Shared keybindings

[seventh guardian]

On 8/17/05, Claes at work <claesatwork at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The bottom line is that I think keys need to be configurable to suit
> > different environments and user habits. Deciding that some common key
> > combination MUST always be used for this and that will always create
> > new problems for someone I believe.
> 
> I also believe keys needs to be configurable, but I would prefer not
> remapping single conflicting keys in individual applications. It would
> be better if "modifier keyspaces" could be assigned, to avoid
> conflicting behaviour between WM/Application/legacy keybindings. Such
> modifiers could have standardized symbolic names, which are mapped to
> physical keys separately.
> 
> For example, the modifier key for application shortcuts would not be
> tightly coupled to Control. Perhaps toolkits and applications could
> check the environment for a specific environment variable to see what
> key should be used as the application "command" modifier (name
> borrowed from Mac here) , and if it is undefined, settle on Control_L
> or Control_R as default?
> 
> So setting "COMMAND_MODIFIER=Control_L||Control_R" would give current
> behaviour, and setting "COMMAND_MODIFIER=Super_L||Super_R" would give
> "non-conflicting" behaviour, using the Win key. On Mac hardware it
> could be mapped to whatever the Mac control key returns, and if you
> have Sun hardware, you can use something else.
> 
> It may seem like a bad idea to introduce more configurability, but I
> see this suggestion mostly as a transition mechanism. If such a check
> was built into software from now on, perhaps in two years time it
> would give a consistent behaviour if this variable was changed?
> 
> Claes

I like your idea, and I believe some WM's already can do that (well,
fvwm can do almost anything..), so there shouldn't be no problem
implementing a "test system".

Also, kde, for instance, currently offers a configurable interaction
scheme. So windows users can use the windows shceme, while unix users
can use kde shceme, etc. That could be extended to support the
proposed modifiers definitions.