Re: Cursors and keyboards

[Kai Willadsen <kai willadsen gmail com>]

On 9 March 2010 15:41, Peter Tyser <ptyser gmail com> wrote:
> If there are only 2 panes, it might be nice to have Alt+<dir> and
> Alt+Shift+<dir> to do the same thing.  Eg if I'm in the left of 2
> panes, it'd be nice to just press Alt+right to move a chunk to the
> right, and Alt+left to pull a chunk from the right.  I work in 2-pane
> mode 98% of the time and I'm having issues remembering to hold shift
> in for pulls.  I'm not a UI expert, so maybe changing the
> functionality of Alt+Shift+<dir> based on 2/3 panes is a big no-no...

It's a pretty big no-no, I think. However, I think the idea is
reasonable. One option might be to keep the 'official' keybindings as
they are, but make the shorter version an alias when in two-pane mode.
i.e., pull-from-left would still show as Alt-Shift-Right, but
Alt-Right would also work. This is a bit of a no-no as well, but may
be ergonomically justifiable.

> After playing with this feature, I think it'd be great to have more
> control.  For example, it'd be nice to move a change before or after
> the corresponding change in another pane instead of just replacing it.

I assume you're asking for shortcuts for the Ctrl-click middle-pane
actions? I was looking at doing that, and it's not technically
difficult... just need sensible shortcuts. (I like the suggestion
below, but it has to be a secondary option, since usable numpads
aren't universal. We *should* have some non-numpad way of doing this
too.)

>  Perhaps the num-pad could be used?  eg 9 could move a change before
> the right hunk, 1 could move a change below the left hunk (in 3-pane
> mode), 6 could replace the hunk to the right, etc.  Maybe alt+num
> could push the hunk, and alt+shift+num could pull a hunk?

That actually sounds surprisingly good. We can't support using no
modifiers, so the Alt/Alt-Shift option sounds nice.

I'm thinking that if we do this, we should feel free to (sensibly) map
the whole number pad. 2/8 should be next/prev chunk; 5 could cycle
between panes. Delete is already taken. What else might be useful?

> Could a key configuration pane be added to meld's preferences?  Both
> my comments above would be moot if it was easy to customize the key
> combos used to move hunks around.

Personally, I'm pretty against more preferences; I'd rather we just
did sensible things. On the other hand, there is a possibility that in
the future we'll support gtkrc-based configuration, which I think
should let you do pretty much whatever you like... it just won't have
a UI.

> Anyway, its a cool feature, thanks!

Happy to help. :)

cheers,
Kai