Idea for GSoC 2007 : Shortcuts improvement

["Lucas Mazzardo Veloso" <lmveloso gmail com>]

Hi folks,
I'm exposing here a GSoC project idea not listed in the 2007 Ideas
Pool and I would appreciate any comments/suggestion from you,
GTK+/GNOME Developers, especially concerning the idea relevance to
GTK+ project.
Please let me know if this list is not the right place when asking for
this kind of feedback.

The idea was motivated by my experience as user/developer and by the
following GNOME HIG quote:
"A well-designed keyboard user interface plays a key role when you are
designing applications."

Here we go..

IDEA:
	Improve the visual indication of keyboard shortcuts in UI.

SHORTCUTS IN GTK:
  The shortcuts support in GTK+ is very well designed and powerful,
although visual indications of available shortcuts are provided just
by Labels and AccelLables. It allows software developers to design a
very nice keyboard support to their applications and most of the users
I know understand well access keys indicated on those Labels and
AccelLabels.

POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS:
  GTK+ might allow developers to expose the available mnemonics near
to it's widgets even when there is no (Accel)Label related to it, e.g.
a Canvas area. When user holds the first key of an accelerator key
combination, e.g. CONTROL or ALT, then the available shortcuts with
that key might pops-up near to it's widgets.
  It will allow users to easily identify and jump fast across
application UI areas without having to press several TABs or
SHIFT+TABs to get there (Have you ever wondered "where is the focus
now?").
  This approach should work very well even on 'keyboard centric'
applications like Text Editors. On this applications users can't
navigate properly using TABs.
  We might go even further allowing a second level of shortcuts to
widget's children. Just to make it clear, the user could press ALT+T
to activate the 'Toolbar' and then all active ToolItems might show
it's mnemonic so user could press one and get it activated.

  There are some mock-ups to illustrate this idea applied to Nautilus
[1], Gedit [2] and GtkFileChooser [3].

BENEFITS:
 * "Novice and advanced users alike will be able accomplish tasks
quickly and easily" [GNOME HIG]
* Helping users to identify available mnemonics in order to navigate
easily across the user interface.
* Improving the applications accessibility.
 * Software developers could improve it's applications keyboard
support to fits even better into GNOME HIG.

I'm looking forward to receiving your feedback.
Best regards,
Lucas

[1] Nautilus: http://picasaweb.google.com/lmveloso/GnomeSoC2007Idea/photo#5040744879812560818
[2] Gedit: http://picasaweb.google.com/lmveloso/GnomeSoC2007Idea/photo#5040744879812560834
[3] GtkFileChooser:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lmveloso/GnomeSoC2007Idea/photo#5040744879812560850


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