should be comparatively
easy, since those languages are structurally simpler in essence than
written English with its thousands of syllable combinations.

And if I spent enough time refining them, I would definitely hand them
over to the gtypist developer/maintainer for review.

   ... I felt that I had to be creative and that's where I realized
   that curling each thumb to reach them was not only much easier
   than doing it via my pinkies (even with the left Control key
   remapped to CapsLock) but also provided a mechanism that was
   consistent across both hands.

  My curling ability only extends about two keys-widths to the left of
  right of the keyboard comfortably, so I had to remap the Winkeys to
  Control.

Errata: to the left or right of the space bar.. I think I corrected
this elsewhere.

 Well, you definitely want to do at least that.  Trying to use Emacs
 with the Control keys in the default PC-style position is essentially
 impossible.

When I started to play with this stuff, I initially remapped the left
Control key to the one advertised as CapsLock and actioned it with my
left pinky..  but since I wanted to use the correct finger of the
opposite hand to type the modified key, this only solved half of the

Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2009 at 06:45:47PM EDT, Tony Baldwin wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
 On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 09:38:36AM EDT, Daniel Burrows wrote:
 On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:08:59PM -0400, Chris Jones 
 cjns1...@gmail.com was heard to say:

 I didn't say anything..
 
 There appear to be keyboards where some keys are physically located
 in a spot that's easily accessible with the thumbs. 

 That's a good idea.  I have to say, alt and ctrl aren't that easy to
 access, in truth, although, of course, I've grown accustomed to them
 (especially using Ion3 where so much can be controlled with the
 keyboard).  If they were below the space bar and thumbable, that
 might work out pretty well.

I found out about such keyboard after thinking the pretty obvious if my
pinky's are weak and overworked.. why not use my thumbs.

You can google for Maltron  Kinesis + keyboard for pics of these.

They tend to be rather pricey.

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Daniel Burrows]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:08:59PM -0400, Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com was 
heard to say:
 There appear to be keyboards where some keys are physically located in a
 spot that's easily accessible with the thumbs. 
 
 Maybe I should buy one?

  On that note: one of my colleagues bought a keyboard with pedals a
few years ago.  As I understand it, the pedals are used for shift
states and control characters -- I haven't used it myself, but it seems
like an interesting idea, and it continues the pianistic angle here. :-)

  Daniel


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:04:44PM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
 
 [..]
 
 Where the above no longer works for me is when the two action keys
 do not belong to the same half of the keyboard - such as Ctrl-X
 Ctrl-P, because I would use my right thumb to action the Control
 key, the left hand ring finger to hit X, and then would be stuck
 having to maintain the right Control key depressed and hit the P
 key with my right pinky.
 
 Ah, that might be your problem right there:  Using proper shifting
 technique (as a typing teaching would presumably teach).  Oh,
 wait--you aren't switching from left to right control key there.  But
 you are using a thumb on an improperly positioned control key.  Such
 an abomination! :-)
 
 It certainly is not. I was under the impression that homo sapiens
 differed from the apes due to his opposable thumb. 

Huh?  You think other primates don't have opposable thumbs?

In any case, the significance of opposable thumbs is in _grabbing_
things (you know, between fingers (finger and thumb) moving in
_opposing_ directions).  There no direct relationship to pressing
keys.

  With proper typing
 position - the wrists unbent, pretty much horizontal, reaching for the
 Windows keys remapped to Control is totally effortless. 

If it works for you, then quit complaining.  I was trying to help
you because you seemed to find Emacs' modifier keys inconvenient.

(By the way, do you mean that you curl your left thumb under your
hand to reach the Windows key, or do you move your whole hand to
the left (using the left control key only with keys typed by your
right hand, per proper typing style)?)


 Try using your left pinky on the (left) control key its rightful
 (original) place, immediately to the left of the A key (assuming
 English/QWERTY layout)).  Then use your left ring finger (instead
 of the proper left pinky) on the q, a, and z keys when you
 need to enter C-q, C-a, or C-z, respectively; and shift fingers
 on the next column or two as needed.
 
 Now you are kidding, right?

Were you actually paying attention when you wrote that?  Did my
description somehow retain some ambiguity I thought I avoided?

How hard is it to put your left pinky on the key immediately to the
left of the A key and then put your left ring finger on the A key?
That leaves those fingers right next to each other.

Or was your comment not implying that it was hard but just reacting
to its difference from proper (per typing class) fingering?


 The C-x C-p is easy: left pinky left control down, left middle or
 ring finger x down, right pinky or ring finger p down, and then
 all finger up in any order you want (or no order (simultaneous)).
 
 My guess is that you must have a couple of RSI doctors among your close
 relatives.

Again, I don't think you're paying attention.  Trying to press the
control key(s) where IBM moved it to is a lot harder than pressing
it where it was originally.  (Obviously, your placement of them on
the Windows keys is better than the default PC-keyboard positions.)


 Not only is this very difficult to get right consistently without
 looking at the keys ...but it
 completely leaves out the fact that in my personal case, there is a
 wired-in association between a given key and a given finger.
 
 I am reusing the basic associations acquired while typing to which I
 only added two+two (Control  Alt keys) synchronized thumb actions. If I
 followed your advice, I would have to build into my personal muscle
 memory an entire new set of finger actions that are both inconsistent
 with my (standard) typing habits ...

Actually, it would be only about half of one hand of finger-to-key
associations--only left hand, and only whichever keys one re-assigns.

Hmm.  I think I have Emacs control-key mode vs. regular mode.

I notice that I shift my left hand left a bit (to put my pinky on
the left-of-A control key) and widen my fingers (some fingers stay
in their normal columns (e.g., index finger for F key)).

Note that I don't typically shift to control-key mode for just a
single command (one control-key sequence).

More typically, I shift my hand left for move-around and cut/copy-
and-paste mode (e.g, C-a, C-e, C-p, C-n, C-w, C-y, etc.) and
then shift back to normal touch-typing position for typing words
mode.

In particular, I frequently press the control key and don't let it
up until I've hit a half a dozen or more other keys (regardless of
which hand presses them).

