the ctl-c, ctl-x and ctl-v. for cut copy and past are used bu myself
when editing very, very much. and the old system of shift delete shift
insert is much more cumbersome to myself and other editors( people who
edit.)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: WirtAtmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 1998 2:15 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: QCTerm 0.5 (long)
>
> Stan writes:
>
> > > [The control keys that have come to new PC programs have become]
> > > the Macintosh's "command key" functions (for which there is no
> > > equivalent key on a PC's keyboard) have come to the PC and have
> > > very quickly become the new standard.
> >
> >  How about the ALT key?  That's precisely what it's for!
>
> A surprising number of people have written me privately and suggested
> the same
> thing. Unfortunately, it's not true -- and you can demonstrate to
> yourself
> that it's not in just an instant.
>
> The ALT key is by Windows default associated with the pull-down
> menuing
> structure. More importantly yet, it takes on its various definitions
> in a
> hierarchical fashion. ALT+T may mean one thing at the base menu level,
> something completely different once you're in the ALT+T-invoked menu,
> and then
> something different yet again in the next layer's submenu.
>
> The CNTL key is handled significantly differently by Windows. It is
> not
> hierarchically menu dependent. It means the same thing everywhere
> within the
> window where it has been defined. In that regard, it's much more
> similar to
> the Mac's command key than it is to the PC's ALT key -- and I'm sure
> that that
> is the reason why everyone from Bill Gates on down has adopted the
> CNTL key as
> the new modifier of choice.
>
> However, the collective comments have convinced me to allow a mode
> where the
> alphabetic keys, when modified with a CNTL key, can be either be (by
> user
> setting) transmitted on to the host or (by default) take on the new
> standard
> definitions that occur in Excel, Word, Netscape, IE, and a thousand
> other
> programs nowadays.
>
> Again, I believe that it is important to design the product for the
> people who
> are most likely to be using it. In this case, our target audience is
> the
> business user. Nonetheless, since yesterday's posting, I asked five
> more
> people, all of whom populate this list and thus can't truly be
> considered to
> be our primary target, how many of their applications programs that
> they run
> utilize control-code keys to activate any portion of their
> applications'
> behavior. The answer was -- as well as anybody could come up with on
> the spur
> of the moment -- is the same answer that we got in our first survey:
> none.
>
> It's the old-style, host-based editors that tend to use control-codes
> as
> behavior controllers. If you're not a developer or a code-stitcher,
> you're
> very unlikely to ever see a control-code requirement. Nevertheless, a
> simple
> configuration switch would seem to solve everybody's concerns, and it
> will be
> in the next release of QCTerm.
>
> Unfortunately, the ALT key is not the answer, in part because of the
> way that
> Windows handles it, but especially so now that all other programs have
> chosen
> the CNTL key.
>
> Wirt Atmar