[eclipse-devel] Implementing Ratpoison's keybindings

Luca Capello luca at pca.it
Thu Dec 29 18:08:37 UTC 2005


Hello,

I'm new to this list, so hello all!

I recently switched to Eclipse from Ratpoison, but I'm missing two
things: a tiled behavior for some programs (like Emacs) and commands
activated by a specific escape key.

While the former is being worked on by Matley (see post [1]), I'd like
to (try to) implement the latter.

For those who don't know Ratpoison [2] (and the Common Lisp clone
StumpWM [3]): in these WM, you aren't supposed to use a mouse and
every command is prefixed with an escape key (by default C-t),
followed by another key or a key-combo.  And this is exactly what I'd
like to have on Eclipse.

The problem is that AFAIK Eclipse doesn't accept a serial key-combo,
like C-t t. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I thought about different ways to implement this and I'd like some
comments about them.

1) Define a new escape-modifier key and a define-escape-combo
   function: every time you press the escape-modifier, it waits for
   another key-combo (and C-g stands for "abort", as in Emacs,
   Ratpoison and StumpWM).  Off by default, this option can be
   activated in the ~/.eclipse as a variable use-ratpoison (or
   similar).  Some Ratpoison's default key-combos will be offered,
   thus letting Eclipse to be a complete Common Lisp Ratpoison
   substitute (when Matley will have finished the tiled windows
   support).

2) Modify the key-input layer and add the serial key-combo support.

While the second solution seems the less invasive, I prefer the first
one and I started to implement it before stopping and asking myself if
there were better solutions.

Which one is The Right Thing (TM)? :-)

BTW, I'm a lisper newbie, so don't expect bug-free code.

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

[1] http://common-lisp.net/pipermail/eclipse-devel/2005-December/000112.html
[2] http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/
[3] http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 188 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mailman.common-lisp.net/pipermail/eclipse-devel/attachments/20051229/4997a936/attachment.sig>


More information about the eclipse-devel mailing list