Re: Module proposal: LSR (now being hijacked into a keybinding discussion)

["Elijah Newren" <newren gmail com>]

Hi Peter,

Wow, these proposals are getting pretty thorough.  :)  I only have a
couple comments...

On 4/11/07, Peter Parente <parente gmail com> wrote:
> == Target
> LSR relies on modules already included in GNOME releases. One possible
> new dependency is desktop-file-utils from freedesktop.org
> (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/desktop-file-utils). We are
> uncertain if this package is already included with GNOME. If adding it

desktop-file-utils is already an official external dependency; as per
http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointNineteen/ExternalDependencies.

> We have already done most of the work by creating a new Accessibility
> panel for the GNOME Preferred Applications dialog. In this panel, a
> user may choose his or her preferred assistive technologies based on
> function. The necessary patches against GNOME 2.17 have already been
> reviewed and commented on by the proper module maintainers. Some
> members of the GNOME, Ubuntu, and Fedora communities have also
> contributed. Our patches need to be updated for GNOME 2.19 and
> committed. (http://live.gnome.org/GAP/ScratchPad/PreferredApplications)

So I'm one of the blokes standing in the way.  One of the bugs listed
on that wiki page is bug 387973 ("add a keybinding to start the visual
assistive technology").  In particular, I dislike stealing
Ctrl-Alt-[a-z] from apps[1], but additionally, I think if we do use
such keybindings then Ctrl-Alt-s would make much more sense for
switching screen focus (bug 101659) than for visual assitive
technology program launcher.  So I think bug 387973 should switch from
ctrl-alt-s either way.  But the ctrl-alt-[a-z] discussion in general
does need to be had...

So, we need to discuss what kinds of keybindings we should use.  Calum
does make some good points for stealing Ctrl-Alt-[a-z] in bug 387973
comment 3, but I would really like to avoid more bugs like bug 395645
(metacity and other apps breaks apps by stealing keybindings from
applications).  Right now I basically don't care about bug 395645
(duh, emacs wants every key in the universe instead of restricting to
combinations with alphanumeric keys and it'd be unreasonable to let it
have everything) but I'm worried about what the trend is and whether
other things will break (to a reasonable limit, of course).
Personally, I think stealing Ctrl-Alt-[a-z] strokes by default could
be bad, though it may be that I'm just clinging unrealistically to my
beloved isearch-forward-regexp.  ;-)

Thoughts?

Elijah


[1] Yes, I think Ctrl-Alt-D and Ctrl-Alt-L were bad choices on the
part of various GNOME modules.