Re: Does gnu emacs have the equivalent of Xemacs mouse-track-insert

[Tim X]

dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs) writes:

> In article <87sk8586ss.fsf@rapttech.com.au>,
> Tim X  <timx@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
> ...
>>>
>>
>>Or just use system -> preferences -> keyboard shortcuts
>>
>>There are a number of 'default' gnome keyboard shortcuts I get rid of
>>because they either interfere or use valuable mappings I like to use for
>>emacs, such as alt-tab, some of the function keys and a few others.
>>Using the GUI interface, its quite easy to replace any WM shortcuts you
>>want to keep with some of the rarely used keys that are less likely to
>>interfere with emacs, such as super/hyper (those 'extra' keys usually
>>between Ctl and Alt, often with a windows logo etc). 
>
> Please, in detail, what do you do to avoid getting screwed by
> gnome (when using emacs).  (Also, outside of emacs).
>
Um, not really sure exactly what your concern is. Once I remove/change
the Gnome keybindings as described above, I don't have any problems with
Gnome and emacs. In fact, I'd say none at all. In what specific way does
Gnome screw with emacs apart from key binding conflicts, which 
are easily resolved.

It should be noted that in reality, some of those keybindings that you
can modify/remove with the System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
menu option are actually window manager keybindings and not Gnome
keybindings. Keep in mind that Gnome is not a window manager. If you use
a different window manager with Gnome, it may not have the same level of
integration with Gnome that metacity (a common default wm), so you may
have to modify some keybindings via whatever method that specific window
manager supports. As metacity has good integration, you have easy access
to modify its key bindings via the gnome interface.

> I'm dreading having to go to gnome -- on Solaris 10 I'm
> still managing to use the familiar (and nice) CDE.
>

Then maybe KDE would be a better alternative for you?

> One of these days, Solaris 11 maybe, no CDE will be
> available, so Sun/Oracle will force gnome down everyone's
> throats (throat or throats?).
>

Possibly, but many other things are also possible. Who knows what Larry
is going to do. I suspect his focus will be on the server side rather
than the desktop side. He is no open source advocate - he will use it
and promote it if it has potential to increase his bottom line, but
there is definitely no strong open source commitment running through his
vains. My guess will be that unless he can see real commercial benefits
to continuing a commercial version of Solaris, he will just drop it and
leave its development to be lead by the open Solaris community or they
will focus on the server side and leave the desktop environment
development tot he open source community. 

I don't see what the issue is with Gnome. In my experience, all of these
differences are minor and most of it is just 'fluff'. I avoided Gnome
for quite a while because it was too resource hungry and was still a bit
immature. However, now we have much faster CPUs, cheap memory and cheap
storage, all the resource issues are pretty much irrelevant. Gnome has
also matured somewhat and provides a well integrated environment. Its
not perfect, but it is as good as any other environment I've used. 

Given that your familiarity is with CDE, which I've not used since Sun
OS 5.4/Solaris 4.6(?), I'd expect KDE might be an alternative that would
be more comfortable for you. Its a long time since I used KDE, but it
was the most similar to Sun's CDE of all the desktops I've used, with
the possible exception of Red Hat's CDE implementation, which, at the
time, I thought was a very nice environment despite the numerous, but
mostly trivial, bugs. However, it failed to take off and was dropped
pretty quickly. 

Tim
-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au