Re: popup menu keybinding

[Calum Benson <calum benson ireland sun com>]

Tim Janik wrote:

> to finally come to your <Shft>+F10 key binding, beast for instance is an
> application that makes use of F* and <Shft>+F*, with most window managers
> taking <Ctrl>+F* and <Alt>+F* away, there's not much left for an application
> if gtk now starts to clutter <Shft>+F* as well.

>From a usability standpoint, applications shouldn't really be binding
functions to the F-keys by default anyway other than as a last resort--
they're among the hardest shortcuts to remember and reach (although they
do have the advantage of staying equally memorable/unmemorable across
locales).

This is one of the reasons that the Mac guidelines still specify that no
application should touch F5-F15 by default (F1-F4 are defined as Cut,
Copy, Paste and Undo), and should be left purely for the user to define
how they like.  (The other reason is that not all Mac keyboards actually
have F-keys, which gives the glaringly obvious answer to my own previous
question about whether or not the Mac guidelines specify F10/Shift+F10
for menu access.)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems