Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!silver!seiffert
From: seiffert@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Kurt A. Seiffert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: diskless NeXT? (was Re: Announc
Summary: No need for function keys. Fonts & option keys do that.
Keywords: NeXT, key
Message-ID: <2727@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Date: 27 Nov 88 16:49:35 GMT
References: <4575@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <37800001@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: seiffert@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University BACS, Bloomington
Lines: 40

In article <37800001@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu> leein@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu writes:
>
> ...  What I think the NeXT keyboard is missing, or what
>the NeXT people should think,  is the
>function keys.  Don't say "What?".  In technical word processer, we,
>engineers or scientists (I am not CStist) need math keys, Greek keys, Script
>keys, italic keys, and bold keys.  And the best places for
>activating those keys are the function keys.
>
>
>                                Hugh

I haven't had any hands on experience with the NeXT yet, but
judging from the demo I saw there is no need for function keys. NeXT
seems to have adopted the Mac style of handling things like bold and
italic. You merely type something like command-B for bold. Or you
could select the items to be in bold and then the keystroke. (There
are probably menu equivalents as well.)

For Greek symbols and such an alt or option key can supply
many of those. In the Mac things like the summation sign are right at
your fingertips with something like option-E for sigma. If the
particular symbols that you want are not available, switch to a
different font, like Symbol font for the Mac. Fonts will map a
different graphics representation on to a given code. So by switching
fonts you can have letters that look like Old English or something out
of Startrek or even ruins and symbols.

Postscript Display means WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You
Get). The need for function keys to get other types of commands is
handled by the mouse. 

Kurt A. Seiffert
Indiana University, Bloomington

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