Re: [Usability] Using Control-Esc and Windows keys to access the start menu

[Lennart Borgman <lennart borgman 073 student lu se>]

Calum Benson wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-08-30 at 16:48 +0200, Lennart Borgman wrote:
>
>   
> > Thanks for your answer Calum. Since you say that GNOME's 2.x keyboard 
> > was redesigned with the various desktops in mind and since Windows is by 
> > far the biggest competitor (and the one we really want to take users 
> > from) why was such things as I mentioned, and that are so important and 
> > familiar to many MS Windows users, why are those left out?
> >     
>
> Largely because, at the time, we saw no reason to annoy our existing
> user base by changing existing shortcuts (such as alt+f1) that weren't
> actually conflicting with or inconsistent with anything else in GNOME. 
>
> Also, GNOME has/had a concept of keyboard 'themes', which at the time we
> had higher hopes for making work better and more universally, and which
> would have made switching over to a desktop-wide, Windows, Mac, or
> anything-else keyboard scheme very easy for the user.  Instead, the only
> thing we ever got was the slightly-crummy emacs theme, which only
> applied to text fields, and was dumped from the UI altogether after a
> while.
>   

Thanks for the good explanation. I believe this makes me understand this 
much better.

>   
> > Can you please explain the reasoning? Since there was a redesign I can 
> > not understand the arguments about internal consistency.
> >     
>
> The redesign was done primarily at the accessibility team's behest, and
> they made it clear that internal consistency was paramount, as (for
> example) it makes it much easier for blind users to memorise their way
> around, and places less memory load on users with cognitive
> difficulties.
>   

I really agree this is important! However summing up what you told here 
it looks like an unfortunate combination of things has made it quite 
difficult for users to switch from MS Windows to GNU/Linux with Gnome.

>   
> > > Please file bugs (with the keynav keyword) about any inconsistencies  
> > > or holes you find in GNOME's keyboard navigability.  (Note that "not  
> > > the way Windows does it" doesn't necessarily mean it's inconsistent;  
> > > internal consistency is generally more important here, especially  
> > > from an accessibility viewpoint.)
> > >   
> > >       
> > Exactly what do you want me to do?
> >     
>
> Depends exactly what you want fixed, and how. You could lobby for the
> keyboard themeing idea to be revived and improved; or you could file
> bugs against your favourite distro to add the additional Windows
> shortcuts now that the keyboard shortcuts capplet supports it; or you
> could file bugs against GNOME to have the Windows shortcuts be the
> default.  (But be aware that the latter was basically the original
> subject of http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164831, and it
> ended up being resolved by adding the support for multiple
> shortcuts-per-function.)
>   

The support for multiple shortcuts-per-definition sounds to me like an 
excellent idea.

But it looks also to me that the best thing to do might be to take up 
the keyboard theming idea. However I do not know enough about it to 
really argue for it.

Is there an overview over the differences between Gnome and MS Windows 
keyboard usage?

> Cheeri,
> Calum.
>   
Kind regards,
L