Re: [Usability] Print Screen and Pause keys

["P G" <pg_gnome mail com>]

> On Wed, Feb 20, 2002 at 08:58:54AM -0500 or 
> thereabouts, Sinzui Kobalt wrote:

>> Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause keys 
>> keys have been dead for more
>> than a decade in several operating systems.  >> It's a shame to have them
>> taking up space on the keyboard.  Could they >> be reused?  Print Screen
>> might be permanently mapped to a screen 
>> capture app.  Pause/Break could
>> display a task list or process monitor.  May >> I could map cut/copy/paste
>> to them and relabel the caps.

I think this is a good idea overall.



> I already use scroll lock. I have a KVM 

If we only made standards for keys that no-one 
had found a use for, we wouldn't have any 
standards.  



I see several considerations.  (Maybe there are 
more.)

* Existing uses
- Is there a de facto standard use of the key, 
or at least are there patterns of uses?  If 
users have each their own use, they must find 
the key's formally defined standard operation 
(if there is one) of little use;  so a new 
standard use will likely do good.


* Proposed use vs. other uses, Frequency vs. 
convenience
- How frequent is the proposed use, relative to 
the key's convenience;  compare to other uses 
of the key.

Cut, Copy and Paste are very frequent 
operations, and the three keys in question are 
quite convenient for the right hand.


* Key-Operation Association
- Would the proposed operation be confusing, 
given the key captions.  I think this is minor, 
if few people use the keys.



> (keyboard,video,mouse) box. 
> ...
> one (three, ahem) computers. And to shift to 
> using a different 
> computer, I hit the scroll lock key twice and 
> then a number on 
> the keyboard. And a different session to a 

I bet this is not a common setup.



> I would not appreciate finding that suddenly 
> it had altered the
> volume on the speakers because Gnome had 
> decided to remap them
> because no-one uses them. 

Surely, everyone listening would be notified of 
any changes, and it would all be configurable.



> Scroll lock is often used by X applications 
> such as xterm-like
> programs. To, um, lock the scrolling. 

How often is that used?



> Break is often used by serial terminal 
> emulators to send a break 
> signal to an application.

Good point, maybe.  Isn't there an alterbnative 
way to send a Break signal?



> Print screen -- well, that's used by some 
> apps, but the key is
> sometimes also SysRq as well, and I have 
> SysRq enabled in my
> kernel for when it crashes and I need 
> debugging output for the
> bug report.

That use of the key is consistent with the  one 
suggested.



> By the way -- have you ever seen a Sun 
> keyboard? There are
> several varieties, but the "Unix" ones have a 
> whole host of 
> "extra" keys which PC users probably find 
> unnecessary..

Do other keyboards have PrintSc, ScrollLock and 
Pause?



> If it's just the waste of space, of course, 

What about a waste of valuable keys?


Philip
-- 

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