Re: Shift Tab should move backward in help buffers

[Luc Teirlinck]

Lennart Borgman wrote:

   Luc Teirlinck wrote:

   >And it would be useful to have a keybinding that works by default,
   >even when not using a window system.  <S-tab> does not; by default, it
   >usually gets translated into <tab>, so it moves forward, not backward.
   >  
   >
   Is the problem that Emacs can not see <S-tab> on all systems?

The problem is this, form `(elisp)Character Type':

     The case of a graphic character is indicated by its character code;
  for example, ASCII distinguishes between the characters `a' and `A'.
  But ASCII has no way to represent whether a control character is upper
  case or lower case.  Emacs uses the 2**25 bit to indicate that the
  shift key was used in typing a control character.  This distinction is
  possible only when you use X terminals or other special terminals;
  ordinary terminals do not report the distinction to the computer in any way.

and, from `(emacs)Named ASCII Chars':

     With an ordinary ASCII terminal, there is no way to distinguish
  between <TAB> and `C-i' (and likewise for other such pairs), because
  the terminal sends the same character in both cases.

So, from the console and from `emacs -nw', <tab>, <S-tab>, C-i and
S-C-i are indistinguishable.

`emacs -nw' is important to people with a slow connection, because
just emacs without `-nw' over a slow connection is just way to slow to
be usable.

Sincerely,

Luc.