Subject: RE: bug#5040: 23.1; w32-register-hot-key problem

From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2011 07:16:31 -0700

> On one hand, Drew is right that if it works with 21.X and 22.X, it
> should work with 23.X+.

Correction: it works with 20 and 21, not with 22 or 23 (or 24).

And it works in all versions after just the first M-TAB.  It is only the first
M-TAB in Emacs 22+ where it does not work.  Why not at least look into why this
might be?

Emacs apparently *knows* how to make this work - it works forever after the
first M-TAB, and in Emacs 20 and 21 it works even for the first M-TAB.  It's not
like this is something Emacs doesn't know how to do correctly - it's that a bug
was introduced to break it.

> On the other hand, Lennart's right that Alt-Tab is reserved and, to
> make it work reliably it would be necessary to write a low level
> keyboard hook.
> 
> On the third hand, alt-tab role in Vista and Windows 7 is enhanced and
> it does not make much sense to try to bypass it and go against the
> system (not that it does not make any sense, just not worth the effort
> IMHO). So I'm closing this one.

I don't know anything about Vista or Windows 7, so I can't speak to that.

That MS Windows "reserves" something is not in itself (i.e., alone) a reason
that Emacs should respect that "reservation".  There is nothing new about MS
Windows using M-TAB, and nothing new about Emacs using M-TAB.

And to use it in Emacs, Windows users must explicitly do (w32-register-hot-key
[M-tab]).  That's a user choice, not Emacs's choice or Windows's choice.

The bug remains.  And AFAICT no one has even looked at it (why does it happen?
what change introduced the bug?).  There has only been argument over whether
Windows officially permits Emacs to do something it has always done.  There is
nothing in this bug thread apart from the bug report recipe and frothing about
how Emacs shouldn't disrespect Windows's "reservation".

Why the zeal to "close" bugs that remain bugs?  This bug has never even been
investigated.  If there is insufficient manpower to look into this bug, then
leave it open.  Or if Emacs Dev is certain that it should not fix it (why?),
then change it to `wontfix'.  It is a bug nonetheless - and a regression no
less.