Re: [Usability] [Fwd: RE: Your final comments on gswitchit in 2.4...]

["Sergey V. Oudaltsov" <sergey oudaltsov clients ie>]

> That's just to say that it's always possible to do it
> in realtime.  If the xdbprint (or whatever it's
> called) path it's too slow, then you would have to
> redo your own generator or drop it.
Well, Ivan Pascal offered me to create my own keyboard render (he even 
contributed some initial code). I just thought that one of the "Unix 
way" things is reusing existing components. And I thought 
xkbprint+bonobo+ggv is a good way to do it. Probably I was wrong. 
Actually, I also thought that people usually first configure the 
keyboard (touching all the widgets they want) - and then look at the 
result. No real runtime is necessary here I guess.

> Anyway I think that it will suck too much visual space
> for no significative gain, so if it was my decision, I
> would just drop it.
OK. I will take your opinion into account. I just would love to get more 
voices. So far, I just got one your voice: "No preview necessary at 
all". People, anyone else?

> Ask yourself why these people are using different
> shortcuts.
Because they USED TO.

> When people do things in different ways is either
> because sometimes one of these ways is better than the
> other.  That makes for a reasonable option.
Shift-Shift is not better nor worse than Right Ctrl.

> What are the benefits of using Shift-Shift vs
> Alt-Shift vs Right-Control?  None at all.
Absolutely. But people just used to it.

> Of course, just set a sane shortcut.  Otherwise you
> end with documentation problems, and there will be no
> way to just going to a foreign computer and knowing
> what should you do to switch the current keyboard.
A bit of history. In Windows 3.1 world there was no standard way to 
switch using RCtrl (or any other single-key sequence). People installed 
some nice switching tool _just_to_get_this_possibility. Will we learn 
from this? Even now Windows offer 2 or 3 "switchcut". What you offer is 
to take this choice from people at all. I think this is wrong. This is 
not only necessary - I would not even put it into "Advanced" widget set 
- it is _core_ feature. And I never heard people complaining about "how 
to switch the layout" - one they know where to look at. Also, there is a 
mouse click on the applet which can be used to switch between primary 
layouts as well.

> I mean, I see no need for "secondary group
> checkboxes".  I don't even understand what does it
> means.  Maybe it makes sense for a xkb developer, but
> sure it doesn't makes sense for a user, and has no
> businnes on an interface.  What's the goal of these
> "secondary group checkboxes"?
See the Andrew's message about the Ukraine. Not convincing? There are 
people in same situation in Russian, Israel etc.

> > > For the tabs' name (Option #1, etc.), I don't see
> > what
> > > other options you can have that make you use a
> > > notebook at all.
Some tricky xkb options which are left blank in ... 90% configurations.

> What do you have in these tabs?  What are you able to
> configure there?
Some non-trivial usage of indicators, modifier keys, Compose key etc. 
Really "Advanced" stuff.

Sergey