RE: Tab as completion shortcut

[Chris LeDantec <Chris LeDantec netbeans com>]

configurability is a blessing, but some effort needs to be put into coming
up with sensible defaults since there is a potentially large user base who
will never do any serious tweaking of key bindings. 

some logical schema should be applied to the mapping of keys (ie, f-keys
perform some action and shift+f-key performs the opposite) that way it the
default behavior of gnome is consistent and predictable as a minimum. 

there will always be scenarios across user types, localizations, available
hardware that prevent the perfect design -as long as the shortcuts are
available on all keyboards (even if some sequences require some finger
tango) then we've had a big win. the customization aspect will smooth over
any wrinkles and set the stage for more directed design in the future when
someone decides to revamp the bindings for keyboards designed around people
who type with their big toes on windy days during lunar eclipses. :-)

cL

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Rose [mailto:menthos@menthos.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 4:16 PM
To: Gnome GUI list
Subject: Re: Tab as completion shortcut


Petri Heinilä wrote:
> > Yes, it bothers. See previous recent messages to this list. Tab is in
> > GUIs used to cycle the focus between widgets. I don't think that making
> > the file dialog behave entirely different than all other dialogs in that
> > aspect is a good idea.
> >
> > Also, almost all Tab key combos are "taken" as standard key combos for
> > cycling between windows or widgets in different ways etc, which is the
> > reason why there was a common feeling for scrapping a Tab key combo
> > altogether and use something different.
> > Ctrl + space turned out to be a good and different key combo example, as
> > the only drawback appears to be that noone has heard about it before or
> > knows it from some other UI, which is both good and bad (good in the
> > sense that we won't interfere with other behavior, bad in the sense that
> > users have to learn a new combo).
> 
> This discussion reminds me about look'n feel fights years ago; should it
> be windows, os/2, mac, motif, .. . Gtk themes had now gratefully
> eliminated
> these boring discussions, by giving the one the look'n feel he wants.
> 
> I think same kind mechanism should apply for keyboard input (or other
> input
> devices as well). There would be profiles like "emacs", "vi" or
> "windows".

I agree. Since not everybody could agree on, or feel comfortable with, a
particular keyboard shortcut, I think it's a great idea to make it
user-definable (probably by a section in the control panel or so). That
configurability doesn't take away the need for a sensible default,
however.

The problem with definable keyboard shortcuts in GNOME would probably be
the interaction with the window manager in that aspect. Window managers
like to set and define the keyboard shortcuts for interacting with
windows themselves.

I think the best solution would be to force the ability to select/define
the important window manager shortcuts from inside GNOME, and not only
the window managers preferences, to be part of the window manager "GNOME
compability" standard. That way, there would be no conflicts with the
window manager shortcuts. Comments?

And yes, I think the idea of also adding keyboard shortcut "themes" is
very interesting... If that could be implemented, GNOME would suddenly
advance from being severely lacking in terms of keyboard accessibility
to being one of the most advanced desktops in that aspect out there...
:)


> One point here, if not mentioned before, is that not all keyboards are
> not AT104 type, there are sun Type5, ibm 122, .. . Input policy system
> should adapt to any keyboard, Eg. the situation when mircosoft invent new
> navigation, menu, whatever key to the AT104 keyboard.

Yes. But Ctrl and Space are both fairly standard, maybe except from the
naming sometimes. I know Ctrl is namned Strg on german keyboards (I
think it comes from STeueRunG).

Of course making GNOME dependant on features only avaliable on certain
keyboards is a bad idea. I think that ideas like binding the "windows"
key to opening the GNOME menu would be great (there comes key binding
configurability again, as I know that there are a lot of people that
don't like it, as there is a big risk of slipping on Alt or Ctrl), but
on the same time there should be an other shortcut for those who don't
have a windows key (I think Ctrl + Esc is the equivalent on Windows for
opening the menu).

Of course, I know that there _are_ rare keyboards that don't have Esc
either (extremely crippled webtv keyboards comes to mind), but I was
only mentioning this as an example.


> And localization. Discussion here was about us/european keyboard, but
> how about for example katakana keyboard. Are they good for it.

I don't know, since I've never seen such a keyboard. :(


Christian



#######################################################################
Christian Rose
http://www.menthos.com                    	    menthos@menthos.com
#######################################################################

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