Key bindings (was Re: Suggestion: ...)

[Malcolm Tredinnick <malcolm commsecure com au>]

On Sun, Jul 14, 2002 at 02:32:13AM +0100, Paul Coates wrote:
> Are there any key bindings to increase and decrease the volume rather
> than use the Volume Control in the panel? I've seen this used in MacOSX
> and I think there should be a default binding for this as it is the one
> applet that I interact with more than any other, OR if there are already
> keybinding for this what are they?

This is not related to the window manager at all (hence the subject line
change); the volume applet is a separate application and although things
should work together, there are good reasons for not merging them.

That said, the volume applet already responds to the arrow keys once it
has the focus.  So what you really are asking for is some keyboard
shortcut way of focusing the volume panel applet. I do not think there
is a way to do that currently.

(Random thinking out loud...)
When I think about it, this feature is a bit fiddly to implement in a
sane fashion: you really want a way to focus an arbitrary applet on the
panel with a key combination. But how would you specify the applet?
Probably by name, since specifying by position would lead to all sorts
of accidents when you put another applet on the panel. It sounds
like the "expected" behaviour here is that an otherwise unhandled
keystroke on the root window will be passed to the panel, which will
then reinterpret it to focus the right applet.

At some point in the (near) future, it will be possible to navigate
around GNOME completely without requiring a mouse (and I can't wait).
This will include being able to easily focus the panel and then using
the arrow keys to move to the widget you want. That might be as good as
you get unless somebody can turn my ramblings of the previous paragraph
into consistent, usable, implementable behaviour.

Cheers,
Malcolm