Re: Semi-unhelpful error message given when trying to (provide 'CUA-mode)

[David Kastrup]

Jan Djärv <address@hidden> writes:

> Richard Stallman wrote:
>>> I have a patch for the X11 versions of Emacs that activates the menubar
>>> when F10 is pressed.
>>>
>>> Once you do that, how do you select a menu item from the menu? Is there a
>>> way to do that with the keyboard?  Or must the user switch to the mouse
>>> for that?
>>
>> You use arrow keys to navigate the menu and enter/return to select an item.
>>  Using the keyboard is the right thing.
>>
>> Some X toolkits have conventions for using the keyboard to activate menus
>> and menu items.  I am not sure what they are; do you know? To what extent
>> do they work with Emacs?  Is your patch coherent with them?  Could it be?
>
> The patch is coherent in that it implements opening menus on F10,
> which is standard for many toolkits.
>
> Another way to activate menus is with accelerator keys, usually Alt
> + the first letter in the menu entry (the letter in question is
> underlined in the menu).  That would be Alt+F for File.  On Mac it
> is the Command key instead of Alt, but the principle is the same.
> When a menu has been opened there may be more accelerators (like S
> for Save), so instead of using the arrow to navigate down to Save
> and then press RET, you can press just S or Alt+S to select Save.
>
> My patch does not implement this, but it is quite easy to do in
> Lesstif/Motif and Gtk+ (harder in Lucid).  The thing is to decide
> which accelerators to use and how to represent them in the current
> lisp menu structures.

tmm-menubar already picks accelerator keys.  It seems reasonable to
steal the choice from there.

At the current point of time, on 105-key keyboards, the "Menu" key on
Emacs puts up "M-x".  It might be reasonable to let this instead
access the menu.  After all, "M-x" is easy enough to type when the Alt
key is Meta, and Alt being Meta is rather desirable.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum