Ctrl+K Q (quit) is asking wrong question, the behaviour is opposite as it should be:
Now it is:
File (Unnamed) has been modified. Save it (y,n,^C)?
This is serious UX bug, as now the answer "y" saves changes, thus destroying the file and in last 20 years it was not saving the file when "y" was selected.
This was changed for potential new users of JOE, so that we can have a single conventional exit command shown on the startup line. I don't like it either, but I use ^C for quitting and I did not want to change ^K X to ask before overwriting. There has not been a big outcry, but if more people hate it I'll change it back.
Another change from the same time is that now ^C dismisses the selection highlighting. This has started to annoy me, so I've been reconsidering it.
Although I understand you prefer to have new users, I do not understand why you decided to not support old users that were using this tool for more than 20 years. I have just again saved file instead of cancelling it... that's it and made me really angry. I am sure new users prefer easier editors. Thanks for these 20 years of JOE, it's high time for me to switch to editor in which I am not confused all the time and loose my work.
Really? The ^C behavior has grown on me to the point that it would throw me off if reverted.
It happens when I have some text I want to keep selected, but can't temporarily open a window and close it with Ctrl-C without also dismissing the highlighting. I suppose it's rare, and I was used to hitting ^K B ^K K to dismisss, which I know annoys people.
There is a hacker news post right now about GUI pop-ups with Cancel and OK. Should OK be on the left or right?
I agree that this change is confusing for old user, and quite dangerous. Please revert it. Quit was for exiting without saving, the default behaviour should be to not save changes.
IHMO changing ^K^X behaviour would be safer, or adding a new command.
Don't understimate the muscle memory of users ...
In alternatives, maybe you should create a "easy" mode (jnano?) where there is all the nice feature for new user, and have a classic for old time user.
Thanks.
The new behaviour has been around for quite some time, and it's still annoying, especially as some systems run the old version of joe and some systems run the new version. This will be still very annoying for a few more years.
For such a breaking change it would be nice to have a config option to keep the old behavior, so that we could change it back in the global joerc.
I've been thinking about this issue again, starting to agree with Diego. Maybe Ctrl-K Q behavior should be reverted and Ctrl-K X changed to ask before saving, as with ^X in "JPICO". This would certainly be safer, but I'm unsure of the outcry of changing ^K X to ^K X Y.
Anyway I've made this change in Mercurial, to try it out.
I got rid of the Ctrl-K X ask before saving.. I hate it. There is a comment in the joerc file on how to add it back.
Same for me. After 15+ years of behaviour, this is VERY ANNOYING :(
Habits must not change for users. I'm still not used to this from many months. And I work on very old systems in which I can't upgrade Joe, so this is really confusing.
Sorry for spamming this unrelated bug but I've been googling for a while already after trying ChatGPT to get the Ctrl-C behavior fixed and the above comment from years ago is the only thing I found. I NEED CTRL-C TO EXIT EVEN WHEN THERE IS A MARK. I just upgraded from Ubuntu Focal to Noble and this behavior change is KILLING ME. I tried changing the definition of ^C to "nmark,abort" but while that works in the main text screen it breaks Ctrl-C for instance in the "Lose changes to this file (y,n,^C)" query. I am willing to compile my own joe if you just tell me what to patch.
EDIT: I must be tripping. This behavior seems to have been there in Focal already. I am only noticing it now because I'm noticing so many changes. Sorry again. But now that I have noticed it, I cannot unnotice it. I need a way to change this.
Last edit: Matthias S. Benkmann 2024-11-22
To get the old behavior, comment this out:
https://github.com/joe-editor/joe/blob/main/joe/tw.c#L826C2-L831C3
I know that [@jhallen] was debating removing this in a future (?) version.