Re: [tlug] KDE 3.2 in SId, but...

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "patrick" == patrick niessen <patrick.niessen@example.com> writes:

    patrick> The thing that I have noticed since switching to OSX this
    patrick> year was that you use Keyboard shortcuts a lot in
    patrick> addition to the mouse.  This is better implemented than
    patrick> anywhere else, because it is so consistent across
    patrick> applications: Function+N always creates a new window,
    patrick> function+c always copies, function+x always deletes.

That turns out, uh, not to be the case.

It's just as well implemented in Motif (since 1985 or so), where it is
called "virtual keysyms."  Now, in Motif as in MacOS, every vendor
invented their own virtual keysyms, and bound them to assorted real
keysyms.  The difference is that in MacOS sizeof(every) == 1, while
for Motif sizeof(every) < ULONG_MAX, but not by much.

Oh, yeah.  Apple enforces this by providing the GUI in a library; you
get it all for free if you use their library, but it's a world of pain
to do things any other way.  Heck, in InterfaceBuilder you even have
the IDE whine at you if you put a button 1 pixel too close to the edge
of the dialog.

The only free software that has done a half-decent job of this (for
more than a quarter-century now) is Emacs.  I suppose GNOME and KDE
are probably coming close in the last couple of years, but you'd have
to ask somebody who can bear to use them.

Hip!  (That's one cheer for monopoly.)

-- 
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