Re: control-arrow to move focus

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Murray Cumming wrote:

> The the TreeView seems to be broken in this respect. Have you tried it?

You're quite right, there's an inconsistency here if you use my
description of what Ctrl+arrowkeys should do-- this is because the
treeview follows the existing Nautilus multi-selection model (arrows
select and focus at same time, Ctrl+arrows moves focus without
selecting), rather than the one we initially proposed at
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/keynav/gtk_lists.html.

I'm kind of coming around to the treeview model though-- it does make
sense if and when we have a full-blown tree view within Nautilus,
because then it's consistent with the existing Nautilus icon/list
views.  (And imposing our originally-proposed treeview selection model
on the Nautilus icon view wouldn't really work).

So perhaps a more accurate description of the general 'arrow keys'
philosophy is:

Arrowkeys: moves focus in given direction, selecting newly-focused
object and deselecting all others

Ctrl+Arrowkeys: moves focus in given direction without changing current
selection; press Space to add it to or remove it from current
selection.  (I've just noticed the 'press Space' thing doesn't work in
Nautilus though, at least not in 1.1.11).

Shift+Arrowkeys: extend current selection in given direction

This model doesn't map nicely onto text editing, unfortunately, where
arrowkeys and ctrl+arrowkeys just move the cursor by different units
(letters, words or paragraphs) without selecting anything.
 
> If I remember correctly, the plan was to use Ctrl-Down to open the
> selected item, like on the Mac.

Hmm, not sure I entirely like the sound of that though, I think
Ctrl+arrowkeys should be restricted to two-dimensional movement.  Given
our recent decision (WM raise/lower conflicts permitting) to use Alt+up
for 'move up a directory', Alt+down would seem more logical for this
'drill down' function.  (Maybe using Shift or Ctrl as a toggle if we
really want to distinguish between drilling down into the same/different
window).

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