Re: [Usability] Rhythmbox and default GTK widget activation key



On 1/2/06, Manu Cornet <manu cornet gmail com> wrote:
> I'd like to know you guys' opinion about the GTK widget activation key,
> which is currently the Spacebar. This means that pressing "Spacebar"
> activates whatever widget is currently selected.
>
> For programs, such as rhythmbox, I think this is a problem since users
> probably expect the Spacebar to do something else. Here's a bug about
> that :
>
>         http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165716
>
> * Currently, Ctrl-Spacebar does what user would expect Spacebar to do
> (play/pause the currently select song).
>
> * Pressing Spacebar activates the selected widget, and therefore can
> have very different actions : play the song from the beginning even if
> it was already playing (when the song is the selected widget), play the
> first song of the album from the beginning (when the album is selected),
> or even have the right behavior (play/pause) when the "play" button is
> selected. I think this is very confusing for the users, a lot of which
> have the habit of just pressing spacebar to play/pause music or videos,
> since this works in a lot of other programs, on many platforms.
>
> What do you guys think about that ?

I'm pretty sure it's possible in Gtk to override the default behavior
and catch presses of the spacebar.  Applications like media players
can do this if necessary.

However, doing so probably breaks the ability to use it via the
keyboard in the normal way (tab+spacebar).  Is this really so much of
a problem?

--
Simon Howard
http://www.soulsphere.org/



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