Date:         Sun, 8 Nov 92 22:22:00 PST
From:         William Bodiford <IBFBWMB@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Hazarding the Customs
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.notabene

Sarah Higley
   Re:  "the help program can't find its path to my reconfiguired directional
keys . . ."
   Did you also reconfigure directional keys in the HELP section of the
keyboard table?  I haven't had time to install NB4 yet, but in NB3 at least
it is labeled:  table=MENU+CTRL+SHIFT+ALT
   I cannot speak from experience, but I assume that this section assigns the
key values to be recognized by the help program.
   Good Luck.  --William Bodiford (ibfbwmb@uclamvs)

------------------------------TEXT-OF-YOUR-MAIL--------------------------------

> Date:         Sun, 8 Nov 92 23:58:29 -0500
> Reply-To:     Nota Bene List <NOTABENE@TAUNIVM.BITNET>
> Sender:       Nota Bene List <NOTABENE@TAUNIVM.BITNET>
> From:         "Sarah L. Higley" <slhi@TROI.CC.ROCHESTER.EDU>
> Subject:      Hazarding the Customs
> To:           "Mark J. Pisaro" <IABOSPI@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>,
>               William Bodiford <IBFBWMB@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>,
>               Mark Infusino <IJA4MHI@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>,
>               "SHIRLEY ARORA ILX3ARO@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU" <ILX3ARO@MVS.OAC.UCLA.E
DU>
>
> Well, I've been there and back.  Nothing like some healthy experimentation.
> The x/ switch does work, and I was able to move my editing commands from
> the arrow/number keys to the control-alphanumeric keyboard, but I would
> warn anyone trying to do the same that there are some not so obvious pitfalls.
> I'm still trying to straighten them out.  Perhaps someone could give me some
> much needed advice.
>
> The delicate thing is that I am moving functions that ask for alternate
> keyboards (like ov,l,r; ov,l,c etc.) to the arrow keys and this has proved
> somewhat treacherous.  For one thing, these keys are not really recognized
> in the unshifted table, so that while hitting PgUp now gives me the beautiful
> Greek keyboard, once in Greek, hitting 7,Home does not restore me to English.
> The keyboard in Greek will recognize the edit commands now transferred to
> ctrl e,f,d, etc., but not the commands in the unshifted (what do you call it?
> the default?) keyboard for the arrow/number keys, so you're stuck.  What I
> did try, for I was expecting this difficulty-- you look at the nblingua.kbd
> layout and you see that the arrow/number keys all have duplicate commands in
> their default states-- was to go in and change each 7,Home key for Slavic,
> Greek and Hebrew to ov,r,l, but this was a dismal failure and confused my
> keyboard so thoroughly that F9 seemed to think it was a block delete.
> Scrapped that-- reloaded my keyboard and this time redesignated ctrl [ as
> ov,r,l-- and VOILA, it worked.  I thought I was home free.  Here is what
> I didn't foresee: in redesignating the command functions on the number/arrow
> keys, I seem to have blocked the smooth operation of the F1 help windows.
> I flip into Help and try to push the menus down the line with the remaining
> gray arrow keys-- you know, the ones between your enter key and the arrow/
> number keys-- and they beep, shudder and freeze.  Essentially, they won't
> budge.  They take their commands, somehow, from the functions assigned to
> the arrow/number keys.  Why they won't respond to the gray arrow keys is
> what I am asking you experts.  Nor will they respond, of course, to my
> new directional keys, ctrl d and ctrl s.
>
> Sigh.  It looks as though trying to strip the arrow/number keys of their
> original functions was a mistake.  I may have to find room on the ctrl
> alphanumeric for about twelve displaced control keys.  With all this
> reduplication of key functions, this is exasperating.  I have the gray
> arrow keys which do the same as the arrow/number keys.  But they aren't
> the same, obviously, to the help program.  The help program can't find
> it's path to my reconfigured directional keys in control mode, but I can't
> figure out why the gray keys won't work.
>
> I will probably have to resituate all the functions I moved to the arrow/
> numbers to places on the control alphanumeric-- I said that; I'm repeating
> myself in my fatigue, here--; I've noticed what looks like some redundancy
> in some of the commands.  Ctrl P and Ctrl M do exactly the same thing, it
> seems, as Ctrl Gray +, although they are configured differently.  Can I
> remove some of these commands if they are indeed redundant?  Those of you
> who know the keyfunctions well; what keys can I get rid of?  Ctrl Y and
> Ctrl D both seem to delete blocks.  Control Z (44=ov,r,g) doesn't seem to
> do a thing.  Didn't someone ask about this command earlier?  Can I delete
> it?  What is it supposed to do and why isn't it doing it?  I think there
> are enough semi-colons making room for me, but barely.  I might have to
> make some tough decisions, here, but I wouldn't want to end up disabling
> something else further down the line, and not knowing what it is I had
> done.
>
> Thanks in advance.  I believe, that if this gets all its parts
> put into strategic places, it can be pure MAGIC.
>
> Sarah Higley