Re: [Usability] Shortcut keys for EOG

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Gabriel Burt wrote:

> Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 01:17:23 -0600
> From: Gabriel Burt <gabriel burt gmail com>
> To: Jaap Haitsma <jaap haitsma org>
> Cc: usability gnome org, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Shortcut keys for EOG
>
> On Tue, 2005-12-20 at 01:32 +0100, Jaap Haitsma wrote:
> > 1. Should we add the arrow keys as shortcuts for prev/next image if the
> > image is fully visible?
> > 2. What to do with page up / down
> >     a) As currently. Only do scrolling of a image
> >     b) Only do prev/next image
> >     c) prev/next image when whole image visible otherwise scroll
>
> In F-Spot (0.1.5) we now do what you've mentioned in #1.  I think it
> feels right - but I'm biased as it was my suggestion.
>
> Also in F-Spot, page up/down always jump to the previous/next images
> (choice b).

It would be great to have F-Spot, Gthumb, Eog and others (even GQView
maybe?) using the same or similar behaviours.

> I think it makes sense to not involve these in the scrolling within an
> image, mostly since they only provide half the inputs needed (there is
> no page left, page right)

That is a bit of a cop out.  If you really wanted to provide better
keyboard navigation for page scrolling you probably could.

If I recall correctly the Shift+ Mouse Wheel should give side scrolling.
Using Shift+Page Up Shift+Page down for side scrolling could be done,
although I generally prefer not needing to use side scrolling at all.

> and it's very easy to think of them always meaning previous/next image.

Page Up and Page Down normally go only part way down a page and Ctrl+Page
Up and Ctrl+Page Down would move the completely down a page.  This would
apply to applications like Abiword, Gnumeric, Evince and more.

Thinking of a whole image as a single page is not an unreasonable way of
thinking about it I'll admit and I am sort of warming to the idea.
Perhaps just in this case you could swap the usual behaviours around and
have 'Page Up' move completely to the next page and require 'Ctrl+Page Up'
to move up a big chunk of the current page.  I'm concerned though that if
EoG were to do this without a clear plan behind why it was done then users
would jump on Evince and expect them to copy the EoG behaviour rather than
the other way I have previously described.

(Incidentally the Evince developers dont seem to be joking about having
added support for Comic book archives and there is code in CVS and it is
something Image viewers might want to try and reuse.)

> Doing this also provides a way for the user to go to the previous (and
> next, though space does that too, in f-spot at least) image using the
> keyboard even when zoomed, which otherwise they would not be able to do.
> In the event that users expected the page up/down keys to pan, they'll
> quickly learn they don't and their next guess will be right.

I guess accessibility is covered because you can pan the image using the
arrow keys but navigating a large image with only the arrow keys is
painful because the movement step is quite small.  I have warmed to the
idea of having Page Down go to the next image but I really would like to
find a way to keep the page scrolling functionality and switching it over
to using Ctrl+Page Down might be a compromise I could live with so long as
we didn't undermine the consistency of the Gnome Desktop and what other
applications are already doing.

[/me is hoping this discussion can be put on hold until Calum Benson gets
back from his Christmas holidays]

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

-- 
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http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/