Whether you'll ever like Emacs control-key sequences probably depends
on how often you use them--that is, whether you usually do things
(e.g., lots of moving around between typing text) that require many
control keys in a row (where the press-Control-and-hold aspect helps
more) or you usually just use a few interspersed in more plain typing.


  _and_ physically stressful.
 
 Seriously, left pinky on the key to the right of the A key and left
 ring finger on the Z key at the same time...? 

(No.  Left 

Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 11:49:34AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
  On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:04:44PM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
  Chris Jones wrote:
  
  [..]
  
  Where the above no longer works for me is when the two action keys
  do not belong to the same half of the keyboard - such as Ctrl-X
  Ctrl-P, because I would use my right thumb to action the Control
  key, the left hand ring finger to hit X, and then would be stuck
  having to maintain the right Control key depressed and hit the P
  key with my right pinky.
  
  Ah, that might be your problem right there:  Using proper shifting
  technique (as a typing teaching would presumably teach).  Oh,
  wait--you aren't switching from left to right control key there.  But
  you are using a thumb on an improperly positioned control key.  Such
  an abomination! :-)
  
  It certainly is not. I was under the impression that homo sapiens
  differed from the apes due to his opposable thumb. 
 
 Huh?  You think other primates don't have opposable thumbs?

Gosh.. I'm mixing this all up, apes, primates, monkeys, dolphins, the
hitchhiker's thumb syndrome and the scrivener's cramp.

 In any case, the significance of opposable thumbs is in _grabbing_
 things (you know, between fingers (finger and thumb) moving in
 _opposing_ directions).  There no direct relationship to pressing
 keys.

The indirect relationship is that thumbs are both very flexible and
underused in keyboarding.

   With proper typing position - the wrists unbent, pretty much
   horizontal, reaching for the Windows keys remapped to Control is
   totally effortless. 

 If it works for you, then quit complaining.  

I'm always complaining.. 

Quite the contrary in this instance, I am surprised, honored, and
grateful that s/o on the list would even consider the subject worthy of
their attention and show their appreciation by spending what looks like
an inordinate amount of time debating the issue.

 I was trying to help you..

That is why I replied. 

 because you seemed to find Emacs' modifier keys inconvenient.

That I don't know.. what I _do_ know is that it took me months to
assimilate a minimal subset of vim keyboard actions to the point where
anything I want to do is done before I have a chance to start thinking,
now how do I do this.. and when I look at emacs tutorials, it looks like
I would need quite some time to unlearn my vim habits and acquire emacs
ones that might prove to be unsuitable from an ergonomic standpoint and
would therefore require that I start remapping - which is absolute hell:
you start remapping something to.. something else that works better for
you..  oh.. the else was itself mapped to something else.. so let's
remap that else to something else2... meanwhile back at the ranch..

 (By the way, do you mean that you curl your left thumb under your
 hand to reach the Windows key, or do you move your whole hand to
 the left (using the left control key only with keys typed by your
 right hand, per proper typing style)?)

Yes.. curling is a very good way to describe the movement. As I thought
I had mentioned in my earlier message, this is the way piano players
smoothly move up/down the keyboard. You're playing a C major scale with
the right hand.. You go as far as hitting the G key with your pinky..
and you're stuck. 

There appear to be keyboards where some keys are physically located in a
spot that's easily accessible with the thumbs. 

Maybe I should buy one?

  Try using your left pinky on the (left) control key its rightful
  (original) place, immediately to the left of the A key (assuming
  English/QWERTY layout)).  Then use your left ring finger (instead
  of the proper left pinky) on the q, a, and z keys when you
  need to enter C-q, C-a, or C-z, respectively; and shift fingers
  on the next column or two as needed.
  
  Now you are kidding, right?
 
 Were you actually paying attention when you wrote that?

Sorry.

 Did my description somehow retain some ambiguity I thought I avoided?

Absolutely not. 

 How hard is it to put your left pinky on the key immediately to the
 left of the A key and then put your left ring finger on the A key?
 That leaves those fingers right next to each other.

Yes, that is quite feasible, although hitting the A key with the ring
finger is also known as blasphemy.

What I was referring to is pinky on CapsLock/Control and pressing the Z
key with the ring finger at the same time. Maybe my hands are less
flexible than average, but I just cannot do it.

 Or was your comment not implying that it was hard but just reacting
 to its difference from proper (per typing class) fingering?

Well, that's basically the issue. Since typing tutorials say nothing of
the Control and Alt keys, I felt that I had to be creative and that's
where I realized that curling each thumb to reach them was not only
much easier than doing it via my pinkies (even with the left Control key
remapped to CapsLock) but also provided a mechanism that was 

Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 10:08:59PM EDT, Chris Jones wrote:

erratum...

 My curling ability only extends about two keys-widths to the left of
^^
he
 meant
or

 right of the keyboard comfortably, so I had to remap the Winkeys to
    
   he meant space-bar
   
 Control.


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 11:47:46AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
...

 You can go: Control-down, x-down, f-down, Control-up, x-up, f-up; and
 that can be done in one rolling motion in about 1/3 of a second.
 
 More like one tenth of a second for an average typist.. 

True, but I didn't want to low-ball it.  Yes, it is basically a single
motion.

  Odd that emacs
 should advertise this as Ctrl-X Ctrl-F.. it should be represented as
 something like Ctrl-XF.. or Ctrl+{XF}, maybe..?

Why?

It was a control-x character followed by a control-f character.
Whether you achieve that by pressing the control key twice, once for
each character, hold it down once (or combine the left and right
control keys on modern keyboards) isn't relevant (to specifying the
characters).



 Perhaps I'm the only one who finds this misleading.. :-)
 
 Sure, not every keystroke combination is that easy, but many are
 easier than they seem initially.   
 
 Where the above no longer works for me is when the two action keys do
 not belong to the same half of the keyboard - such as Ctrl-X Ctrl-P,
 because I would use my right thumb to action the Control key, the left
 hand ring finger to hit X, and then would be stuck having to maintain
 the right Control key depressed and hit the P key with my right pinky.

