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esc = select the last "stuff" just typed
The fact you can create your own "buttons" that do basically anything is pretty nice, but you REALLY want a 3 button pointing device to use it. It also doesn't care about the programming language you use to create such a button, but you will work with the filesystem metaphor provided by Acme itself to get things done.
I find the mouse interface is extremely fast, and when you couple it with the power of the plumber in Plan 9, it's a reasonably good way to navigate around a complex workflow.
It's also a reasonably small environment in terms of lines of code. The Go version (Edwood) is pretty good too! https://github.com/rjkroege/edwood
Acme has a handful of keybindings, like the usual ^A, ^E for navigation, ^Z for undo, etc. Plugging in new ones is a few lines of code, for example my ^S for Putall (saving all windows):
https://github.com/dexen/plan9port/commit/78324a4666c4b5e0bd...
Most of keybindings you might want to add are handled by Acme's "commands" - like Edit. If you repeat them any often, it's easy and straightforward to connect the keybinding to the command in code. Alternatively, to avoid going into C, write a shell script with ready-made command; Acme is well prepared to be managed through shell scripts. The shell scripts have full access to Acme's Windows (open files, directories, scratchpads etc), including ability to edit content, open new ones, interpret right-clicks in new ways, etc.
You would love Oberon, and its derived OSes, Acme UI is based on it.
In Oberon, you can select any piece of text and apply a command on it.
Commands are public procedures in dynamic modules, so Module.Command will load it if not already loaded, and then execute command.
There are a couple of ways to write commands, depending if the act on selected widgets, selected text, selected windows, or if they ask for additional input.
http://www.projectoberon.net/
For trying out it emulated on the browser,
https://github.com/schierlm/OberonEmulator
And how the latest iteration of it, Bluebottle (AOS) with Active Oberon, looks like
http://www.progtools.org/article.php?name=oberon§ion=com...
One of the great things about PowerShell and Windows, is that despite all the warts it has, it allows exactly a similar kind of workflow, with .NET, DLLs and COM replacing that Module.Command experience.
GNOME and KDE can offer similar workflows, alongside DBUS, and fish shell, however people seem more keen in keeping the UNIX experience of yore instead of going down that route.
Not OP, but what about something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metisse ?
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt3q7Z7RjIU 4min54sec)
Which begat https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1166253.1166301 from the same institution. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUUtiOWTzz4 7min20sec)
Married with something like https://arcan-fe.com/about/
With some https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface sprinkled in,
not necessarily in the 'style' of https://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/ but the concept.
Rounded with something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenQwaq , or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cobalt
OFC fully themable like GTK before they broke it, or something like https://github.com/KDE/qtcurve which is endlessly modifiable.
Nirvana!