C70:editor-people (06/12/82)
>From cak@Purdue Sat Jun 12 00:55:42 1982
A number of people have recently mentioned (in passing) that
the default bindings of ^N, ^P, ^F and ^B are a lose. I can't say
that I disagree, but everyone here has learned to live with them;
certainly the hjkl of vi can't be adopted, so what alternatives
do people use?
chrisC70:editor-people (06/15/82)
>From cbosg!cbosgd!mark@Berkeley Tue Jun 15 02:30:28 1982
Re Chris Kent's claim that hjkl of vi can't be adopted:
Of course, you can rebind any EMACS key to anything. If you want
to set up a moded editor (which I'm sure is possible but is probably
awkward in many dialects of EMACS) you can use hjkl. If you don't
want a moded editor, you can do what the rand editor does: use
^H^J^K^L. After all, this is where the convention comes from - these
control characters moved in the indicated direction on the adm3a and
its descendents. ^H and ^J even conform to the ASCII standard!
Of course, EMACS wants backspace to be destructive, so there is
an issue there. In insert mode you want backspace to be destructive,
in command mode it should be an arrow key. In a modeless editor
you've got a problem.
I have used the Rand Editor some, even though my home editor is vi,
and I found the control HJKL convention very easy to get used to,
since all I had to do was hold down control, and then use regular
cursor motion keys ala vi.
Mark