Should edit text fields support emacs bindings on Linux?

[CelticMinstrel]

For example, Ctrl+A to move to the beginning of a line, and Ctrl+E to move to the end of a line.

The full table of actions that would need to be covered is documented in a comment here:

cboe/src/dialogxml/widgets/field.cpp

Lines 307 to 325 in 702fcec

	Function | Mac | Windows
	-----------+-------------------+-------------
	Home | Home, Cmd-Left | Home
	End | End, Cmd-Right | End
	PgUp | PgUp, Alt-Up | PgUp
	PgDn | PgDn, Alt-Down | PgDn
	To Top | Cmd-Up, Cmd-Home| Ctrl-Up, Ctrl-Home
	To Bottom | Cmd-Down, Cmd-End | Ctrl-Down, Ctrl-End
	Word Left | Alt-Left | Ctrl-Left
	Word Right | Alt-Right | Ctrl-Right
	Word Del | Alt-Delete | Ctrl-Delete
	Word Back | Alt-Backspace | Ctrl-Backspace
	-----------+-------------------+----------------------
	Cut | Cmd-X, Shift-Del | Ctrl-X, Shift-Del
	Copy | Cmd-C, Cmd-Ins | Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Ins
	Paste | Cmd-V, Shift-Ins | Ctrl-V, Shift-Ins
	Select All | Cmd-A | Ctrl-A
	Undo | Cmd-Z | Ctrl-Z
	Redo | Cmd-Y, Shift-Cmd-Z| Ctrl-Y, Shift-Ctrl-Z

Currently the Windows set is used on Linux. If emacs bindings were used, they'd probably replace that set at least in part (since Ctrl+A has a different meaning in the Windows set).

[NQNStudios]

Interesting idea. I haven't used Emacs in 3ish years and I lost the muscle memory for the Emacs hotkeys and I probably wouldn't use them in BoE. I don't know how standard their support is across Linux applications and whether Linux users expect them to work everywhere. I just checked and my terminal emulator supports them, which does indicate they might be a staple of the Linux experience.

But on the other hand, Firefox treats Ctrl+A as Select All (same as windows) and I see myself using that more than I use the Home feature.

We could evaluate the need for this similarly to the need for localization--a question of who's going to pick up BoE these days and use the editor enough to care what the hotkeys do. On the other hand if we did want to do it, it would be much more trivial than localizing the whole code base.

[x-qq]

Emacs keybindings would be somwhat surprising and unusual, even in a linux version, so I do not think they are necessary as long as the windows ones work. I cannot think of a single GUI application that supports them out of the box.