Re: Using windows keys for Emacs META on w32

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Juanma Barranquero wrote:
> On Jan 23, 2008 5:37 PM, Lennart Borgman (gmail)
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > I will try to. In fact there was a bug in the patch I sent, but since no
> > one has said something about it I guess no one has tested it.
>
> I was planning to do it, but I agree that fixing the "rough state" is
> a good idea.

Thanks anyway.

> I must say, though, that it seems too complicate a patch for such a
> small benefit. Or I don't understand what you're trying to do (that's
> another distinct possibility :)


I do not know if it is complicated by itself. The low level keyboard 
hook, which is the heart of the patch, is very straight forward. Then I 
tried to follow the same structure as was used before in the w32 message 
handling. (BTW that really made me wish that the different threads, GUI 
and main, were marked in the source.)

But after that I discovered that there was a bug in the menu handling 
that could result in what you typed to open a menu could go to the 
buffer instead. You do not notice that bug unless you let windows handle 
the Alt key completely.

After this there was the bug in accessibility sticky keys handling.

The patch also makes the handling of caps/num lock a little bit better 
(though I do not know the consequences of this).

But the main gains are of course:

- Beeing able to use the Alt for menus (required by some accessibility 
guidelines if I remember correctly).
- Using M-Tab for completion

Can't remember if it was anything more now. Eh, yes, I remember one 
little thing more: Beeing able to have a meta key at all if you want to 
use Alt for the menus - and you use Viper ...

I also have a little file to easily change the setting of META (lwindow, 
rwindow or alt).

What I want to is get rid of the patches. It is unnecessary work to have 
them outside of core Emacs and they would be useful IMO in Emacs.