Ah, that might be your problem right there:  Using proper shifting
technique (as a typing teaching would presumably teach).  Oh, wait--you
aren't switching from left to right control key there.  But you are
using a thumb on an improperly positioned control key.  Such an
abomination! :-)

Try using your left pinky on the (left) control key its rightful
(original) place, immediately to the left of the A key (assuming
English/QWERTY layout)).  Then use your left ring finger (instead
of the proper left pinky) on the q, a, and z keys when you
need to enter C-q, C-a, or C-z, respectively; and shift fingers
on the next column or two as needed.

The C-x C-p is easy: left pinky left control down, left middle or
ring finger x down, right pinky or ring finger p down, and then
all finger up in any order you want (or no order (simultaneous)).



Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:04:44PM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:

[..]

  Where the above no longer works for me is when the two action keys
  do not belong to the same half of the keyboard - such as Ctrl-X
  Ctrl-P, because I would use my right thumb to action the Control
  key, the left hand ring finger to hit X, and then would be stuck
  having to maintain the right Control key depressed and hit the P
  key with my right pinky.

 Ah, that might be your problem right there:  Using proper shifting
 technique (as a typing teaching would presumably teach).  Oh,
 wait--you aren't switching from left to right control key there.  But
 you are using a thumb on an improperly positioned control key.  Such
 an abomination! :-)

It certainly is not. I was under the impression that homo sapiens
differed from the apes due to his opposable thumb. With proper typing
position - the wrists unbent, pretty much horizontal, reaching for the
Windows keys remapped to Control is totally effortless. Anyone with a
few hours of piano playing under their belt knows that - yes that's
where I got the idea.

 Try using your left pinky on the (left) control key its rightful
 (original) place, immediately to the left of the A key (assuming
 English/QWERTY layout)).  Then use your left ring finger (instead
 of the proper left pinky) on the q, a, and z keys when you
 need to enter C-q, C-a, or C-z, respectively; and shift fingers
 on the next column or two as needed.

Now you are kidding, right?

 The C-x C-p is easy: left pinky left control down, left middle or
 ring finger x down, right pinky or ring finger p down, and then
 all finger up in any order you want (or no order (simultaneous)).

My guess is that you must have a couple of RSI doctors among your close
relatives.

:-)

Not only is this very difficult to get right consistently without
looking at the keys - I find right thumb on Windows/Control + X followed
by left thumb on Windows/Control + P considerably easier - but it
completely leaves out the fact that in my personal case, there is a
wired-in association between a given key and a given finger.

I am reusing the basic associations acquired while typing to which I
only added two+two (Control  Alt keys) synchronized thumb actions. If I
followed your advice, I would have to build into my personal muscle
memory an entire new set of finger actions that are both inconsistent
with my (standard) typing habits _and_ physically stressful. 

Seriously, left pinky on the key to the right of the A key and left
ring finger on the Z key at the same time...? 

Tried it a couple of times and had to stop because I was cramping.

:-)

CJ



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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Stefan Monnier]

 Seriously, left pinky on the key to the right of the A key and left
 ring finger on the Z key at the same time...? 

Here's how I'd do it: left-pinky on control (sometimes labelled as
capslock), left-index on x, right-middle finger on p.

 Not only is this very difficult to get right consistently without
 looking at the keys

That's OK: I like looking at the keys.

 My guess is that you must have a couple of RSI doctors among your close
 relatives.

Actually, moving your hands all over the keyboard is a good way to stay
away from RSI, I have found ;-)


Stefan


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Bannister]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 08:07:38AM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:
 On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 05:43:24AM EDT, Chris Bannister wrote:
  On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 06:11:05PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:
   Sure.. I use vim rather than vi but the command-mode default key
   mapping, for instance, is pretty awful.
  
  CTRL-[ is easier.
 
 I could have sworn I had typed command-line mode since I checked the
 vim help for the proper wording :-(
 
 I mean the mode that is accessed by typing : and where you can enter
 ex commands. 

oops, sorry, I thought you mean't the 'esc' key. Yeah, I was confusing
command mode, with normal mode. For some reason I've always thought of 
normal mode as command mode

but

Ex mode Like Command-line mode, but after entering a command
you remain in Ex mode.


Confused? … well you won't be after this week's episode of Soap …

:)

-- 
Chris.
==
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other
possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
   -- Stephen F Roberts


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mappings in vim nodes (was Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?)

[Chris Bannister]

[Changed Subject as it no longer concerns emacs.]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 07:14:20PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:
 
 I believe you would want to use the Ctrl-P  Ctrl-N mappings to navigate
 the command-line mode history in vim so as to be in sync' with the
 readline emacs defaults.
 
 In vim this can be achieved by adding:
 
 :cnoremap C-P Up
 :cnoremap C-N Down
 
 to one's .vimrc.
 
 The only thing is that when you issue for instance the :set paste
 command and need to retrieve later, with the arrow keys you can type
 :set and do an up arrow and vim will retrieve the paste part of
 the command and append to the :set that you typed.
 
 For some reason this does not appear to work when you remap Up to
 Ctrl-P.. the previous ommand command is retrieved in its entirety and
 whatever you typed beyond the : is ignored.

You could take this to vim_...@googlegroups.com
http://googlegroups.com/group/vim_use/subscribe

Warning! warning!, (1) it is a high volume list (2) vim is also availabe
for windoze.

 Sorry about sloppy post earlier.. hope this benefits s/o on the list.
 ^^^
 (see P.S)

We both got our modes mixed up. :(

P.S. If you want to do a proper ellipsis (i.e … ), put this in your
.vimrc

 snip -
if has(digraphs)
digraph ., 8230 ellipsis (…)
endif

--- snap --

Then in insert mode Ctrl-K ., 

-- 
Chris.
==
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other
possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
   -- Stephen F Roberts


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Re: mappings in vim nodes (was Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?)

[Chris Jones]

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 04:36:20PM EDT, Chris Bannister wrote:
 
 [Changed Subject as it no longer concerns emacs.]
 
 On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 07:14:20PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:

[..]

  For some reason this does not appear to work when you remap Up to
  Ctrl-P.. the previous ommand command is retrieved in its entirety
  and whatever you typed beyond the : is ignored.

