[Cuis-dev] modifier keys

[Juan Vuletich]

Hi Luciano,

The thing is that "Alt" and "Command" are actually the same key! 
Keyboard hardware for regular PCs and Macs is electronically equivalent. 
For instance, click on the first picture at 
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/shop/p/mx-mechanical . The 3 keys at the 
bottom left are [ctrl] [option|start] [command|alt] , with dual PC/Mac 
names engraved on them.

The decision here is between being more consistent with the platform, or 
making Cuis more consistent with itself, regardless of the platform. The 
use of Morphic, and not a platform specific UI toolkit suggests the 
second option, and it has been what we have done so far.

In any case, on Text Editors things like cmd-a and ctrl-a behave the 
same, both doing "select all". That's the easiest way to make it 
consistent for everybody, but that wastes key combinations!

But we can change that.

I guess it could be useful to start with some concrete examples that you 
think should behave differently than they do today. Can you suggest a few?

Thanks!

On 2026-01-14 4:35 AM, Luciano Notarfrancesco via Cuis-dev wrote:
> In Cuis we are equating the Command key in Mac with the Alt key in PC. 
> I think this is wrong, the convention for multiplatform applications 
> is to identify Command in Mac with Control in PC (although Mac also 
> has Control), and Alt is identified with Option (they are used to 
> modify the behavior of the hotkey or gesture, i.e. to provide an 
> alternate action or a second option in addition to the primary action).
>
> Is there a good reason for this in Cuis? Does Squeak do something 
> different? Should we change it to make it more consistent with 
> conventions?
>
-- 
Juan Vuletich
www.cuis.st
github.com/jvuletich
researchgate.net/profile/Juan-Vuletich
independent.academia.edu/JuanVuletich
patents.justia.com/inventor/juan-manuel-vuletich