[comp.windows.ms] MS Windows interface.

jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) (03/28/91)

OK this is sort of programmer related, and sort of interface related.

Does anyone know how editing keys are implemented? Do programmers just
plug in anything they feel like doing? Does Windows provide routines?

I ask this because it would seem very useful to a user if there were an item
in the control panel: something like "editor keys" where you could tick off 
whatever you like; this way every program would call a DLL or something to 
perform certain tasks, and the editor keys for EVERY program would default
to what YOU want. I know Microsoft publishes guidelines, but isn't it still
at the whim  of the programmer to conform to them? And while a standard
interface
is great, I am not 100% certain Microsoft should dictate(suggest?) the
"standards".
That is the user's territory.

Stylistically I like this idea: it is far more object oriented;
basically 
a program shouldn't have to know anything about editing. It should
blindly
call routines that do the job. The routines actually doing the work
would
know whether to behave like EMACS, or Wordstar, or WordPerfect.

Of course programmers could still ignore a user's settings. They do it
all the
time; lots of programs format dates and numbers any old way, even though
you
configured everything in the control panel. However, maybe programmers
would
use your settings if they didn't have to do any extra work on it.

jpm
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 John Paul Morrison                     |
 University of British Columbia, Canada |
 Electrical Engineering                 |    This Space Intentionally
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 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca                     |
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