Re: [RFC PATCH v1 0/1] Avoid accidentally overwriting macro recording

On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 5:10 AM Benno Schulenberg <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Op 10-02-2026 om 18:21 schreef Charles Mirabile:
> > I often accidentally hit the recording toggle instead of invoking the
> > macro I just recorded because my fingers have sort of been trained by
> > having to hit the start/stop keybind twice.
>
> I'm guessing that the confusion mainly happens because the `record` and
> `play` functions are bound to two different symbols on the _same_ key.
> How about preventing this accidental typing of `record` by binding it
> to a different key, one that is rather hard to type?  Something like:
>
>      unbind M-: main
>      bind M-! recordmacro main
>
> Or, if you would like to wean yourself from having start and stop on
> the same symbol:
>
>      unbind M-: main
>      bind M-{ recordmacro main
>      bind M-} recordmacro main

Part of the reason I like nano is that I can use it without much
customization, I don't need a dotfile to be productive on any system
that has it installed because the defaults (like having both macro
keybinds on a similar key) just make sense. In addition I think
cancelling the recording if you stop it immediately is perfectly
intuitive and helpful.

>
> (Of course, both M-{ and M-} would start and stop the recording, but
> it would be a nice mnemonic thing.)
>
>
> > My suggestion/idea is
> > that if the user stops the recording immediately after starting it
> > such that the recorded macro would be empty, instead of storing the
> > empty macro which is essentially useless, just cancel the recording
> > and revert the stored macro to whatever the user had saved before.
>
> Storing an empty macro is not useless: it clears an existing macro,
> a possibly destructive macro when invoked accidentally.  So I would
> rather not make the clearing of a macro impossible.

It is not hard to e.g. just restart the editor or record a macro that
invokes control+c to show the status line or something if you really
want to clear a harmful macro. This feature is in my opinion perfectly
intuitive and discoverable while being easy to work around if you
truly do wish for a no-op macro.

>
>
> Benno