From xemacs-m  Sun Jun  8 10:35:24 1997
Received: from mercury.Sun.COM (mercury.Sun.COM [192.9.25.1])
	by xemacs.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA29335
	for <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>; Sun, 8 Jun 1997 10:35:23 -0500 (CDT)
Received: from Corp.Sun.COM ([129.145.35.78]) by mercury.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr) with SMTP id IAA28327; Sun, 8 Jun 1997 08:54:15 -0700
Received: from legba.Corp.Sun.COM by Corp.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-5.3)
	id IAA20878; Sun, 8 Jun 1997 08:35:48 -0700
Received: by legba.Corp.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4)
	id IAA17057; Sun, 8 Jun 1997 08:35:46 -0700
To: Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr>
Cc: Glynn Clements <glynn@sensei.co.uk>,
        XEmacs Developers <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
Subject: Re: XEmacs 20.3-beta4 ("Warsaw") is released
References: <m2u3jc762w.fsf@altair.xemacs.org> 	<kigd8pzgwip.fsf@jagor.srce.hr> <199706070246.DAA00568@cerise.sensei.co.uk> <kigenafruh6.fsf@jagor.srce.hr>
X-Attribution: GDF
Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.108)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
From: Gary.Foster@Corp.Sun.COM (Gary D. Foster)
Date: 08 Jun 1997 08:35:46 -0700
In-Reply-To: Hrvoje Niksic's message of "07 Jun 1997 04:56:53 +0200"
Message-ID: <bcienadm7jh.fsf@corp.Sun.COM>
Lines: 46
X-Mailer: Gnus v5.4.56/XEmacs 20.3(beta4)

Hrvoje,

If I understand your keyboard correctly, setting delete-erases-forward 
to 't on your keyboard *should* have had absolutely no apparant
effect, because of the x-keysym-on-keyboard checking.  It should have
been doing a check for the presence of your backspace keysym and not
found one.  Consequently, it should erase backwards instead no matter
what you set it to.  In tty mode, I can't do the xkeysym check, so it
completely honors your request to erase forwards and doesn't try to
protect you from yourself like it does in X mode, but I think I'll
finally be able to do something about that behavior once the keyboard
character event handling is shaken out to our satisfaction.

However, I'm basing this assumption on a guess that you *have* a
delete keysym and do NOT have a backspace keysym.  Is this the case,
or do I have it reversed?

Because if you *HAVE* a backspace keysym, I think changing the binding
from "\177" to 'delete for this behavior (the delete key) will change
the behavior that you're perceiving, as well as making it more
consistent across everything.  This was the next step that I was
planning on taking, as per our discussions via email, and I'll get a
patch to you today.  I meant to get it patched before b4 hit the
streets, but couldn't quite manage it.  I'm downloading the b4 patches
via my slip link to home, now, so perhaps I can get the patch done
after breakfast.  I'll definitely need some feedback on how it works
for you, though, since I don't have access to a keyboard like yours
for testing.

As for the name of the variable, I personally think
'delete-erases-forward' is much more descriptive than
'delete-is-backspace'.  Using the second one implies that pressing the
delete key is the same as pressing the backspace key, which is *not*
true at all.  Using the first one clearly states which direction and
which behavior you expect when you press the key with the 'delete'
printed on it.  Since there is some confusion that arises due to
delete _keysyms_ and such versus the actual _key_ labeled delete, it
could probably be changed to something like
"delete-key-erases-forward" but I'm not convinced completely that it's
necessary.

I will agree that the function invoked (backspace-or-delete) is
probably misleading, though and, in retrospect, I should probably
name it something a little less ambiguous.

-- Gary F.

