Re: When should we put @key inside @kbd?

[Michael Albinus]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

Hi Richard,

> I have brought in the Texinfo maintainer, and Karl Berry, a TeX wizard
> who knows Texinfo well too, I hope they can help us decide what is
> right to do here.
>
> The question that presented itself was, when we want to talk about one
> keyboard key, should we put @kbd around @key?
>
> The practical difference is that @kbd causes the word inside @key
> to appear slanted (in the oblique font).

At least in HTML output. On other output formats, it might be formatted
differently.

> That question raises a broader question.
> Under what circumstances do we want the @key name to be slanted,
> and under what circumstances do we want it not to be slanted?
> We need to work out a style rule for this.  Once we have the style
> rule, we can decide how to implement it.
>
> @key is always for keyboard input.  Are there two kinds of cases of
> mentioning keyboard keys that we would want to distinguish by slanted
> vs non-slanted?

I don't believe that @key is always for keyboard input. It is "the
conventional name for a key on a keyboard" (quoted from the texinfo
manual). That means, it is not bound to any input, typed on the
keyboard first hand.

In a broader sense, it is used also to describe such characters
independent from keyboards, like this sentence from the Emacs manual:
  
"@code{esc-map} is for characters that follow @key{ESC}."

On the other hand, @kbd is used "for characters of input to be typed by
users" (also quoted from the texinfo manual). That means in my
understanding, when such a special key is typed, we shall mark it like
@address@hidden

> Or is it better if @key always looks the same?
>
> Maybe we should change the definition of @key so that
> it uses the same font regardless of whether it is inside @kbd.
>
> If we do that, we have two choices of how to do it: always use the
> slanted font, or always use the normal typewriter font.  Which is better?

I believe it makes much sense to indicate input to be typed. Whether it
is slanted font or something else doesn't matter, but it shall be
visible.

Best regards, Michael.