Re: [Docutils-users] New version of rst.el

[Stefan M. <sm...@oe...>]

Hi Ben and all!

Yesterday Ben Finney wrote:
>> Key bindings changed
>> ====================
>> 
>> According to Emacs standards the old key bindings left no room for new
>> commands. I decided to rebind most keys to have two keys after the
>> leading C-c so there is room for new commands.
> 
> By my reading, that means most commands use three keys in total (leading
> C-c plus two keys). Is that right?

True.

> If so, I don't see why that's been done. Isn't the point of a leading
> C-c to make the key combinations not clash with Emacs built-ins? Surely
> the C-c prefixed commands should be mostly two keys total, no?

There is an Emacs internal standard that major modes should use only
certain key bindings:

  * Sequences consisting of `C-c' followed by a control character or a
  digit are reserved for major modes.

  -- (elisp)Key Binding Conventions

I'm trying to follow this convention. For major modes this means that
there are only ~36 possible key bindings with a single key. Since for
feature rich major modes like reST mode this is pretty few and leads
to meaningless and thus hard to remember key combinations there needs
to be another solution. Using two keys is the best I found so far.
Also this is not unusual - see for instance the history of key
bindings of MH-E.

I know rebinding keys has a high user impact. I hate it myself. But I
think there are enough reasons to do it and I do my best to make the
shift as smooth as possible. If someone comes up with a better
alternative which also complies with the Emacs conventions I'm happy
to implement this.

BTW: I'm also in the process of becoming a regular Emacs developer so
I can maintain rst.el in the main Emacs development as well. But so
far I tend to maintain the upstream version here since the feedback
here is much better.


						Grüße

						Stefan