Re: Proposal: new default bindings for winner and windmove

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Dmitry.

On Tue, Jul 02, 2024 at 21:03:43 +0300, Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> On 02/07/2024 09:50, Juri Linkov wrote:
> >>> Thus, I don't think I see any compelling reason not to go ahead with
> >>> this change.  I would propose that we now start discussing the specifics
> >>> of how to go about doing that (patches, proposed alternative solutions).
> >> How's this?

> >> +@kindex C-x 4 LEFT
> >> +@kindex C-x 4 RIGHT
> >> +@kindex C-x 4 UP
> >> +@kindex C-x 4 DOWN
> > I can't believe someone might want to use such long key sequences
> > for one of the most frequent actions.  It's even longer than
> > 'C-x o' it's supposed to improve.  I think there are no better keys
> > for switching windows than arrows with a modifier.

> I'm going to ask a dangerous question: do people use the existing 
> bindings for "C-x <right>" and "C-x <left>"?

That's next-buffer and previous-buffer.  No, I don't use them, mainly
through not being aware of them.  They could come in handy, though, when
looking at N buffers in M windows, with M < N.  I've been in that
position quite a lot in the last few months.

Why do we not have next-buffer-other-window and
previous-buffer-other-window?  Why don't we have ....-other-frame?  I
think the likelihood that users have written such functions for
themselves and bound them to C-x 4/5 <left>/<right> is high.

This brings me back to my point about being careful about making default
bindings.  It would seem next/previous-buffer-other-window, whether yet
existing or not, have a greater claim on C-x 4 <right>/<left> than the
windmove functions... Also that we should preserve C-x 4 <up>/<down> for
the -other-window versions of some future C-x <up>/<down> commands.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).