Hello,
First off, I am
really enjoying playing around with NeXTSTEP, etc., in Previous. Thank you to andreas_g and whoever else has put in the work over the years (sorry, I'm very new to this scene and don't know who all the contributors are!) to make Previous what it is.
My question is, is there a way to make the "Delete" key not be mapped as the simulated power key? I hit the delete key often by instinct when editing text intending to "forward delete." This instead triggers the "Power: Do you really want to turn off the computer?" dialog box.
- I'd like for the delete key to not to this. I have a working F10 key, and in any event, I generally use the Workspace menu to "Log Out" when I want to power off.
- I'd really like my delete key to work as the "forward delete" key in NeXTSTEP. Is this possible? Would this just happen naturally if the power button mapping is unmapped?
I think I found possibly relevant lines in the file
src/keymap.c, but I want to get some informed thoughts and opinions before I start hacking in an ignorant and mostly guessing manner. (I'm not a programmer, more just a power user who grew up compiling things from tarballs on (GNU/)Linux, can write HTML and CSS by hand, and has dabbled just enough in programming over the years to know just enough to be dangerous modifying files in a source tree.)
I did search around a bit both in the forums here and in
readme.previous.txt, etc., and didn't find an answer to this question, so my apologies if this has been asked and answered somewhere else already, or if I just didn't read carefully enough, etc.
Have a great day!
Quote from: robertson on July 27, 2025, 01:53:33 PMMy question is, is there a way to make the "Delete" key not be mapped as the simulated power key?
In Previous's "Main menu" dialog box, click on "Keyboard" on the upper right. In the "Keyboard options" dialog box the third field shows the defined shortcuts. When you click on "Change" in there, a new dialog box named "Shortcut setup" pops up. Choose the Function you intend to modify with the arrow buttons and either assign a new shortcut, or just clear the existing one. Then click on "Define" and, last not least, "Done" to exit the dialog.
The amount of configurable settings provided via the main menu is just amazing and well worth exploring.
Hello robertson,
I am glad that Previous is useful for you! For a list of contributors see the readme file. I hope I did not forget to mention anyone. If I did, please PM me.
About your power key issue:
I mapped it to the delete key for two reasons: The position of the key is the best match to a real NeXT keyboard and the delete key is unused otherwise because the NeXT keyboard does not have a delete key.
Because some keyboard, especially those of Laptops, do not have a delete key I also mapped it to F10. These mappings are no shortcuts and are therefore not configurable.
Theoretically I could add an option to not map delete to the power key. Then pressing the delete key wouldn't do anything and you would have to use F10 if you want to use the power key. Would that be an improvement?
For what it's worth, NEXTSTEP doesn't support these keys on the i486 port either—you won't be able to use it in Edit, for example. By the grace of Microsoft, however, TextEdit in OPENSTEP 4.2 does actually support them... if the OS thinks your keyboard has those keys. There are a few minor discrepancies from how they should behave on Windows, but it's a lot better than no support at all.
Still no Num Lock or Scroll Lock support, though.
Wow, thank you for the replies, everyone.
Thank you, andreas_g, for the gracious offer to add a delete key mapping option. After reading your and Rhetorica's explanations, I'd say it's fine to just leave it alone for now. I will just remember that forward delete is not a thing in NeXTSTEP and do my best to refrain from tapping the delete button. :P
It's possible that I will get into a project involving much typing and text editing on OPENSTEP 4.2, but for now I'm doing most things in NeXTSTEP 3.3. If I get into this mystery project and find myself badly desiring a forward delete key, then I will perhaps bug you again for this configuration option, andreas_g, to see if I can get the OPENSTEP 4.2 forward delete feature working that Rhetorica mentions.
Thanks again, everyone!