RFC - keyboard shortcuts in Gnome 2

[Alexander Shopov <al_shopov web bg>]

Hi,
As Gnome2 begins to mature, translators are going to translate the
Gnome2 po-files more and more.
I would like to hear what is the official strategy for keyboard
shortcuts, their representation and co-ordination.

To the best of my knowledge:
Right now keyboard shortcuts are represented in the following way:

#: samples/bonoboui/Bonobo_Sample_Hello.xml.h:4
msgid "_Edit"
msgstr ""

The msgid has an underscore character before the letter that is the
keyboard shortcut.
So this will mean that on the menu the "E" character of the "Edit" menu
will be underlined and people will be able to get to it by pressing
"Ctrl-E"

In this particular case the Bulgarian translation also has the sound "e"
in it, and can be underscored, but this is not always the case. Non
latin/cyrillic languages will face even bigger difficulties.

So I want to ask the following questions:

1. Will Keyboard shortcuts be dependent on the LOCALE? For example will
I have to press 1 key combination when the interface is in Bulgarian and
another when the interface is in English? What about different Charsets
- CP1251 vs. UTF-8, etc.

2. Will Keyboard shortcuts be dependent on keyboard layout? For example
when I am using a Bulgarian keymap and press Ctr-E, the result is
different than Ctrl-E in English keymap. Will we have to use only one
keymap and unable to use shortcuts in anther?

3. How are different shortcuts be represented?
Ctrl-A
Alt-A
Mod-A
Ctrl-Shift-A 
etc.

4. What initiatives are there to standardize keyboard shortcuts across
different apps?

5. What initiatives are there to standardize keyboard shortcuts across
different languages?

6. What initiatives are there to synchronize with KDE?

7. What initiatives are there to synchronize with proprietary OSes like
Windows, MacOS X?

8. What tools are there to check the consistence of shortcuts (for
example Ctrl-E pointing to two different things in the same dialogue,
menu, etc.)  

9. Will there be different styles shortcuts:
MS like - single key combinations
vi like - ESC combinations
EMACS like - esc-meta-alt-control-shift


Best regards:
al_shopov


-- 
Alexander Shopov         Bulgaria Sofia 1421 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd.
TopTeam                  NMZH, tel. +(359 2) 655 096, 656 796
ComputerNews             Be responsible to yourself and the world:
editor-in-chief          against viruses use condoms and GNU/Linux!