Re: [Nano-devel] [PATCH] possible new feature: allow binding a key to a string

[David Ramsey]

Benno Schulenberg:
> I don't see why it should be "instead".

Agreed; I misphrased it.  Sigils would be an option instead of a
complete replacement.

> The sigils will have to be translated to key values anyway for things
> to work, so... having raw keycodes in the string already will work
> fine too.

Point.

After thinking some more, I've changed my mind somewhat on the urgency
of sigils.  Adding sigils will make any macros defined in a nanorc
portable across different keybindings, but they'll also lessen the
ability of such macros to insert text (at least in a simple manner).  If
the sigils are like what Brand came up with, such as "${replace}", how
would the user insert a literal $, {, or } in a macro without making
parsing the string much more complex?

If the user can do it inside nano, but not inside a nanorc, that's a
problem in itself.  Lack of portability is an issue, but loss of
flexibility is one too; if I had to pick only one to avoid, the latter
is worse.  The former should ideally be fixed, but it's a question of
exactly how to do it.