Re: Keyboard usage on some Gnome windows not working

[Matthew Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On 10 Oct, 2005, at 3:36 PM, Calum Benson wrote:
> On 10 Oct 2005, at 18:16, Matthew Thomas wrote:
> > Unfortunately, GNOME has yet to make a clear distinction between 
> > dialogs and windows, and this causes subconscious confusion about how 
> > they work.
>
> Yes, that's certainly still an issue too, although it doesn't really 
> alter the fact that pressing Esc, according to the HIG, is still only 
> supposed to dismiss a window (in the generic "rectangular thing on the 
> screen" sense) if it has an explicit Cancel button that does the same 
> thing.  That some of those might be proper dialogs, and some not, 
> would probably be secondary to this particular issue (whilst still 
> prolonging the others you mention) if that guideline was followed 
> regardless.

I think making the distinction more explicit would make the guideline 
more likely to be followed by developers, and more likely to be 
understood by non-developers. For example, Frank's original complaint 
was about the Keyboard Preferences window. This looks like misleadingly 
like a dialog, because it has a row of labelled buttons along the 
bottom, including "Close". So it's not surprising that someone might 
expect Escape to close it.

> > In brief:
> >
> >       * Dialogs have a close button in their title bars, which makes
> >         them look unnecessarily similar to windows. (It's also
> >         ambiguous, because some people assume the close button means
> >         "Cancel", while others assume it means "Get out of my face",
> >         and sometimes these are opposites.)
>
> Yep, have always wanted to see that one fixed.

What's hindering it?

> >       * GNOME has no standard, easy-to-use shortcut for closing
> >         non-dialog windows.
>
> True, but does any desktop have one of those?

Yes, Mac OS (all versions) uses Command+W.

> (And if so, why aren't we using it too?)
> ...

Primarily because sometime in the depths of GNOME 0.x, someone decided 
to use Ctrl+ (like Windows and KDE) instead of Alt+ (like GNUstep) for 
command keyboard combos. That would have been fine by itself, except 
that a substantial proportion of developers still wanted Ctrl+W to 
delete words, not close windows. Hilarity ensued.

(Meanwhile in OS X, Command+W closes a Terminal window, just like any 
other non-dialog window, while Ctrl+W deletes a word. Same in GNUstep: 
Alt+W closes a Terminal window, just like any other non-dialog window, 
while Ctrl+W deletes a word.)

And secondarily because nobody's put their foot down and said "it's 
Close everywhere, not Quit, thx".

--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/