Re: Standardization of Function Keys

[Florian Müllner <fmuellner gnome org>]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 2:49 PM, Trans <transfire gmail com> wrote:
> I have always wanted to see a window manager that provided the same
> functionality. When pressing F1 the first menu would drop down --in
> modern applications this is typically the `File` menu.

Independently from whether this is a good idea or not, this is nothing
a window manager can handle - in general, we can't even tell whether a
window actually has a menubar(*) in the first place, and even if we
could, we still didn't have any way to make the application pop up the
correct menu.

So this would have to be implemented either at toolkit level or in the
applications themselves - therefore the gtk-devel and desktop-devel
mailing lists are more appropriate for this discussion.


> Firstly, function keys are almost never utilized for application
> functions any more. [...] For instance, in my case, and I am a
> "computer expert", expect for F1, and F11 in certain apps, I have
> no idea what any function key does for any application I use.

Also F9 to view/hide sidebars is pretty common for GNOME applications,
and GTK+ uses F10 to open the first menu of the menubar (shift-F10 for
context menus). So even if the behavior could be implemented in the
window manager - it conflicts with applications and the toolkit, so
desktop-devel and gtk-devel need to be involved :-)

But note that with the design direction GNOME is taking, traditional
menu bars are going away completely for most applications (except for
applications with a lot of complexity like Office and Gimp).


Regards,
Florian