Map some other function to the insert key

[Yuan Qi]

The difference between the telephone keypad and the overwirte mode is 
that everyone know exactly what the keypad does. The same is not true 
for the overwrite mode: people rarely know about it and they will really 
wonder how come their words got "mysteriously" erased. Please be aware 
that you are an advaced user and a lot of ubuntu and potential ubuntu 
users are not advanced users.

Carl Karsten <carl at personnelware.com> wrote:
>Eric Dunbar wrote:
>
>>> But why to change behaviour that is widely known?
>>
>> It's NOT (since 1980)! That's the point of this discussion.
>
>
>Got suport for " over-write mode isn't widely known?"  (which I think is what your "It" refers to.)
>
>I will admit I havn't used the over-write mode we are discussing in quite a while, but I sure remember it being a part of what I know.  But just because a few 100 people here on this list might have somethig to say about it, I don't thin that is enough to really know how it will impact the "average Ubuntu user."  This list is not a random sampeling - we generally have something in common that I think would also skew our view of what the Insert key should do.
>
>Ever notice that a telephone keypad is an upside down 10-key?  (10-key = the number pad layout, and adding machines.)  Pretty sure that decision was made in a vacume - something like some guy in an office thought "People read top to bottem, so lets put the 1 at the top."  Because of that, I misdial numbers now and then because it touch type like I am a checker at the food store.
>
>>
>>
>>> Aslo, saying "insert != override so this key should never switch
>>> editor to override mode" Makes perfectly the same sence as saying
>>> "lock != unlock, so pressing Caps Lock should never allow to unlock
>>> casp".
>>
>>
>>
>> Lock and unlock are opposites. Only in some strange parallel universe
>> are over-write and insert opposites. Insert vs. over-write mode are
>> also not even opposites. Delete and Insert are opposites. Over-write
>> feels like a programming error when it happens to me!
>>
>
>Well, Insert and "Not Insert" are opposites, so what else should happen when you are adding chard but not Inserting?
>
>Has anyone mentioned the Typewriter?  I wonder if over-write was moddeld that device?
>
>Carl Karsten
>