Re: [gtk-list] Mouseless GTK+

[Preben Randhol <randhol pvv org>]

"Jon K. Hellan" <Jon.K.Hellan@item.ntnu.no> writes:

| --
| I am slightly frustrated about trying to interact with GTK+
| applications without a mouse. Before blaming anybody, I would like to
| know how responsibility is divided between the widget set and
| applications. 

One annoying keybinding is that one can use the arrow keys to jump
between the different widgets. I know it sounds odd that this is
annoying, but let me explain.

If one press the down arrow to jump from one widget to another, what
happens when on get to a text widget or a scrollable widget of some
kind? Then there is an inconsistency in the behaviour of the arrow
keys. If there is something that scrolls one normally expects the
arrow keys to do this. But one first have to roam through all the
other widgets to get there one gets confused. I think it is better to
turn off the navigation with arrows between widgets except for the
menus.

The other problem is TAB. TAB is usually used for jumping between
widgets, but it is also used for completion. If one wants to have a
TAB-completion in a combo-box it will be confusing, as TAB doesn't
work as expected. It think in this respect it is better to use
Ctrl-TAB for completion. The reason I don't like Alt-TAB is that this
is much use to cycle windows in windowmanagers. 

The best would of course, be if all keybindings where configurable, but
that does not make the problem of having a good set of default
keybindings go away.


-- 
Preben Randhol             oO     "Don't think about domination,  think
[randhol@pvv.org]        .`  ;     about freedom, it doesn't dominate."
[www.pvv.org/~randhol/]   \ G                  -- RMS, LinuxWorld 1999.
                           `_) n o m e