 You could take this to vim_...@googlegroups.com
 http://googlegroups.com/group/vim_use/subscribe

I take that back.. tested it again and it works the same - couldn't
imagine why it would behave differently since I'm only defining an
alternate keyboard action and mapping it to whatever the other guy is
already mapped to.. 

 Warning! warning!, (1) it is a high volume list (2) vim is also
 availabe for windoze.

Oh, dear.. Oh dear.. 

  Sorry about sloppy post earlier.. hope this benefits s/o on the list.
  ^^^
(see P.S)
 
 We both got our modes mixed up. :(

Yes, that's what happens with modal editors.

 P.S. If you want to do a proper ellipsis (i.e ... ), put this in your
 .vimrc

After all, I only need to type a key combo followed by two different
characters to replace my own personal trailing two dots by a proper
ellipsis.

:-)

  snip -
 if has(digraphs)
 digraph ., 8230 ellipsis (...)
 endif
 
 --- snap --
 
 Then in insert mode Ctrl-K ., 

Thanks much for the tip.  I fired up uxterm+vim, set the enc to =utf8
followd by :dig ., 8230 and thus verified that the unicode version
of the terminus font has the correct glyph.

When I finish switching to lenny where I believe utf8 is the default,
I'll see if it's worth the effort adding fun stuff like that to my
emails.

Though I'm a bit sceptical as to the relevance of proper typesetting in
the context of terminal applications such as vim/mutt.

CJ


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Re: mappings in vim nodes (was Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?)

[Chris Jones]

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 09:14:32PM EDT, Chris Jones wrote:

[..]

 Though I'm a bit sceptical ..

Uh.. skeptical, possibly?


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Bannister]

On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 06:11:05PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:
 Sure.. I use vim rather than vi but the command-mode default key
 mapping, for instance, is pretty awful.

CTRL-[ is easier.

-- 
Chris.
==
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other
possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
   -- Stephen F Roberts


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 05:43:24AM EDT, Chris Bannister wrote:
 On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 06:11:05PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:
  Sure.. I use vim rather than vi but the command-mode default key
  mapping, for instance, is pretty awful.
 
 CTRL-[ is easier.

I could have sworn I had typed command-line mode since I checked the
vim help for the proper wording :-(

I mean the mode that is accessed by typing : and where you can enter
ex commands. 

In that mode, the history of previously typed commands is mapped to the
the up/down arrow keys by default.


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 05:43:24AM EDT, Chris Bannister wrote:
 On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 06:11:05PM -0400, Chris Jones wrote:
  Sure.. I use vim rather than vi but the command-mode default key
  mapping, for instance, is pretty awful.
 
 CTRL-[ is easier.

I believe you would want to use the Ctrl-P  Ctrl-N mappings to navigate
the command-line mode history in vim so as to be in sync' with the
readline emacs defaults.

In vim this can be achieved by adding:

:cnoremap C-P Up
:cnoremap C-N Down

to one's .vimrc.

The only thing is that when you issue for instance the :set paste
command and need to retrieve later, with the arrow keys you can type
:set and do an up arrow and vim will retrieve the paste part of
the command and append to the :set that you typed.

For some reason this does not appear to work when you remap Up to
Ctrl-P.. the previous ommand command is retrieved in its entirety and
whatever you typed beyond the : is ignored.

Sorry about sloppy post earlier.. hope this benefits s/o on the list.

CJ





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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 11:47:46AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:

[..]

 Are you still talking in the context of Emacs?  If so:
 
 You won't need to reach the arrow keys, etc., once you've learned the
 traditional Emacs movement keystrokes.  (In fact, that would also
 apply to vi.)  But you need the control key in a reachable place so
 you can use those traditional keystrokes (reasonably).

Sure.. I use vim rather than vi but the command-mode default key
mapping, for instance, is pretty awful.

  Not to mention double modifiers such as Alt+Ctrl .. !!
 
 Note that you can type Esc as a prefix for Meta in place of pressing
 Alt as a modifier for Meta.

Too far to reach.. and on my laptop, Esc is a half-sized key.

  Even stuff like Ctrl-X Ctrl-F for frequently needed does not strike
  me as ergonomically sound.

 At least for that particular key combination, it sounds like you
 haven't tried it enough times to notice how easy it gets.
 
 For that one in particular, you can just roll your hand over the three
 keys.
 
 That is, you don't have to do the sequence Control-down, x-down, x-up,
 Control-up, Control-down, f-down, f-up, Control-up.
 
 You can go: Control-down, x-down, f-down, Control-up, x-up, f-up; and
 that can be done in one rolling motion in about 1/3 of a second.

More like one tenth of a second for an average typist.. Odd that emacs
should advertise this as Ctrl-X Ctrl-F.. it should be represented as
something like Ctrl-XF.. or Ctrl+{XF}, maybe..?

Perhaps I'm the only one who finds this misleading.. :-)

 Sure, not every keystroke combination is that easy, but many are
 easier than they seem initially.   

Where the above no longer works for me is when the two action keys do
not belong to the same half of the keyboard - such as Ctrl-X Ctrl-P,
because I would use my right thumb to action the Control key, the left
hand ring finger to hit X, and then would be stuck having to maintain
the right Control key depressed and hit the P key with my right pinky.

 If you want to and have time to give Emacs a fair shake, use it long
 enough for you fingers to learn the more common keystrokes, and then
 see if you like Emacs' style of commands or not.

Will do, thanks much for your comments.

  I do like the emacs bindings in the shell, though .. takes a bit of
  practice before they become second nature, but it's worth it.. once
  you get there, you fly.

 I think your last 6 six words apply to Emacs too (as long as the
 control key is in the right place, or another other place that's as
 convenient for you).

Once I got rid of the mouse, came another challenge that I had not
anticipated: finding a reasonable tradeoff between keeping the set of
keyboard shortcuts minimal without sacrificing too much in terms of
speed and efficiency. Obviously much easier to achieve with a line-mode
editor such as the one provided by readline than screen-mode editors
such as vim or emacs.

CJ






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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 11:42:34AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
...
 Have you tried mapping the Control key back to where it was when Emacs
 was designed (and where it belongs--just to the left of the A key (on
 QWERTY keyboards))?
 
