Comment by cbolton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cbolton | Hacker News Reader

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What is app detection?

Regarding poor key binding support, I think that's not really a problem in modern applications. Quoting https://gpanders.com/blog/state-of-the-terminal/ :

> Sending key presses as escape sequences requires that terminal applications are able to recognize and parse those sequences, so it is not something that “just works” out of the box. However, the kitty keyboard protocol has been widely adopted by both modern terminal emulators and terminal applications. Terminals which support the kitty keyboard protocol (to some degree) include Wezterm, Alacritty, kitty, foot, Ghostty, and iTerm2. Applications which support the kitty keyboard protocol (to some degree) include Vim, Neovim, Helix, kakoune, and nushell. This means that when using one of these applications in one of these terminals, all of the key encoding problems discussed above (as well as some others which were not discussed…) are solved.

At least I indeed saw no such issue using helix in wezterm for example.

App detection is being able to tell which app you're using, e.g., knowing that you're using Helix and not just WezTerm

Poor key binding support is still a problem despite the optimistic quote (and might last for one more generation given the snail speed of progress). For example, the kitty protocol isn't "comprehensive" despite its dev's claims: it doesn't support left vs right modifiers and also some non-standard modifiers that are used to circumvent this limitation (only hyper)

> At least I indeed saw no such issue using helix in wezterm for example.

I think helix still doesn't support even the full kitty protocol, e.g., the Windows key.

And I do see these issues since I'm using richer keybindings to make input more ergonomic.

The kitty protocol not supporting your stupid made up usecase does not make it non-comprehensive, despite your claims.

Instead of calling everything you don't understand stupid you could just make some effort to comprehend

I did and I comprehended that you want left and right modifiers to be different. The rest of the world disagrees with you. That does not give you the license to go around maligning other people's work.

You're too limited in your perspective to speak for the rest of the world, for example, you had no clue that the bigger part of the OS world - Windows - doesn't disagree (though that failed to become a learning opportunity).

So there is enough better design in the world to call out lack of comprehension in both other people's work and other people

Name one windows application used by more than 10 people that supports independent left and right modifier keys used as modifiers. One application. Just because the windows API for some inexplicable reason exposes those states. Meanwhile let me name some of the most popular applications in the world on Windows that explicitly dont support this.

1) Chrome 2) Edge 3) Microsoft Word 4) Windows Explorer 5) Windows command prompt and windows terminal 6) VLC 7) LibreOffice 8) Every terminal emulator under the sun 9) Firefox 10) Pick any windows application at random

Just because you WANT left and right modifiers to be different doesnt make it a good idea. Learn that.

> Name one windows application used by more than 10 people

Even though you've tried to limit yourself to basically 3 apps by different vendors (what a shallow view of the app world), and even though you've included some awful browsers that don't even allow users to rebind default(!) keybinds (are you going to argue now that this is also good and just because I WANT to change keybindings, it's not a good idea and your imaginary world disagrees?), and the platform so bad at keybinding support that it requires a whole new pseudo-comprehensive keyboard handling protocol, you've still managed to step on a huge ignorance landmine - Chrome, on Windows, supports differentiating left vs right modifiers via a browser extension!!!

There are others, but let that sink in - your #1 example fails you...

> Just because you WANT left and right modifiers to be different doesnt make it a good idea. Learn that.

It's an excellent idea for other reasons, but you're not capable of engaging in a substantive discussion, so you instead make up arguments and insults

Sure I can patch any software to do anything I want. Which is what an extension is doing. I can patch any software I want to treat the A key as a modifier too. Still doesnt make it a good idea. And my point remains, Chrome, unpatched, does not support left and right modifier keys as modifiers. Not to mention I dont actually believe you. Post a link to this supposed extension of yours. I am guessing you wrote it and only you use it. And if you want to call the browsers used by 99.9999% of the population terrible in favor of some shit you cooked up yourself just to try to rescue your ridiculous point, good luck to you.

I'll just leave you with this promise, anytime you try to denigrate the kitty keyboard protocol I will be right there calling you out.

You're of course wrong again about everything :)

Extension isn't a patch, and it wasn't your point, you're just making you new conditions up because your previous attempts to build a safe condition box failed to save you

But if you want to find out the extension you'd have to search in that other thing available in a browser 99.9999% are using, it sometimes helps even the most ignorant of those!

So I'll leave you with that and ignore your future trollish defenses of a "cross-platform" terminal not working on the biggest platform and "comprehensive" protocols excluding Japanese modifiers and sides

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