Sorry if this has been discussed before; I couldn't find it.
x11/gtk+2 and x11/gtk+3 include a patch to change the default
keybindings to "emacs". The decision can be traced back to 2005:
Revision 1.1, Wed Sep 7 20:51:14 2005 UTC (15 years, 10 months ago) by kurt
Branch: MAIN
make emacs the default key theme. this will make the standard ^U, ^A, ^E
etc emacs commands work by default for gtk+2 apps. orig from pvalchev@.
okay marcm@
16 years later, I wonder if it's worth revisiting this decision.
For my part, I'm strongly opposed to it, but I'm just some user who
occasionally contributes. Still, if you'll hear them, here are my
arguments:
1. This seems to create some confusion, at least for firefox users, e.g:
https://www.reddit.com/r/openbsd/comments/4aj3rb/how_do_i_turn_off_emacs_line_editing_in/
https://mas.to/@adnan360/106589261557989696
It certainly confused me, until I found the solution through some
persistent Google searching.
2. Even if I were clever enough to trace the Firefox issue to gtk+3,
the gtk+3 package README does not describe the problem.
I'm happy to submit a patch to the gtk+3 README, but in my opinion
this will not solve the confusion, because it's far from obvious
that one should check the gtk+3 REDAME if one's Firefox keybindings
are behaving strangely.
3. I generally don't expect ports to adjust behaviour without a good
reason. Users have strong expectations about the behaviour of gtk+
applications (well, Firefox) based on what they've seen on other
platforms. If you want emacs keybindings, you can edit your own
config file.
--
James
