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[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > Unix users do not use GNOME. /me runs
> 
> Incorrect - GNOME is a *nix desktop environment.

Nope. :-)
GNOME is a *FREE* desktop environment. Its main purpose was and is AFAIK
to provide a nice and useful desktop environment, consisting of free
software. Nowhere is it said that GNOME is exclusively for Unix.

The underlying platform should be irrelevant, and it mostly is. That's
why GNOME runs on so many platforms. Not only Unix, but people are also
using Gnome applications on OS/2, and even Windows. The interface should
be independant of whether you run it on Linux, Solaris, OS/2, HP-UX,
Windows 2000, or BeOS.
Thus the interface should also be independant of the underlying
platform's console keybindings IMHO. Use universal GUI standards, not
console application standards that will depend on the platform.


> Not fully taking advantage of pre-existing work is thoughtless...

Exactly. That is why I want GNOME to take advantage of the pre-existing
work in the keyboard shortcuts area from a lot of other desktop
environments. :-)


> GNOME tries to be GNOME. Don't worry about Windows, don't worry about Macs;
> certainly look for and assess their virtues - the really awesome things -
> but ignore specifics. The most important thing to us is the usability of
> GNOME, in and of itself and its environment.

I couldn't agree more. The key issue here is that most of the
keybindings from these platforms are universal, or very similar between
the environments. The existing GUI keyboard conventions are no doubt an
asset, because it will help many people.
That's why I don't want GNOME to live on its own island and try to be
totally different and not re-use existing conventions that have proven
to make peoples lifes easier when using and switching between different
desktop environments in the past. GNOME is a desktop, and should be
aimed towards desktop users, no matter their console experiences or on
what platform they were.

There's no reason why we couldn't have a preference setting for using
Emacs-like and traditional Unix keybindings instead of the defaults.
Either global, or a per-application setting. People have mentioned this
before, and it is also mentioned in the KDE guidelines that was
referenced here. I wish people could have read it more carefully before
shouting "don't touch my Unix keybindings".
I fully support such a setting. If it is global, it can be set from the
control center, and an application like Ximian's Doorman could ask for a
preference when migrating to the new desktop.

But I still think GNOME should be to use existing desktop
environment/GUI keyboard shortcut conventions by default, unless the
user has chosen that he prefers console ones. So the guidelines should
reflect the recommended default.


Christian