{bad habits] Squeak for Windows - Ctrl instead of Alt key

Ned Konz ned at bike-nomad.com
Mon Oct 15 20:21:08 UTC 2001


On Monday 15 October 2001 01:17 pm, Lex Spoon wrote:
> > Let me just add another contrary data point: I *regularly* screw up copy
> > and paste when working with Squeak on Windows. I had to force myself to
> > get used to Windows evil ctrl thingy, and I'm *constantly* going ctrl-v,
> > ctrl-c, etc. in Squeak. Worse when I'm trying to go between Squeak and
> > another program.
>
> Well, that's surprising, but I can't argue with it.  Still, what do you
> really suggest?  I rather like that Squeak behaves the same everywhere.
> It's already a nuisance that mouse buttons are different on different
> machines, and I'd really prefer that we don't add to the short list.

But it doesn't behave the same everywhere. Note that the Mac's Cmd key has no 
direct equivalent in the Windows keyboard. Mapping it to the Alt key ignores 
the Windows standard that reserves Alt for application specific mappings 
(except for the "window management" uses with the F keys) when you start to 
use it for standard operations like editing.

The Mac Cmd-X, Cmd-C, Cmd-V are standards for that platform, as are the 
Windows Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V for that platform.

It's really only in the editing keys that are standardized that there's any 
problem between the sets of keys.

Removing the conflicting definitions (i.e. making both  Cmd-C and a Ctrl-C do 
the same thing) might help, because we could maintain the same definitions: 
both Alt-C and Ctrl-C could copy on Windows boxes.

Why can't we just relocate the following Ctrl (or shift-Cmd) keys so they 
don't conflict:

$a	argAdvance:
$c	compareToClipboard:
$f	displayIfFalse:
$s	search:
$t	displayIfTrue: (only because of Ctrl-F)
$v	pasteInitials:
$x	makeLowercase:
$z	makeCapitalized:

Except for the possible use of Ctrl-S (find/replace again), none of these are 
likely to be heavily used by most people.

It is doubly frustrating that _some_ of the Windows editing keys work and 
some don't: for instance, shift-arrow, shift-control-arrow, etc. work the 
"usual" way on Windows, but Ctrl-C and Ctrl-X don't.

-- 
Ned Konz
currently: Stanwood, WA
email:     ned at bike-nomad.com
homepage:  http://bike-nomad.com




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