 Used that for a long time .. the location of the left Control key on PC
 keyboards may make sense for those who never use it (like it's out of
 t he way so you won't hit by accident and break everything :)  .. ???  
 
 A couple of years ago, I eventually switched to remapping the Windows
 keys to Ctrl and using my thumbs for Alt/Ctrl modifiers - kinda keeps
 modifiers separate from the action keys and provides some form of
 symmetry with Alt or Ctrl actioned with left thumb and the key with
 one of the right hand's four fingers and vice-versa).
 
 If not, be sure to try that.  Using Emacs (and Bash) control-character
 keystrokes is an entirely different experience when the Control key is
 in the right place.
 
 More worried about having to deal with impossible to reach stuff like
 arrow keys, page up/down.. end, home.. delete.. etc.

Are you still talking in the context of Emacs?  If so:

You won't need to reach the arrow keys, etc., once you've learned the
traditional Emacs movement keystrokes.  (In fact, that would also apply to
vi.)  But you need the control key in a reachable place so you can use
those traditional keystrokes (reasonably).


 Not to mention double modifiers such as Alt+Ctrl .. !!

Note that you can type Esc as a prefix for Meta in place of pressing Alt as
a modifier for Meta.



 Even stuff like Ctrl-X Ctrl-F for frequently needed does not strike me
 as ergonomically sound.

At least for that particular key combination, it sounds like you haven't tried
it enough times to notice how easy it gets.

For that one in particular, you can just roll your hand over the three keys.

That is, you don't have to do the sequence Control-down, x-down, x-up,
Control-up, Control-down, f-down, f-up, Control-up.

You can go: Control-down, x-down, f-down, Control-up, x-up, f-up; and that
can be done in one rolling motion in about 1/3 of a second.


Sure, not every keystroke combination is that easy, but many are easier than
they seem initially.  If you want to and have time to give Emacs a fair
shake, use it long enough for you fingers to learn the more common
keystrokes, and then see if you like Emacs' style of commands or not.


 I do like the emacs bindings in the shell, though .. takes a bit of
 practice before they become second nature, but it's worth it.. once you
 get there, you fly.

I think your last 6 six words apply to Emacs too (as long as the control
key is in the right place, or another other place that's as convenient
for you).



Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 11:42:34AM EDT, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:

  [...]

  ergonomically sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another
  shot.
 
 Hvae you fingers trying to use Emacs with the Control key where IBM
 moved it to on PCs?

 Have you tried mapping the Control key back to where it was when Emacs
 was designed (and where it belongs--just to the left of the A key (on
 QWERTY keyboards))?

Used that for a long time .. the location of the left Control key on PC
keyboards may make sense for those who never use it (like it's out of
t he way so you won't hit by accident and break everything :)  .. ???  

A couple of years ago, I eventually switched to remapping the Windows
keys to Ctrl and using my thumbs for Alt/Ctrl modifiers - kinda keeps
modifiers separate from the action keys and provides some form of
symmetry with Alt or Ctrl actioned with left thumb and the key with
one of the right hand's four fingers and vice-versa).

 If not, be sure to try that.  Using Emacs (and Bash) control-character
 keystrokes is an entirely different experience when the Control key is
 in the right place.

More worried about having to deal with impossible to reach stuff like
arrow keys, page up/down.. end, home.. delete.. etc.

Not to mention double modifiers such as Alt+Ctrl .. !!

Even stuff like Ctrl-X Ctrl-F for frequently needed does not strike me
as ergonomically sound.

I do like the emacs bindings in the shell, though .. takes a bit of
practice before they become second nature, but it's worth it.. once you
get there, you fly.

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 jida...@jidanni.org wrote:
 Why must emacs depend on sound packages? Is emacs
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 and will talk to us?
 Isn't that an independent package, emacspeak?

 Shouldn't there be a way to install an emacs without sound packages?
 Even the nox version depends on them. Does emacs say things more than
 beep often?


 I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but couldn't you use another
 editor, like vi, vim, nano, pico or ed?

Why would you even suggest that?  Should we throw the baby (piece of
software) out each time we find a particular bit of bathwater (problem)?

Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1

 jida...@jidanni.org wrote:
 Why must emacs depend on sound packages? Is emacs
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 and will talk to us?
 Isn't that an independent package, emacspeak?

 Shouldn't there be a way to install an emacs without sound packages?
 Even the nox version depends on them. Does emacs say things more than
 beep often?


 I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but couldn't you use another
 editor, like vi, vim, nano, pico or ed?
 
 Why would you even suggest that?  Should we throw the baby (piece of
 software) out each time we find a particular bit of bathwater (problem)?
 
 Daniel
 --
 (Plain text sometimes corrupted to HTML courtesy of Microsoft
 Exchange.) [F]
 
 
Why not, there's plenty of other editors!

Seriousness
You're right though, emacs is a great editor. It's because of this list
that I've recently started using it again, although I always find myself
automatically typing vim when I want to edit a file.
/Seriousness

Have you tried configuring Outlook to send in plain text by default,
using the instructions at http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#out2002?

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

- -BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-
Version: 3.1
GAT/GCM/GCS/GCC/GIT/GM d? s: a? C UL P- L+++ E--- W+++ N o K+
w--- O- M- V- PS+  PE Y+ PGP++ t 5 X R tv-- b+++ DI D G e* h! !r y?
- --END GEEK CODE BLOCK--
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAkn/BtcACgkQ1kZz3mRu0GpligCg2p+mNh5BOex8dKAgPKUMGIGj
tekAoLQHMrZ9tE8ceLA7py1W2ttauXbH
=I7sO
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:30:25AM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:

 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do? 

It can integrate those separate tools.

The biggest non-editing things for which I use Emacs are its shell mode
(CLI command entry and output) and dired mode (file-browser functions).

For that usage, Emacs integrates, say, working out a commands on the command
line and then putting them in a script file.  It also integrate navigating
around the file system, grabbing a file/directory name, and executing a
command or putting the name in a script (all without moving ones hands from
the keyboard).


