Shortcuts (was: Accelerator and terminology guides?)

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

"Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" wrote:
> I would use C-g and C-S-g for Search Next / Previous, not F3. Maybe
> even add C-S-f as new search, but start with inverse toggle button
> active. And now that I think, if the coder goes for incremental search
> (which will be very nice, but offtopic here) it will make searching
> very direct (hit combo, start typing until you get where you want or
> it fails). In incremental search, Search N / P will do that, with last
> string used, but allowing to type more letters, or delete if you want.
> 
> > Great proposal. Maybe F5 (Refresh view/Reload) should be added too?
> 
> If Redo goes as C-S-z (IMO it should), C-r could be Refresh and C-S-r
> Reload (big refresh) cos they are easier to remember.

IMHO, standardizing shortcuts is not so much about "which one is easier
to remember" but more about "what are users used to from other
environments and would expect to work exactly the same here".
There are as many good suggestions for "what is more logical" as there
are keys on the keyboard, but I think it does not make sense from an UI
perspective to be different on purpose -- consistency is more important,
I'd say.

Also remember that "what is easier to remember" is very subjective, and
usually looses the point at the same moment you translate the
application. "Ctrl+Q" for "Quit" might make some sense in English, but
in Swedish it certainly doesn't. This is no problem because people
usually "learn" shortcuts by looking at the shortcut descriptions in the
menu items, in my experience, not so often by "guessing" keys at random
to see if it does what they want.

So moving around shortcuts is not something I think we should do. I
think we should re-use standards from other environments where possible.


> I would left
> Fkeys as application specific (aka no must or should as the ones we
> are talking about). Or even better, as user programable, based on the
> concept that people may want to do things a lot that most people think
> are used rarely so no combo was assigned, and as users program it,
> they will remember it better, or create templates to stick to the
> keyboard.

The problem is that users experienced with Windows expect F1 to bring
them the help and so on. So there are some function keys that are
reserved. In my opinion this is not a problem, After all, there are 7
excellent application-specifik shortcut keys > F5, and there are many
other possible keyboard shortcuts not reserved. :)


> > What are the keys Prior/Next btw?
> 
> My keyboard has none. Must be Sun kbds, or something like that. :]

Probably.


> > If anyone wants to write a part of the UI Guide with accelerator
> > proposals, this and the KDE pages are the places to shop, I think. :)
> 
> IMO also Apple style, but with Ctrl instead of Command. Get the
> AquaHIGuidelines.pdf and read pages 138 - 140, they have a nice list,
> very similar to the ones proposed, except no messing with Fkeys at
> all (still searching if the reason is the one I write above).
> 
> >From the Mac list, I also see C-S-s for Save As and others as good use
> of Shift, cos people can learn that a keycombo does one thing, and
> adding Shift it does a related one (inverse dir, special kind...).

Good point. On the other hand, I don't see much use for a special
keyboard shortcut reserved for "Save as...". The first time you save a
previously unsaved document with Ctrl+S, you will get the "Save as..."
dialog anyway, and you don't use "Save as..." very much at all after
that, I think. But that discussion is not important. What's important is
that we can agree on a good set of recommendations.


Christian