Re: Some developement questions

[hw]

Juri Linkov <address@hidden> writes:

>>> It's important to understand that changes which would make life easier
>>> for you may well be making life harder for existing users.  Changing
>>> established key bindings (which have been in muscle memory of many
>>> users for literal decades) is a big deal.
>>
>> Yes, I'm not suggesting to remove existing key bindings for this, only
>> to add Alt+left and Alt+right to go back and forth in info buffers.
>
> It's so unfortunate that due to historical reasons we can't provide
> intuitive and convenient keys for Info navigation <M-left> and <M-right>.

Why can't that be done?  Who would use word-wise movement while reading
info documents?  It's not like users of Emacs do not use web browsers.

> Long time ago I configured to use Mozilla-like navigation where <M-left>
> goes back in history, but <M-right> goes forward in history unless
> point is on a link in which case it visits the link.  And like in
> Lynx-like navigation, <M-down> and <M-up> move point to the next/prev
> link, and when there are no visible links on the page, scroll to next/prev
> page.

sounds good

> Maybe as some packages like windmove allow customization of modifiers
> for their keys, Info navigation keys could be provided with a
> different modifier like <S-left> and <S-right>?

What would be the point of adding another key binding nobody knows
about?  It could be used for word-wise movement perhaps.

>> Users may prefer reading documentation in a web browser for at least two
>> reasons: Navigation is easier, and the browser can have Tabs.  This is
>> kinda only one reason, but can Emacs have Tabs?
>>
>> If Emacs can have Tabs and show its documentation with all the ease a
>> web browser can, life would be much easier for many users.
>
> Do you mean frame-local or window-local tabs?  Frame-local tabs are now
> easier to implement since we have side windows, but I'm still not sure how
> a side window can be created above an individual window to contain its
> window-local tabbar?

I mean tabs like in a web browser :)

Unfortunately, web browers do not have windows.  That doesn't mean that
Emacs could not have web-browser-like frames which do not allow windows
--- and info documentation and manual pages could be displayed in them.