--- In squeak at yahoogroups.com, "Daniel Altman" <Daniel at q...> wrote:
> Hi Pravin!
> 
> There are two preferences, one that swap Ctrl<-->Alt  and the other 
one that
> duplicates those common functions to be used also with the Ctrl key.


Just yesterday I was questioning the fact that I use 'alt' all the 
time in Squeak.  I had a vague memory of switching the keys a year or 
two ago - but why did I return back to using the 'alt' for command? 
simple laziness?  NO

I looked back at some emails 
(http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2001-
October/029494.html) about this issue and see that the Squeak 
shortcuts are preserved so that tutorials and other write-ups are not 
broken.   An example might be, "highlight the code, x, found in the 
class comment and hit alt-d to open and start PWS server".  So 
someone using the ctrl-d switch would not figure out this out?  The 
actual comment in PWS just says "Then do: 
	PWS initializeAll. "
Why would most the code say alt-d anyway? At worst it would 
say "command-d", I believe.  (how much documentation like this is 
there anyway?  Documentation is not really formal around here anyway -
 so it should not constrain important things like the keyboard 
interfaces).


I don't think there are that many places where instructions say to 
use "alt-d" or "alt-p"  or "alt-b".  Ok - also it says properly 
switching alt/ctrl would make too many platform dependent assumptions 
or something.  I don't understand this reasoning.

>From anyone's first experience they are going to be 
confused.  "switch alt/ctrl" sounds like a toggle.  So, these special 
cases are confusing (ex. found in the table here 
http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/898).  That is why I returned to 
just using alt for everything.  Its all or nothing - its too 
confusing to do a bunch of select-all/copy/cut/pastes/submits and 
then switch over to alt-d.

I am sure I could make better use of my time coding the proper 
ctrl/alt toggle into my preferences - but the reason why I've gone to 
this length of effort is that I think any first-time users are going 
to be annoyed and turned off.  Many people are not as flexible as the 
typical Squeak afficianado.  I am always asking myself why friends 
and colleagues view Squeak as an inferior environment, why they 
aren't sold on it like us. Well, probably some arbitrary cosmetic 
issues like this are responsible for it. In summary - I think the 
ruling in place is arbitrary and unintuitive.  

Now - the only argument that I will be willing to accept is that the 
standardized alt shortcuts help to break the conventional mindset of 
Windows thinking, and that by relearning your keyboarding skills will 
also cause you to forget previous inferior biases from years of false 
hypnosis by a decadent paradigm --- starting back to the bare 
intrinsic development potentials....  but I think I may be dreaming 
up things now! I need some guidance here - thanks!

Regards,
Webb