From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Mar 26 07:24:19 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA15349 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 26 Mar 1997 07:24:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA15338 for ; Wed, 26 Mar 1997 07:24:15 -0800 (PST) Received: from rover.village.org [127.0.0.1] by rover.village.org with esmtp (Exim 1.60 #1) id 0w9uXw-000540-00; Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:23:28 -0700 To: Andrew Gierth Subject: Re: Backspace = ^H Cc: brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk, brian@utell.co.uk, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org In-reply-to: Your message of "26 Mar 1997 13:18:40 GMT." <877miussen.fsf@erlenstar.demon.co.uk> References: <877miussen.fsf@erlenstar.demon.co.uk> <5h2c01$4i2@reader.seed.net.tw> <5h6e83$1mk@ui-gate.utell.co.uk> <5h8905$lj1@ui-gate.utell.co.uk> <87g1xkqe8d.fsf@erlenstar.demon.co.uk> <5h9m3l$1ih@gurney.zeta.org.au> <199703261154.LAA11351@shift.lan.awfulhak.org> Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:23:27 -0700 From: Warner Losh Message-Id: Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In message <877miussen.fsf@erlenstar.demon.co.uk> Andrew Gierth writes: : >>>>> "Brian" == Brian Somers writes: : Brian> I'll co-ordinate with : Brian> Jordan (the maintainer of the emacs port) a patch to change : Brian> the default help key binding to ^x^h (now that's gonna cause : Brian> some "controversial" arguments!) - assuming he agrees. That's a *BAD* Idea. *DO*NOT*CHANGE*EMACS*DEFAULTS*. Emacs may be broken, according to some of the more "religious" members of this group, but that's how it works. Don't make me relearn how to use emacs because some people have religious problems with DEL vs BS. Emacs works the way that it works, and if you don't like it, change it in *YOUR* .emacs file. But don't force it on me when I build from the ports/editors/emacs. At best you should mail Jordan a .emacs file snippet that can be included somewhere convenient so those people that want it can use it. : Please don't do this until you have reviewed the prior debates on comp.emacs : as to future directions of the help key binding. The issue is less : straightforward than you are assuming. Yes. While you "can" change emacs's notion of ^H vs ^?, it won't work in all contexts. Having tried to go that route several times myself, I can only say that too many packages know too much about the default bindings and won't really let you change them. My "final" solution for emacs was very simple. I put the following in my .Xdefaults file. XTerm*vt100*translations: #override \n\ BackSpace: string( 0x7f )\n and hacking my console keymap to do the right thing, imho, (that is the key labeled <-- generates DEL and the Delete key generates BS). I also have stty erase ^? in my .files. Every other solution that I tried to come up with pissed me off because they didn't work everywhere. Please note: I'm not suggesting changing the defaults for FreeBSD. It too works the way it works :-). Warner