GNU bug report logs - #1111
describe-key's key notation display inconsistency

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From: Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
To: Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se>, xah lee <xah <at> xahlee.org>
Cc: "1111 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <1111 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: bug#1111: [External] : bug#1111: describe-key's key notation display inconsistency
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2021 22:49:27 +0000

> This is now the case in Emacs 28, from NEWS:
> 
>     ** Modifiers now go outside angle brackets in pretty-printed key
>     bindings.
>     For example, 'RET' with Control and Meta modifiers is now shown as
>     'C-M-<return>' instead of '<C-M-return>'.  Either variant can be
>     used
>     as input; functions such as 'kbd' and 'read-kbd-macro' accept both
>     styles as equivalent (they have done so for a long time).

Unfortunate.

Should have instead made the manuals consistent
with the way Emacs has (forever) talked about
itself, if consistency was the aim.  (Internal
/ local consistency is always more important
than global consistency.

This will require at least some 3rd-party docs
(HTML, wiki, plain-text, whatever) to change,
where such bindings are explicit (not via
\\[...]).

And as I mentioned in this thread, it will
lead users to misread and confuse things like
`C-x <right>' with `C-<right>'.  There's
no such problem with `<C-right>'.
___

Beyond that, if the change is what was requested
by the OP, then it's a change in *Help* (perhaps
among other things).  And yet that's not even
mentioned in the NEWS.

What does "in pretty-printed key bindings" refer
to?  Users will rightfully wonder.  The manuals?
(No, they already used C-<right>.)  Output of
`pp' commands?  Messages?  Byte-compiler
warnings?  All of the above?  None of the above?

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