Unifying Keybindings in different modes

[Robert Winkler]

Hi, As new sup, but experienced vim user, I relatively quickly understood the 'modes' concept (although a short Wiki article would be helpful for novices).

However, it is confusing to me that the same key could have different meanings in different modes. As well, some keybindings seem redundant and increase complexity. E.g. '.s', ',s', ']s' are related to spam, but 's' could also mean 'save message'. 'S' is used for marking spam in one mode, and for searching contacts in a different mode.  

My suggestion would be to unify the keybindings in the different modes - i.e. to define more global keybindings - and to use unique ones where needed. Some keybindings are more confusing than helpful in my opinion. Thus, one option could be the definition of 'keybindings sets' (e.g. 'minimal', 'full') and/or an curses-menu for activating/ disabling keybindings (ideally, with custom entries). 

Best regards, 

Robert 

[Iain Parris]

Hi Robert,

Excerpts from Robert Winkler's message of 2020-07-16 08:32:04 -0700:

> Hi, As new sup, but experienced vim user, I relatively quickly understood
> the 'modes' concept (although a short Wiki article would be helpful for
> novices).

The "New User Guide" wiki page is how I originally learned the common
keybindings:
<https://github.com/sup-heliotrope/sup/wiki/New-User-Guide>. It is quite
well-hidden a guide though. (Had you seen this wiki page?)

The other useful key (that I use reasonably often even now) is "?",
which will display the key bindings for the current mode.

> However, it is confusing to me that the same key could have different
> meanings in different modes. As well, some keybindings seem redundant and
> increase complexity. E.g. '.s', ',s', ']s' are related to spam, but 's'
> could also mean 'save message'. 'S' is used for marking spam in one mode,
> and for searching contacts in a different mode.
>
> My suggestion would be to unify the keybindings in the different modes -
> i.e. to define more global keybindings - and to use unique ones where
> needed. Some keybindings are more confusing than helpful in my opinion.
> Thus, one option could be the definition of 'keybindings sets' (e.g.
> 'minimal', 'full') and/or an curses-menu for activating/ disabling
> keybindings (ideally, with custom entries).

I completely take your point on overloaded keybindings being confusing.
The spam vs save (and "s" vs "S") has tripped me up too in the past.

I'm afraid that a curses menu for configurable keybindings is probably a
bigger new feature than Dan & I would be looking to add to Sup, though.

For modifying/unifying keybindings, though, I wonder. For example,
potentially, capital-S for "Spam" could be changed to be the new default
in all modes (rather than mixing "s" and "S" for "spam" in different
modes), and that would also avoid the clash with "s" for save. I don't
have any strong feelings on this, and hadn't considered it before.

Any thoughts on this Dan?

Kind regards,
Iain