Re: Some developement questions

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: hw <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2018 21:48:06 +0200
> 
> > The Alt key does work, you probably have your keyboard misconfigured.
> 
> I found out less than a week ago that it now finally works.  It did not
> work for the first 25 years or so, beginning on an Atari ST.
> 
> Technically, it may have started working earlier and I didn't know
> because hadn't tried it for a long time because it hasn't been working
> for decades.

It worked for me for the last 30 years.

> >> Eli pointed out that window managers like to use the Alt key for
> >> themselves so that it never arrives at Emacs.
> >
> > Not Alt itself, some combinations that begin with Alt.  Like Alt-TAB,
> > for example.  There are very few such combinations, and Emacs avoids
> > binding important functions to them.  So I think explaining that in
> > the tutorial would not be TRT, as the issue is quite obscure.
> 
> I don't know, isn't that hard to say?  If a WM (or something else) were
> to use Alt+v for something, it might not work, or work intermittently,
> in Emacs.

We don't need to solve hypothetical problems, only those that happen
in practice.  In practice, only a small number of ALT combinations are
usurped by window managers, and they tend to be the same combinations
in all WMs, for good practical reasons.  We shouldn't expect that set
to grow or to usurp frequently used combinations, because that would
cause user outcry.