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#247 Ctrl+A for select-all

open
5
2012-08-16
2012-08-08
No

Tk binds Ctrl+A to start-of-line instead
of select-all, which many other applications
do. See:
<http://www.computerhope.com/shortcut.htm>

Suggestion: Introduce a virtual event
<<SelectAll>>

Discussion

  • Jan Nijtmans

    Jan Nijtmans - 2012-08-09

    Proposal committed to frq-3555324 branch. It makes use of the
    virtual-event changes from bug-3555644. I'm not saying we
    should grant this (See Tcl bug 3554051), but I we do, this
    is how.
    <<SelectAll>> is anyway more readable than <Control-slash>,
    whether we bind it to <Control-a> or not.

    Jeff, your opinion about this please. I don't think that many
    people know that <Control-slash> selects everything,
    <Control-a> seems much more common.

    Or, should a TIP be filed on this?

     
  • Jan Nijtmans

    Jan Nijtmans - 2012-08-15
    • status: open --> pending
     
  • Jan Nijtmans

    Jan Nijtmans - 2012-08-15

    For Windows the situation is rather clear: Many
    other applications use Ctrl-A for this, besides, the
    current function of Ctrl-A is <Home>, while all
    Windows keyboards simply have a <Home> key
    which does the same.. So, committed that
    part to trunk.

    For Unix, the situation is less clear. Do all
    keyboards in use there have the <Home>
    key? Besides, there is an alternative:
    Ctrl-slash, and Ctrl-A conflicts with other
    Emacs-like bindings.

    So, for now, keeping it as-is on UNIX.

    Other opinions? What to do with this?

     
  • Joe English

    Joe English - 2012-08-16

    Jan -- before you merge this to trunk, better run it by tcl-core first. I get the impression that there are a lot of Tcl users (even on Windows) who would be very unhappy to lose their Emacs bindings.

    Overall I think the move towards more virtual events is a good direction. (Just wary of incurring the wrath of Emacs people :-)

     
  • Jan Nijtmans

    Jan Nijtmans - 2012-08-16

    >(Just wary of incurring the wrath of Emacs people :-)

    Yes, I'm aware of that. After Tk8.6b3 is out, I plan to
    send a poll on Tcl Core, but a little more general
    than that. For example, on Mac, the emacs-like
    bindings changed from using "Control" to using
    the "Command" key. That's useful, because
    then there is no conflict any more between
    <SelectAll> (Control-a) and <Home>
    (Command-a), and it's following the Apple
    documentation. But it could be made
    switchable as well.

    For Windows/Mac I'm not that afraid: It's the
    Microsoft/Apple documentation against
    the legacy implementation ;-) And, now
    that we have virtual events, it's easy
    to get the emacs bindings back. On Windows, just:
    event delete <<SelectAll>> <Control-Key-a> <Control-Lock-Key-A>
    event add <<LineStart>> <Control-Key-a> <Control-Lock-Key-A>

    We even could introduce a variable ::tk_strictWin32,
    set to 1 by default, which arranges that, similar
    to the current ::tk_strictMotif on UNIX. But let's
    wait for 8.6b3 and then the poll.

     
  • Jan Nijtmans

    Jan Nijtmans - 2012-08-16
    • status: pending --> open
     
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