Re: feature request for stand-alone info

[Gavin Smith]

On Sun, May 14, 2017 at 12:48:06PM +0200, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > I looked at the Lynx web browser and it uses Up and Down for both 
> > scrolling and moving between links. It will only scroll if there are 
> > no
> > more links on the currently-displayed part of a page.
> 
> Yes, another infuriating interface, because it is unobvious how to
> scroll the screen just a few lines.  Only after looking at help,
> one learns about ^N and ^P, but those are awkward to type for just
> a little scrolling.  And: they get stuck when they land on an input
> field.  Argh.

Good, so we don't need to worry about implementing such a thing, at 
least not until there is some indication there would be a lot of demand
for it.

(Funnily enough, I got stuck on the input fields too when I was trying 
Lynx out!)

> > > The best would be to let scroll-behavior affect also also the down-line
> > > and up-line commands, and bind those by default to the arrow keys.
> > 
> > This would be an easy change to make, but some people might hold down 
> > Down to go to the end of the node but not want to go to the next node.
> > Any change could be confusing and disorienting for people who are used
> > to the current behaviour.
> 
> The current default behavior (no options, no .infokey) already /is/ that
> <Down> passes across node boundaries, so there won't be any surprises
> there.  This change was made a few years ago, and nobody complained,
> so I doubt anyone will complain about down-line and up-line getting
> more "far-reaching".

Good point; no keys are bound to 'up-line' or 'down-line' by default,
so making it possible for them to scroll across node boundaries wouldn't
break anything except maybe for people who are using --vi-keys or who 
have set up their own .infokey file, and they can probably deal with it 
anyway.

I'm still not sure about changing the default bindings for Up and Down,
because I expect many people would not use Tab to move to the link they
want, and would be used to holding down Down until the cursor is on the 
link they want to follow, before pressing Return. It's not that 
inefficient to do things that way, and such people might feel lost when
the page scrolls instead.