rationalize / prune and document editor keybindings

[pq]

The Ace editor ships with A LOT of keybindings on by default [1]. A few conflict with browser ones which some folks find annoying and in general the sheer number is potentially overwhelming -- and makes assigning sensible ones for the things we actually care about hard.

To remedy, I propose we:

• [ ] identify a core minimal set of keybindings that we care about
• [ ] remove the rest
• [ ] document what we care about

Thoughts?

@ngwese @jlmitch5 @tehn

[1] A quick tally (var key in this.editor.keyBinding.$defaultHandler.commandKeyBinding ...) gives us ~120 (including the 3 we've added). Sheesh!

EDIT: running through them, some of the bindings aren't commands exactly, things like HOME and DELETE, so it's not as bad as all that. Still, it's a lot more than folks know or care to know about.

[pq]

Oh, and as we head into supporting editing modes like vim and emacs, whatever we do should minimally play nice; ideally make those modes better!

[jlmitch5]

If we can do this in a way that allows us to pull in ace like we currently are, and then somehow omit the keybindings we don’t want, I think that would be a maintainable way we can do this.

What I think may be potentially difficult is forming and maintaining our own version of ace.

If the reason we are specifically omitting certain bindings is because they can conflict with browser bindings, then they should be omitted across all modes.

[pq]

Agreed. We can remove bindings programmatically (editor.keyBinding.removeKeyboardHandler(...)) so no need for any heroics. Modes are a real wrinkle and I need to do some investigating. Getting modes right in general will be key to making the editor useable for opinionated typists which I'm guessing a bunch of folks out there are!

[jlmitch5]

@pq there will be an editor.json file as part of the pr for #10

I'm thinking that we could add an omitBindings: object or array to that the editor can use. that way, users can edit it if they want.

[pq]

@jlmitch5 : that's awesome! i'd want to stabilize a bindings "API" if we went this route and would want to do a little thinking before making it available but it's a great idea if this is something that folks ask for. (ideally though we get this close enough to just right that they won't need to!)

[pq]

@jlmitch5 : what's the format for editor.json ? late to the party i realize, but did you consider extending something pre-existing like editorconfig? that might be nice if folks want to edit the same directory in another editor. i don't have strong feelings; just curious!