Re: Emacs Manual: G.5 Keyboard Usage on MS-Windows

[Lennart Borgman]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:14:09 +0100
> > From: Lennart Borgman <address@hidden>
> > CC:  address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden
> >
> > Ah, yes, sorry I did not see that the problem with M-TAB when Alt is 
> > used as meta is mentioned neither in the doc string for 
> > w32-pass-alt-to-system or in the footnote. I definitively think it 
> > should be mentioned in both places since that is a big problem. 
> >     
>
> M-TAB is not a Windows-specific problem, so it should be documented in
> the common part of the manual, if at all.  Then the Windows appendix
> could have a cross-reference to that description in the common part.
>   

It should be document IMHO, but it is not very easy to find a good place 
for it. I believe it is a problem that users get hit by right when they 
start to use Emacs. It irritated me very much in the beginning (before I 
wrote the patch to avoid the problem).  So from that point of view (info 
"(emacs) Intro") or maybe better a subnode of it would perhaps be a good 
place from the users point of view.

On the other hand I would perhaps prefer it in a node on its own right 
after "Intro", something like "Emacs and the platform GUI". This could 
list all the subtle differences. cua-mode could be mentioned for 
example, it is rather invisible now and of great importance to new 
users. Other problems with Alt, the Windows keys could also be listed 
there. How to stop execution (C-g etc) are things a new user does not 
guess. Pointers to them at least.

>   
> > And you can not either access the menus the way that is normal on w32, i 
> > e by first pressing the Alt key.
> >     
>
> ...
> What is missing or incorrect in this text?
>   

Oh, my mind was not there again. There are only subtle but irritating 
difficulties with that. As I pointed at somewhere when I began to use 
Emacs w32-pass-alt-to-system does not work correctly with StickyKeys. 
This is not mentioned but I believe it should be. Otherwise it only 
looks as if we are not aware of it.