Re: Shortcuts (was: Accelerator and terminology guides?)

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom infernal-iceberg com>]

menthos menthos com (2001-06-28 at 0054.25 +0200):
> IMHO, standardizing shortcuts is not so much about "which one is easier
> to remember" but more about "what are users used to from other
> environments and would expect to work exactly the same here".

No, please, another blind copy cos others do, no, thanks, then we
should also copy the bugs. Think a bit before copying, I just ask for
that. :]

> There are as many good suggestions for "what is more logical" as there
> are keys on the keyboard, but I think it does not make sense from an UI
> perspective to be different on purpose -- consistency is more important,
> I'd say.

C-r Refresh / C-S-r Reload in some places, NS was one (Alt, not Ctrl,
in Unix versions, but r).

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard/keyboardresults.asp?Product=6
They do not use F5, they use F5 and R. To be precise F5, C-F5 and C-r
(and I am still trying to understand why different phrasing). It seems
they though NS was defacto standard when they did. Then you read the
other pages, and it varies, some only support F5 (but not C-F5, only
F5), funny. :]

I also tried Opera bindings, and my headed got the final kick, they
mimic the system, not the app.

> So moving around shortcuts is not something I think we should do. I
> think we should re-use standards from other environments where possible.

The problem is: which one? You have many to choose from (and in some
cases not very consistent, the Mac OS one is way more than Windows, I
think). I would go for ones nice to hit, and with some mnemonics
around (C-g, ie, is due be near Find, C-f; Cut, Copy & Paste are
similar). Ooh, wait, F3 should open, MSDOS apps did that. ;]

> The problem is that users experienced with Windows expect F1 to bring
> them the help and so on. So there are some function keys that are
> reserved. In my opinion this is not a problem, After all, there are 7
> excellent application-specifik shortcut keys > F5, and there are many
> other possible keyboard shortcuts not reserved. :)

Leave F1 as Help, it seems to be used in way more places than Windows
and most computers do not have a Help key. But the rest of Fkeys seem
to be pretty ignored by the people I know, so that is the reason to
leave for user or app. Windows seem to use them a lot, but I only
known F5 (and though it was filemanager only), C-F4 and A-F4.

BTW, sometimes they are used for window manager task, as some mails in
gnome-list show, so that is another reason to try to keep combos in
the letters (that falls under user, I guess).

Also, with some laptops it can be a pain, cos the non letter keys
receive a second class status. Yes, F1 also suffers in that case. :[

> Good point. On the other hand, I don't see much use for a special
> keyboard shortcut reserved for "Save as...". The first time you save a
> previously unsaved document with Ctrl+S, you will get the "Save as..."
> dialog anyway, and you don't use "Save as..." very much at all after
> that, I think. But that discussion is not important. What's important is
> that we can agree on a good set of recommendations.

It depends in you work pattern. I create templates, open one, add
something, save as new name, not as template name. And no, I do not
need a extra feature for templates, never understood why if some files
could work as that. Other times I am doing versions with Gimp (both in
the sense of different format or different look), so I use Save As a
lot (or a lot more than you, at least :] ).

My recommendation is that Shift should mean "related" (as in oposite,
complementaty or special), not only "contrary".

GSR