  Surely if emacs is more than
 an editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy:
 
 Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. Write programs to
 work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is
 a universal interface

a.  Why exactly would it need to?  (Probably, not everything can be written
to be integrated, and the most likely candidates are the things that integrate
other things.)

b.  Actually, Emacs does (do one thing well):

It handles editing-style text manipulation, regardless of, say, whether
the text is the contents of a file or the output of commands.

For example, I can apply a regular-expression replacement to lines of text
whether I'm editing a file or editing command output in shell mode or
compilation mode (e.g., to filter out output lines I no longer want to see, or
to edit them into data or a command).



Daniel

Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:30:25AM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:
 
 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do?
 
 It can integrate those separate tools.
 
 The biggest non-editing things for which I use Emacs are its shell mode
 (CLI command entry and output) and dired mode (file-browser functions).
 
 For that usage, Emacs integrates, say, working out a commands on the command
 line and then putting them in a script file.  It also integrate navigating
 around the file system, grabbing a file/directory name, and executing a
 command or putting the name in a script (all without moving ones hands from
 the keyboard).
 
 
   Surely if emacs is more than
 an editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy:

 Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. Write programs to
 work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is
 a universal interface
 
 a.  Why exactly would it need to?  (Probably, not everything can be written
 to be integrated, and the most likely candidates are the things that
 integrate
 other things.)
 
 b.  Actually, Emacs does (do one thing well):
 
 It handles editing-style text manipulation, regardless of, say, whether
 the text is the contents of a file or the output of commands.
 
 For example, I can apply a regular-expression replacement to lines of text
 whether I'm editing a file or editing command output in shell mode or
 compilation mode (e.g., to filter out output lines I no longer want to
 see, or
 to edit them into data or a command).
 
 
 
 Daniel
 
 
Fair points, I can't argue with any of them. I think it's really just a
matter of opinion as to what text editor you use, just like which distro
you use (although I assume everyone reading this uses some form or
another of Debian).

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Chris Jones wrote:
 [...]
 ergonomically sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another shot.

Hvae you fingers trying to use Emacs with the Control key where IBM moved it to 
on
PCs?

Have you tried mapping the Control key back to where it was when Emacs was 
designed
(and where it belongs--just to the left of the A key (on QWERTY keyboards))?

If not, be sure to try that.  Using Emacs (and Bash) control-character 
keystrokes
is an entirely different experience when the Control key is in the right place.


Daniel

Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
 [...]
 ergonomically sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another shot.
 
 Hvae you fingers trying to use Emacs with the Control key where IBM
 moved it to on
 PCs?
 
 Have you tried mapping the Control key back to where it was when Emacs
 was designed
 (and where it belongs--just to the left of the A key (on QWERTY keyboards))?
 
 If not, be sure to try that.  Using Emacs (and Bash) control-character
 keystrokes
 is an entirely different experience when the Control key is in the right
 place.
 

Is that why GNU Screen uses Crl-A Whatever to perform actions, because
the Control key should be to the left of the A key?

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Harry Rickards wrote:

 Have you tried configuring Outlook to send in plain text by default,
 using the instructions at http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#out2002?

Read my signature more carefully.

Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Harry Rickards wrote:
 
 Have you tried configuring Outlook to send in plain text by default,
 using the instructions at http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#out2002?
 
 Read my signature more carefully.
 
 Daniel
 --
 (Plain text sometimes corrupted to HTML courtesy of Microsoft
 Exchange.) [F]
 
 
Oh sorry, I should have looked closer.

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 Barclay, Daniel wrote:
...

 Have you tried mapping the Control key back to where it was when Emacs
 was designed
 (and where it belongs--just to the left of the A key (on QWERTY keyboards))?

 If not, be sure to try that.  Using Emacs (and Bash) control-character
 keystrokes
 is an entirely different experience when the Control key is in the right
 place.

 
 Is that why GNU Screen uses Crl-A Whatever to perform actions, because
 the Control key should be to the left of the A key?

Most probably.

Daniel
-- 
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[OT] Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 Harry Rickards wrote:

 Have you tried configuring Outlook to send in plain text by default,
 using the instructions at http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#out2002?
 Read my signature more carefully.

 Daniel
 --
 (Plain text sometimes corrupted to HTML courtesy of Microsoft
 Exchange.) [F]


 Oh sorry, I should have looked closer.

Yeah, about I year ago I discovered that the plain-text messages I was sending
out of my MUA (Mozilla SeaMonkey) were being corrupted into HTML messages
by Exchange.  I managed to get out IT people to submit a bug report to
Microsoft, but Microsoft claims it isn't a bug because it works as designed.



Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Barclay, Daniel]

Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 Barclay, Daniel wrote:
 On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:30:25AM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:

 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do?
 It can integrate those separate tools.
...

   Surely if emacs is more than
 an editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy:

 Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. ...
 a.  Why exactly would it need to?  

...

 b.  Actually, Emacs does (do one thing well):

 It handles editing-style text manipulation, 
...
 Fair points, I can't argue with any of them. I think it's really just a
 matter of opinion as to what text editor you use, ,,

Of course.

Note that I wasn't arguing which editor anyone should use (just how Emacs
does somewhat fit that Unix philosophy).


Daniel
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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 12:47:31PM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 Chris Jones wrote:
  On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:30:25AM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:

 ...
  Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what
  can emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more
  than an editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy:

  Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. Write programs
  to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because
  that is a universal interface

  Maybe one problem with that is that where there is some degree of
  consistency across the board as long as you stick with line-mode
  tools from the shell prompt, screen-mode programs are a different
  story.
  
  I find switching between vim.. mutt.. slrn.. Elinks.. mc ... rather
  frustrating because they are all so different in terms of look and
  feel.

  Since emacs  extensions appear to do everything I have currently
  set up on my desktop including mail  web browsing and should
  therefore provide one  consistent interface  that covers  my needs
  out of  the box,  I am beginning to  think that if  I can find some
  config file or  other that provides ergonomically sound keyboard
  mappings, I should give it another shot.

 Fair point. I suppose if you care about the different look and feels
 of your day to day tools, that might be an issue. However, I'm used to
 using different styles for each different application I use from my M$
 days. For example, Internet Explorer 8 and Outlook 2007 don't really
 have any design similarities, despite being the latest versions.

