Re: [Usability] Tab consistency

["Matthew Nuzum" <newz bearfruit org>]

On 3/30/07, Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:

They need to do their homework.  In GTK+, Ctrl+Tab moves focus
between groups of widgets.  It's sort of a souped up version of
Tab, and it has the distinct advantage of actually working in a
multiline text editor, where Tab just inserts a tab character.

Given that we've used Ctrl+Tab for this purpose for a long time,
and given that we've used Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown for switching tabs
for an equally long time, I don't think it's likely we'll change.

Ctrl+Tab has been used for ages as the way to switch between windows in MDI interfaces on MS Windows. Since tabs are very analogous to MDI windows, it makes sense to reuse that shortcut here. The nice thing about Ctrl+Tab is that you can do it with both hands on the home-row of the keyboard.

How do you communicate that Ctrl+Tab switches between groups of widgets? I've been using GTK for years and never known about that. (just tried it in xchat and see that it works, but its not clear to me how it differs from just tab/shift+tab)

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
www.bearfruit.org
newz2000 on freenode