Is there no Keyboard Emulation support?

[ChodaBoy]

I was thinking of switching to UltraEdit, but I cannot find any support in the app for keyboard emulation (e.g. vi, BRIEF, Emacs, CUA, etc.) I did notice a way to change the current key mapping, but there seems to be no way to save key map sets. Also, there are no predefined key map sets.

I cannot imagine any programmer's editor that did not support this. This is a big show stopper for me.

Have I missed something in UltraEdit???

[Mofi]

Sorry, in my point of view I never understood why a program should have predefined key mapping sets of other programs. UltraEdit is UltraEdit and not Emacs or CUA. The available commands differ extremly.

As I have switched a long time ago from DOS Semware editor and the Borland Turbo C DOS editor to UltraEdit for programming I have first set the hotkeys as I like it and after 2 weeks of making heavily usage of the new key mapping I could not remember anymore how the key mapping was for the Semware editor. The human brain is extremly flexible and learns and automizes repeated actions extremly fast. I configure always the keys in all programs I frequently use to what I like and I don't have any problem with this strategy. Interesting is for me that I hit the hotkey of the commands without thinking about it when working with the programs. But if you would ask me which hotkey command X has, I could for the most commands not answer it, although I use the command X by hotkey daily. I even don't know for many commands how to execute the command from the menu. That is always funny when a colleague asks where a command in a program is and how to execute it. I often have to sit down and simulate normal work and execute the command and then think: OK, which keys have I pressed now for the command? The human brain is really a very interesting machine, isn't it.

[ChodaBoy]

The human brain does remember a remarkable amount of information. I, too, sometimes have to "go through the motions" to remember things such as telephone numbers. However, I do not agree with the attitude that something as personal as the actual keyboard interaction with an application, especially one with which a customer interacts for most of each work day, should not be as flexible and friendly for the user as possible. I especially disagree with a "one size fits all mentality" for nearly anything. I cannot imagine it would be too difficult to at minimum allow the user to save the keyboard mappings as "sets" to allow the user to easily and quickly change between them. I am sure the community would soon provide the default sets to match the popular editors (past and present). I, for one, do not appreciate being forced to learn new keyboard mappings for different applications that accomplish the same thing. Also, some computers are shared among colleagues or family members. I doubt you will be able to get them all to agree to the same keyboard mapping.

Ultimately, the authors of UltraEdit are, and should be, free to design it to work anyway they wish. I, too, am free not to become a customer.

[Edit: Readability.]

[Mofi]

Well, the key mappings are saved in a file with the same name as the INI currently used, but with the extension uek. So you can easily switch to another key mapping set by changing this file while no instance of UltraEdit is running. You only need to find a person which gives you an Emacs, CUA, ... key mapping file for UltraEdit. You can even use different key mappings for different files, if you use different INIs, for example by using the command line option /i="full name of INI". But I doubt, that you will find a person who has thought about emulating Emacs or CUA with UltraEdit and assigned as much as possible commands from that editors to the appropriate commands of UltraEdit. However, it's your decision if you want to use the best editor (for me, surely not for everyone) or not just because of missing predefined key mapping sets.

[ChodaBoy]

Your suggestion to change the INI is at least workable. Personally, I do not change keyboard mappings often while I am editing. However, if I need to switch sets so someone else can help me with a problem, then your suggestion should work. As far as the keyboard mapping sets, I am happy to share anything I create with the community.

Thanks for the information.