Re: ESC vs Meta for shifted keys

[Bob Proulx]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
> The ESC <-> Meta equivalence only holds for characters, not for
> "special keys" such as `left`, indeed.  Not sure why.

It seems to work for me.  Using C-h c to describe keys in both a
terminal and a graphical emacs shows:

  ESC <left> (translated from ESC M-O D) runs the command backward-word
  <M-left> runs the command left-word

left-word                     <M-left>, <C-left>
   Move point N words to the left (to the right if N is negative).
backward-word                 ESC <left>, M-b
   Move backward until encountering the beginning of a word.

I presume this is to support:

    11.6 Shift Selection
    ====================

    If you hold down the shift key while typing a cursor motion command,
    this sets the mark before moving point, so that the region extends from
    the original position of point to its new position.  This feature is
    referred to as "shift-selection".  It is similar to the way text is
    selected in other editors.
    ...

I imagine that the keybinding ESC <left> mapping to backward-word
instead of left-word is the root cause of the difference.  WDYT?

Bob