Re: [dev] [dmenu] Putting key combinations in config.h

On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, markus schnalke wrote:

> [2009-10-21 14:48] Peter John Hartman <peterjohnhartman_AT_gmail.com>
>> On Wed, 21 Oct 2009, Colin Shea wrote:
>>> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 1:15 PM, Peter John Hartman <peterjohnhartman_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Can we put the various keybindings used in dmenu
>>> in config.h rather than dmenu.c?
>
>>> But more
>>> generally most other suckless apps have the keybindings in config.h, so why
>>> not dmenu?
>
>>> As I stated, it would be better than a parameter passed to dmenu on the command line.
>
>> 1. I'm glad we agree on the config.h vs. argument-from-commandline vs. dmenu.c question.
>
> Do we really agree? At least, I do not, and I hope you don't also when
> you read this mail.

I guess not! We agree at least on the first part: that it should be in
/either/ dmenu.c or config.h and not passed to it from the commandline.
Fair enough.

> Dwm is a very personal program which everyone tailors to his needs.
> Here configurable shortcuts are of much value and do not conflict much
> with other users/different systems.
>
> Dmenu, on the other hand, is a quite generic program which sould be the
> same everywhere. If people start configuring the key strokes, one needs
> different dmenus for different users on one system. Also, one may not be
> able to use dmenu on a different machine. That's to avoid, for sure.

[snip]

> Dmenu should be seen like grep or sed -- a standard tool that works the
> same everywhere.

I'm not convinced that dmenu shouldn't have keybindings right out in the
open and in config.h. I do, at least, see your point. (A better analogy
would be 'less'. Imagine instead of q quiting out of less someone hacked
up a variant that had r quit. O the pain!)

However, I do see the real need to configure at least the keybinding I
mentioned before, namely, the Esc keybinding. In a lot of cases, it is nice
to bind the exact same key which opens the menu to the close menu function,
e.g.\ in the case of the "Windows" key, or in my case, the Super_R key; and
in some cases Esc might not be the best guy for the job (although I prefer
having both Esc and the Super_R key precisely because other users will get
upset.)

I'm not sure if I have a positive solution. If there aren't any other cases
when it would be useful to fiddle with the default keybindings, then we
probably shouldn't bother. But maybe I'm not being creative enough?

Peter
Received on Wed Oct 21 2009 - 22:55:37 UTC