Re: RFC - keyboard shortcuts in Gnome 2

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

mån 2002-01-28 klockan 16.07 skrev Alexander Shopov:
> 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.

In Swedish I do:

  msgid "_Edit"
  msgstr "_Redigera"

So even though "Redigera" has E:s in it, I don't use them, but use R
instead.
Why? Because the purpose of a shortcut is to make it "natural" and thus
easily meomorizable. Since R is the beginning of this word, it is the
most natural shortcut.
Also, R is not that common as the first character of menu entries in
Swedish, so this makes R an even better choice, since it is not likely
to conflict with other Swedish menu entries.

I think this is the most important thing - make the shortcut natural in
your language.


> 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.

The widget mnemonic shortcuts (the HIG calls them "access keys") are
always dependant on the translation, so yes, these will be different. 

The application shortcut keys, like "Ctrl+U", on the other hand won't. I
don't see this as a problem, since mnemonic shortcuts are remembered by
the name of the menu entry and has naturally to match the name of the
menu entry, whereas you usually remember shortcut keys more by their
function and not a menu entry since they are not as tightly related to
the name of the menu entries, although they might share a letter with
the English name of the function/menu entry, and you can use them
without even opening a menu.


> 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?

I think trying to make the shortcut "fit well" with the keyboard layout
is a dead end. The most important thing about a shortcut is that you can
memorize it easily, only after you have learned the shortcut you start
to hit it automatically by remembering its placement. There's no need to
reverse that process and possibly make shortcuts difficult to remember
but "easy to hit", that's the wrong way IMHO.

But this is a non-issue, as there is no way to localize a shortcut like
this anyway AFAIK.
Also, in some cases it is simply impossible to use the shortcut on
another keyboard layout (since the shortcut might only be accessible
using a different modifier key), but then this has to be bug reported to
the developers and fixed for all languages.


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

What do you mean?


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

The HIG (http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/) has some fairly
extensive recommendations about standard shortcuts and what to think
about when assigning new ones, and new access keys. Recommended reading
also for translators. The keyboard interaction chapter part is halfway
down on 
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/hig-0.1/userinput.html. 


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

Regarding mnemonic keys (access keys), I don't see the point in doing
that. If you try to do that, you will usually only make the mnemonics
complex and unnatural to remember, if you can use the same character at
all since it, as you pointed out, might not even be present in title of
the localized entry.

Regarding shortcut keys (Ctrl+U and the like), there already is
standardization since these are not localizable. ;-)


> 6. What initiatives are there to synchronize with KDE?

Dunno. But I think that chosing a mnemonic that is somewhat natural in
your language probably make the chances that it fits with other
environments better. :)


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

In the case of shortcut keys, this is handled by the HIG.
In the case of mnemonic access keys, it is up to you to compare to the
relevant localizations of other environments and decide. When you
decide, you can use the guidelines from the HIG however, to see if it's
a good one.


> 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.)  

None that I know of. :-(


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

People have suggested this in the past, and I think someone started
working on "shortcut themes". This would only affect shortcut keys
however, not mnemonic access keys.


Christian