Re: metacity: removing alt-shift-up/down

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 13:09, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> Murray,
> 
> > The point is to use the arrow keys, moving the hands as little as
> > possible during navigation. It's a well established and loved Mac Finder
> > feature.
> 
> Exactly, thats the reason why the metacity bindings are very convenient. 

Yes, arrow keys are nice.

But when metacity takes a key combination it denies it to every
application, so there has to be some limit. In the past, window managers
took all kinds of key combinations and some people got used to them.
That was possible in the past because Linux/Unix applications were
hopelessly unusable and this was the least of their problems. Now we
need some key combinations back so that we can make GNOME applications
as usable as Mac applications.

> > The average user does not care about obscure window manager details. He
> > just uses the defaults, and doesn't even know about most of the default
> > window manager keybindings.
> 
> The average user doesn not care about obscure file manager details. He just 
> uses the defaults, and doesn't even know about most of the default 
> file manager keybindings.

Point taken, but I think that the average user is much more aware of the
file manager than he is of the window manager, and therefore much more
likely to be interested in, and to discover, the file manager
keybindings.

> I consider myself an average user when it comes to metacity,

I don't think that you're an average (target) GNOME user. You know too
much.

>  but I know and
> love Alt-Shift-Left/Right/Up/Down.

That is a shame.

By the way, I should clarify that Metacity uses Alt-Shift-Arrow to take
the currently active window to a different workspace, not to switch to a
different workspace.

I seriously think that's a rare operation - much rarer than basic folder
navigation. In the rare cases where you need to do that, I think it's
fine to use the little window manager menu.

-- 
Murray Cumming
www.murrayc.com
murrayc murrayc com