Re: [Usability] Application-type keyboard shortcuts

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 8 Sep 2004, Shaun McCance wrote:

> Date: 08 Sep 2004 18:38:35 -0500
> From: Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>
> To: Tommi Komulainen <tommi komulainen iki fi>
> Cc: Usability <usability gnome org>
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Application-type keyboard shortcuts
>
> On Wed, 2004-09-08 at 13:13, Tommi Komulainen wrote:
> > On Wed, 2004-09-08 at 08:19 -0400, Bryan Clark wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2004-09-08 at 11:15 +0300, Aschwin van der Woude wrote:
> > > >
> > > > It would be nice if such applications agree on a set of keyboard-
> > > > shortcuts. Would the HIG perhaps be a place to define keyboard-shortcuts
> > > > for different types of applications?
> > >
> > > It actually does this already [1]. In the view section are shortcut keys
> > > that applications should be using for zooming and others.
> > >
> > > If an application isn't following these guidelines it's probably a bug
> > > in either the HIG being out of date or the application.
> >
> > I for one would really like it if mail/news/rss readers could all agree
> > on a single set of shortcuts...  I can never remember which of 'n',
> > 'Ctrl+N', '.', ']' jumps to next unread message and such :)

Which software are you talking about specifically?

I strongly suspect your list includes non-GUI mail applications which I
think it is fair to say goes beyond the scope of Gnome.

(What mail clients could you be talking about in the context of Gnome?
Evolution, Balsa, Sylpheed, Mozilla Mail, Thunderbird?)

> And whether it's 'M' or 'Ctrl+K' to mark a message read. :-\

Normal users are likely to stick with one mail client, and Gnome is
considering including Ximian/Novell Evolution as the default (dont know if
that has finally been decided yet).  (Truely normal ordinary users are not
likely to even know what a mail client is and use some sort of web based
email.)

Attempting to have consistant shortcuts for the different mail
applications would be nice and if developers would like help trying to
evaluate what keybindings would be the best general defaults I am sure
people on the usability list will be willing to help figure that out.
But it is not something of general use and I think it would be too
specific to include in the Gnome guidelines.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org