Re: PROPOSAL: Repurpose one key and reserve it for third-party packages

[Philip K.]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

> "Philip K." <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> [1:text/plain Hide]
>>
>> Gregory Heytings <gregory@heytings.org> writes:
>>
> ...
>>> That reminds me the famous "640 kb should be enough for anyone" ;-)
>>> Indeed, 26 letters is not enough.  Magit has three global commands, 
>>> Org-mode has three, and Bookmark+ has three keymaps.  With just three
>>> packages you've already used 35% of the available keys.  I hope you 
>>> understand that it can't be a long-term solution.  Moreover, AFAIU,
>>> packages cannot automatically bind their commands to C-c LETTER keys 
>>> anyway: these keys are strictly reserved for users in their personal
>>> configuration files.
>>
>> I think that's the pessimistic way to look at it, the optimistic one
>> would be to say that you only need 35% of the key-space. I don't have a
>> feeling for how many global keys people bind by default, one would have
>> to study public configurations to find out. But I still remain sceptical
>> that -- compared to memory usage -- that need for keys is rising that
>> much.
>
> Remember prefix keys here.  A user can define a prefix key anywhere in
> the region reserved for users.
>
> The manual says:
>
> "A small number of keys are reserved for user-defined bindings, and
> should not be used by modes, so key bindings using those keys are safer
> in this regard.  The reserved key sequences are those consisting of
> ‘C-c’ followed by a letter (either upper or lower case), and function
> keys <F5> through <F9> without modifiers (*note Modifier Keys::)."
>
> It does not ban using those keys as prefixes.  I can make <F9> a prefix,
> then I have the full keyboard to play with once again once I've pressed
> F9.

Sure, but if we are assuming that packages either automatically or
semi-automatically bind keys, they would have to mutually respect their
prefix keys. The guideline would have to be that e.g. C-α [letter] has
to be a map, and that package are only allowed to bind keys to these.

Also, I don't think package developers would want to comply if they had
to use a less ergonomic key such as <F5-9>, undermining the entire plan.

> BR,
> Robert Thorpe

-- 
        Philip K.

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