🚀 go-pugleaf

>>>>> On 4 Sep 90 21:57:37 GMT, slehar@BUCASB.BU.EDU said:

> I have been compiling a list  of complaints of  emacs features...

I had a few thoughts on some of these.

>   For instance  if  you do  a M-d  (delete  word forward)
>   followed by a  C-y (yank)  or  C-_ (undo) your  cursor is now on the
>   other  side of  the   deleted word.

In the case of C-y, I think this is a feature.  But I think in C-_ it's
a bug.  I've noticed that undoing deletes always seems to put the cursor
on the opposite side of the text than what I want.  So often, in fact,
that I suspect something was done backwards in the Undo code.

>   C-h is a  logical key for help  mode, but  unfortunately it is  also
>   defined as delete, or is it back space?

It's too late to change C-h, but it would help if a second standard
binding for "help" were invented.  Writing documentation I am forced
to say, "press C-h, or, if your system uses this for Backspace, then
whatever other key your system administrator chose for Help."

>   The delete  word command    M-d picks  the  strangest  criteria  for
>   determining separation between 'words'.

It may not be safe to change the semantics of kill-word since there may
be lots of Lisp code that uses it.  But it would be possibly to change
M-d's default binding to a new "smart-kill-word" and leave kill-word
the same.

>   Searching  forward with C-s  places  the  cursor  after  the string,
>   whereas searching backwards  with  C-r places it before the  string...

Hey, I *like* that behavior!

>   The combination of the  commands  C-x  .  (set-fill-prefix)  and M-q
>   (fill-paragraph) provide a   convenient approximation  to real  word
>   wrap   in a  word   processor.  There    is however a  philosophical
>   dichotomy in  the way it  recognizes  adjacent paragraphs.

An old editor I used ignored indentation when defining the bounds of
a paragraph.  It then kept the indentation of the first line the same
and used the indentation of the second line for all subsequent lines.
I found it to be more convenient than M-q.

>   The  delete-line command C-k  behaves differently for regular  lines
>   than  for  lines  consisting  of only  a  <CR>.

What trips me up is that C-k is smart enough to recognize a line containing
only whitespace.  Sometimes I know the whitespace is there and instinctively
type C-k to delete it.  Still, this feature might be worthwhile.  After
all, the M-\ command would have eaten the whitespace if I'd thought to
use it.

>   The undo command is very useful.  [But...]

The problem he described never happens for me, but I do agree it's a
nuisance not to have separate "undo" and "redo" commands.  I humbly
recommend looking at the way my Emacs calculator does this as an example
of a nicer mechanism.  In brief, Undo always goes backwards through
editing history, and Redo always goes forwards.  You cannot Undo past
the earliest recorded time, nor can you Redo if you have made any
changes since the most recent Undo.  (Note, this is *not* "pressed
any keys," but actually "made any changes.")

>   You can only have one keyboard macro at a time.

The "C-c letter" sequences are reserved for the user to define.  How
about a command to bind the current keyboard macro to one of these
keys?

								-- Dave
--
Dave Gillespie
  256-80 Caltech Pasadena CA USA 91125
  daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu, ...!cit-vax!daveg