:-)

But I'm really talking low-level stuff like keyboard usability - one of
the very few things I rather like in Windows is that most everything can
be done without reaching for the mouse and that there is a standard way
of accessing a particular text-entry widget via an Alt+underlined
letter. This may sound minor, but when you do that sort of thing
hundreds of times a day, it adds up.

Surely this is possible in both IE8 and Outlook 2007..?

 For your reason alone, I am now giving Emacs a try again.

Well, this time at least, I didn't post for nothing.

:-)

Thanks,

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Paul Scott wrote:
 
 On May 2, 2009, at 9:47 AM, Harry Rickards wrote:
 
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1

 John Hasler wrote:
 Harry Rickards writes:
 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more than an
 editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy

 GNU's Not Unix.

 Linux != GNU
 
 
 Meaning??
 
 GNU is an OS,  Linux is a kernel.
 
 Unfortunately popular usage has led to Linux incorrectly meaning
 GNU/Linux and even more.
 

Meaning that John Hasler was saying that GNU Emacs shouldn't follow a
UNIX Philosophy because GNU's Not UNIX. I was saying that Linux != GNU,
and as this is a Debian list, most of us probably use GNU Emacs on Linux.

Also, although GNU Emacs was written by GNU and GNU's Not UNIX, I think
(someone correct me if I'm wrong here) it was originally written for UNIX.


- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Mike Castle wrote:
 On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Paul Scott waterho...@ultrasw.com wrote:
 GNU is an OS,  Linux is a kernel.

 Unfortunately popular usage has led to Linux incorrectly meaning GNU/Linux
 and even more.
 
 How much GNU software is required before it has to have the GNU moniker?
 
 If my machine uses the Linux kernel is mostly busybox instead of
 coreutils/textutils/shutils do I have to keep using GNU/Linux?
 
 If I use a BSD kernel with mostly GNU software, do I have to call it
 GNU/BSD?  (Something I'd find very amusing, by the way.)
 
 mrc
 
 
If I run GNU Emacs, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), GNUnet, MinGW
(Minimalist GNU for Windows) etc on Windows, does that mean I have to
call it GNU/Windows? :D

- --
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Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[John Hasler]

Harry Rickards writes:
 Also, although GNU Emacs was written by GNU and GNU's Not UNIX, I think
 (someone correct me if I'm wrong here) it was originally written for
 UNIX.

Emacs was originally written by Richard Stallman for ITS.
-- 
John Hasler


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Fri, May 01, 2009 at 08:02:09PM EDT, John Hasler wrote:
 jidanni wrote:
  Why must emacs depend on sound packages?
 
 I had never noticed that.  Pretty objectionable, I think.  I have no use
 for sound in Emacs.  It should be at most a Suggests.
 
 Chris Jones writes:
  I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but couldn't you use another
  editor, like vi, vim, nano, pico or ed?
 
 I use both Emacs and Vi.
 
  ... and there you have it.. I think that the correct answer is that emacs
  is not an editor..
 
 Its primary function is editing.  Therefor it is an editor.

Sorry, forgot the smiley.

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Sorry, sent it to Chris Jones, not the list by mistake.

-  Original Message 
Subject: Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?
Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 12:27:06 +0100
From: Harry Rickards hricka...@l33tmyst.com
To: Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com
References: 87hc04vds8@jidanni.org 49fb4e23.8040...@l33tmyst.com
20090501234026.gc2...@turki.gavron.org
87zldwnzi6@thumper.dhh.gt.org 20090502112017.ga2...@turki.gavron.org

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Fri, May 01, 2009 at 08:02:09PM EDT, John Hasler wrote:
 jidanni wrote:
 Why must emacs depend on sound packages?
 I had never noticed that.  Pretty objectionable, I think.  I have no use
 for sound in Emacs.  It should be at most a Suggests.

 Chris Jones writes:
 I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but couldn't you use another
 editor, like vi, vim, nano, pico or ed?
 I use both Emacs and Vi.

 ... and there you have it.. I think that the correct answer is that emacs
 is not an editor..
 Its primary function is editing.  Therefor it is an editor.

 Sorry, forgot the smiley.

 CJ


Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more than an
editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy:

Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. Write programs to
work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a
universal interface




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Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[John Hasler]

Harry Rickards writes:
 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more than an
 editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy

GNU's Not Unix.
-- 
John Hasler


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:30:25AM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 Sorry, sent it to Chris Jones, not the list by mistake.

No harm done. I was going to reply off-list and then I noticed that you
had re-posted.

  Why must emacs depend on sound packages?

.. because it is a full-fledged integrated desktop?

:-)

[..]

 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more than
 an editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy:
 
 Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. Write programs to
 work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is
 a universal interface

Maybe one problem with that is that where there is some degree of
consistency across the board as long as you stick with line-mode tools
from the shell prompt, screen-mode programs are a different story.

I find switching between vim.. mutt.. slrn.. Elinks.. mc ... rather
frustrating because they are all so different in terms of look and
feel.

Since emacs  extensions appear to do everything I have currently set up
on my desktop including mail  web browsing and should therefore provide
one  consistent interface  that covers  my needs  out of  the box,  I am
beginning to  think that if  I can find some  config file or  other that
provides ergonomically sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another
shot.

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Eduardo M KALINOWSKI]

Chris Jones wrote:
 [...]
 I can find some  config file or  other that
 provides ergonomically sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another
 shot.
   

You mean the cua mode?[0]

[0]http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CuaMode

-- 
The Fifth Rule:
You have taken yourself too seriously.

Eduardo M KALINOWSKI
edua...@kalinowski.com.br


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 09:57:55AM EDT, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
 Chris Jones wrote:
  [...]

  I can find some  config file or  other that provides ergonomically
  sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another shot.

 
 You mean the cua mode?[0]
 
 [0]http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CuaMode

Not sure.. looks like it uses out of my reach keys like the arrows,
PageUp  PageDown etc. (?) - was more thinking in terms of having
frequently used actions mapped to stuff that does not require any
contortions such as Ctrl+Alt+key.

