[Cuis-dev] modifier keys

[Luciano Notarfrancesco]

Interesting, perhaps they do that in that mechanical keyboard because Alt
and Command have commonly the same position in the keyboard? But they are
conceptually different keys, and mechanical keyboards usually have firmware
that can be set to Mac or PC mode with a keystroke, and changes the flags
that the modifier keys set in the HID codes sent to the computer, right? I
see that mostly Alt is identified with Option, not Cmd. See for example the
Alt page in wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_key
Or Apple documentation:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uikeymodifierflags?language=objc

I think the use of the keys in Cuis is a good tradeoff, I’m not proposing
to change the editor shortcuts or any shortcuts that people are used to
(and they are user-configurable anyway). But I’d like to have more
consistent access to modifier keys across Mac and PC, and use them properly
in my software following UX best practices and conventions. For example the
tracker I’m developing, as most trackers, is very keyboard-oriented, and
with good and consistent keyboard mappings the workflow can be very smooth
and you can program songs super fast. I’d also like to use mostly the same
shortcuts that Renoise uses in both Mac and PC. That’s why lately I found
the need to both primary and secondary hotkeys, that are usually
implemented with Command and Option on Mac and Control and Alt on PC. So I
need separate access to modifier keys.

I think we can actually do this in Cuis without disrupting the existing
mapping. What confused me was the idea that we shouldn't use the Option key
in Cuis because it's not portable, and the fact that the VM translates Alt
as Command in Windows. Looking at the VM source code for each platform, I
see we have the following modifiers in Cuis/Squeak: Control, Command,
Option, Shift. This follows Mac naming conventions, but it is internally
consistent in Cuis even in Windows platforms. What the VM does in Windows
is to map Alt to Command, Control without Alt to Control, and Control+Alt
to Option. This is why Alt seems to be the same as Command, they are not
originally the same, it's just a translation made by the VM. So I don't
think the Option key should be forbidden as "unportable", and we could use
it more freely to have richer hotkeys and gestures. For example, instead of
rawMacOptionKeyPressed I think it should just be called just
optionKeyPressed, and remove warnings or references to Mac regarding the
Option key because it is actually a Squeak/Cuis modifier key. Same for the
Command key, currently the selector commandAltKeyPressed seems too
platform-specific, I think calling it just commandKeyPressed would be more
appropriate for Cuis (it is the internal Cuis modifier key, not the
platform key). What do you think?






On Wed, Jan 14, 2026 at 22:05 Juan Vuletich <juan at cuis.st> wrote:

> 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
>
>
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