Re: Newsreader: Best of the bunch?

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Date: 19 Oct 2005 16:44:47 -0700
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

Steve Lamb wrote:
> furufuru@ccsr.u-tokyo.ac.jp wrote:
> > and paste part of a webpage into your test file---all without
> > touching the mouse and all with the same standard emacs
> > shortcut-key combinations.
>
> None of that described is unique to someone who has taken
> the time to learn the keystrokes or are using other CLI applications.
> I saw nothing in there that I didn't do regularly with screen,
> pine/mutt, nn/slrn, lynx/links and joe/vim in my heavy cli days.

That's a good news. So, you have to learn only one set of
key combinations, for example, to select a region of a text,
jump to another window, and paste the text into it, right?
Is that a vi-like set of shortcuts? If I can use a common
set of shortcuts (for same functionalities) for emailing,
text-editing, and webbrowsing (the three most important
activities of my daily work) and if I can jump around among
these three capabilities using the same keystrokes without
touching the mouse, I would equally or better be satisfied.
(I have to do part of webbrowsing separately from emacs
 because emacs doesn't do graphics well.)

> Shortcut keys should be different from application to
> application. One presumes that the functions are different
> so should the keys involved in invoking them.

Of course! But, I'm talking about COMMON functions such as
selecting regions of text, copying it to the clipboard, pasting it,
jumping to another window, saving the current file, searching
through the text, jumping to the end of the current line, closing
the current window, etc. You want to use the same keystrokes
when you search a text, jump to the top of the line, and copy
the line in the mail summary window as when you search, jump,
and copy a part of your source code in a text-editing window.

> Only an extremely small percentage of functions are generally
> universal and should have a universal binding.

Exactly. And that small percentage is what you use most
frequently in your daily life. At least this is true for me.
(Do you know how many times I jumped to the top or end of the
 lines while composing this text?)

> > That's why I CANNOT switch text editors. Fortunately, I don't
> > want to, for the moment. :)
>
> Speaking as someone who has switched no
> less than 6 times in his lifetime and switches several times
> a day I can only see that as a huge hinderance.

Hindrance to what? Perhaps you work very differently than I.
I don't have a motivation to switch editors, so I don't know
what problem is there in not switching editors.

Finally, I'm not advocating emacs. I just want to stick to
a single set of keystrokes for common functionalities
as much and far as possible. And the less use of the mouse,
the better. If I find a better solution, I'd love to switch
to it; I'd have to learn a fresh set of key combinations
but that'd be worth it if it takes me farther than emacs does
now. (Another important requirement is that the keys shouldn't
be far from the home position. I hate to use arrow keys,
for example. My keyboard even doesn't have ones!)

Cheers,
Ryo

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