Need to take a closer look.

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Eduardo M KALINOWSKI]

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 09:57:55AM EDT, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
   
 Chris Jones wrote:
 
 [...]
   

   
 I can find some  config file or  other that provides ergonomically
 sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another shot.
   
   
 You mean the cua mode?[0]

 [0]http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CuaMode
 

 Not sure.. looks like it uses out of my reach keys like the arrows,
 PageUp  PageDown etc. (?) - was more thinking in terms of having
 frequently used actions mapped to stuff that does not require any
 contortions such as Ctrl+Alt+key.

 Need to take a closer look.

   

Indeed this is not so much about ergonomics, but about following the
usual conventions for commons actions.

Anyway, this page proposes an ergonomic layout for Emacs:
http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html .


-- 
Do you know the difference between a yankee and a damyankee?

A yankee comes south to *_visit*.

Eduardo M KALINOWSKI
edua...@kalinowski.com.br


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Chris Jones wrote:
 On Sat, May 02, 2009 at 07:30:25AM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:
...
 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more than
 an editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy:

 Write programs that *do one thing and do it well*. Write programs to
 work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is
 a universal interface
 
 Maybe one problem with that is that where there is some degree of
 consistency across the board as long as you stick with line-mode tools
 from the shell prompt, screen-mode programs are a different story.
 
 I find switching between vim.. mutt.. slrn.. Elinks.. mc ... rather
 frustrating because they are all so different in terms of look and
 feel.
 
 Since emacs  extensions appear to do everything I have currently set up
 on my desktop including mail  web browsing and should therefore provide
 one  consistent interface  that covers  my needs  out of  the box,  I am
 beginning to  think that if  I can find some  config file or  other that
 provides ergonomically sound keyboard mappings, I should give it another
 shot.

Fair point. I suppose if you care about the different look and feels
of your day to day tools, that might be an issue. However, I'm used to
using different styles for each different application I use from my M$
days. For example, Internet Explorer 8 and Outlook 2007 don't really
have any design similarities, despite being the latest versions.

For your reason alone, I am now giving Emacs a try again.

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

John Hasler wrote:
 Harry Rickards writes:
 Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what can
 emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more than an
 editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy
 
 GNU's Not Unix.

Linux != GNU

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Paul Scott]

On May 2, 2009, at 9:47 AM, Harry Rickards wrote:


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John Hasler wrote:

Harry Rickards writes:
Plus, even though emacs does other stuff apart from editing, what  
can
emacs do that a separate tool can't do? Surely if emacs is more  
than an

editor, it doesn't follow Doug McIlroy's UNIX philosophy


GNU's Not Unix.


Linux != GNU



Meaning??

GNU is an OS,  Linux is a kernel.

Unfortunately popular usage has led to Linux incorrectly meaning GNU/ 
Linux and even more.


Paul Scott



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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Mike Castle]

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Paul Scott waterho...@ultrasw.com wrote:
 GNU is an OS,  Linux is a kernel.

 Unfortunately popular usage has led to Linux incorrectly meaning GNU/Linux
 and even more.

How much GNU software is required before it has to have the GNU moniker?

If my machine uses the Linux kernel is mostly busybox instead of
coreutils/textutils/shutils do I have to keep using GNU/Linux?

If I use a BSD kernel with mostly GNU software, do I have to call it
GNU/BSD?  (Something I'd find very amusing, by the way.)

mrc


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Mike Castle]

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Mike Castle dalgoda+deb...@gmail.com wrote:

 If I use a BSD kernel with mostly GNU software, do I have to call it
 GNU/BSD?  (Something I'd find very amusing, by the way.)

Oddly enough, in a completely different context, I did just come
across a reference to GNU/kFreeBSD.  So I guess folks DO use that
nomenclature.

Still think it's a bit odd, mind you.

mrc


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Harry Rickards]

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jida...@jidanni.org wrote:
 Why must emacs depend on sound packages? Is emacs
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 and will talk to us?
 Isn't that an independent package, emacspeak?
 
 Shouldn't there be a way to install an emacs without sound packages?
 Even the nox version depends on them. Does emacs say things more than
 beep often?
 
 
I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but couldn't you use another
editor, like vi, vim, nano, pico or ed?

- --
Many thanks
Harry Rickards (a.k.a l33tmyst)

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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Sven Joachim]

On 2009-05-01 21:11 +0200, jida...@jidanni.org wrote:

 Why must emacs depend on sound packages? Is emacs
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 and will talk to us?

No, but some people may want to use M-x play-sound-file, and libasound2
will be installed on most desktop systems anyway.

 Shouldn't there be a way to install an emacs without sound packages?

Currently you have to build them yourself or use the emacs-snapshot-nox
package from http://emacs.orebokech.com/.

 Even the nox version depends on them. Does emacs say things more than
 beep often?

On most systems, probably not.  Feel free to open a wishlist bug that
emacs22-nox should be built without sound support.  In fact, that is
what I had suggested in http://bugs.debian.org/503054.

Sven


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[Chris Jones]

On Fri, May 01, 2009 at 03:31:47PM EDT, Harry Rickards wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 jida...@jidanni.org wrote:
  Why must emacs depend on sound packages? Is emacs
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 and will talk to us?
  Isn't that an independent package, emacspeak?
  
  Shouldn't there be a way to install an emacs without sound packages?
  Even the nox version depends on them. Does emacs say things more than
  beep often?
  
  
 I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but couldn't you use another
 editor, like vi, vim, nano, pico or ed?

.. and there you have it.. I think that the correct answer is that emacs
is not an editor..

CJ


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Re: why must emacs depend on sound packages?

[John Hasler]

jidanni wrote:
 Why must emacs depend on sound packages?

I had never noticed that.  Pretty objectionable, I think.  I have no use
for sound in Emacs.  It should be at most a Suggests.

Chris Jones writes:
 I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but couldn't you use another
 editor, like vi, vim, nano, pico or ed?

I use both Emacs and Vi.

 ... and there you have it.. I think that the correct answer is that emacs
 is not an editor..

Its primary function is editing.  Therefor it is an editor.
-- 
John Hasler


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