Re: [Usability] Ctl+W

[Pete Setchell <pete setchell goodtechnology com>]

On Wed, 2001-12-12 at 12:35, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> > Ctl+W is already used for the extremely useful "Delete Word" shortcut in
> > almost every legacy unix application - bash, most other shells, vi etc.
> > 
> > It doesn't seem to be one of the emacs shortcuts listed in the HIG, but
> > does seem to work in Gnome 1.4 text inputs by default.
> > 
> > Either way - this makes for a nasty "Aaaagh! Where did my application"
> > error at the moment. I use Ctl+W to clear the location bar in galeon -
> > if the wrong part of the app has focus then it closes the window
> > instead.
> 
> For what it's worth, I use Ctrl+K with the caret at the start of the line.

You can also use Ctl+U anywhere on the line, and Ctl+Backspace at the
end of it. These are all Emacs hotkeys in action - they're going to be
disabled by default in the future. 

I think Ctl+w is a more generally useful shortcut. It isn't one of the
emacs ones and actually conflicts with the Emacs "Cut to Clipboard"
command :)
 
> > Since bash is probably going to be a heavily used part of linux for
> > quite a while, wouldn't it make sense to keep Ctl+W in it's legacy role
> > and choose another shortcut for close document?
> 
> The problem is chosing that one. There are also those who think one should
> never have to use a terminal and, from what I gather, that terminal users
> can be safely ignored. I'm not one of them.

It's all well and good to live in the future, but I'm sure the majority
of current Gnome users use a terminal on a regular basis.

Hurting your current users to pander to ones that don't exist seems
insane to me.

I realize that you can't please everybody all of the time - however, an
important part of making something usable involves figuring out who is
using it and what they want to do with it.

I suspect most current or near future Gnome users are in one or more of
these groups:

* Students

* Programmers

* Engineers

* Solaris users (Surely they need a shell ;)

* Users of proprietary Unix software ported to linux (ex SGI users at
ILM etc)

* People who have caught a unix bug somewhere

* Free Software Developers

* Web developers

Almost all of them want or need a *nix desktop.

Cheers,

-- 
Pete Setchell
+++++
Good Technology, London