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

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On 3 Jan, 2006, at 3:40 AM, Manu Cornet wrote:
> ...
> * Currently, Ctrl-Spacebar does what user would expect Spacebar to do
> (play/pause the currently select song).

That's unfortunate. When you have a drink in one hand and a plate of 
party food in the other, or a phone in one hand and a printout in the 
other, you really want a key for Play/Pause that you can use with your 
elbow. :-)

> * 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),

I was just about to say "What? Pressing Space in Nautilus doesn't open 
the selected file, so why should pressing Space in Rhythmbox play the 
selected item?" ... Then I noticed that pressing Space in Nautilus 
*does* open the selected file. Oh dear.

Nevertheless, I think the usefulness and precedent of Space as a global 
Play/Pause key is too strong, and the key's function shouldn't be 
dependent on whatever happens to be selected at the time.

> or even have the right behavior (play/pause) when the "play" button is 
> selected.
> ...

Or completely the wrong behavior if one of the other buttons is 
focused! A hackish way of fixing that side of it is to prevent 
Rhythmbox's buttons from taking focus, on the grounds that they're 
equivalent to a toolbar.

A more thorough way of fixing it would be to implement a "Speed mode" 
in GTK that lets only text field and listbox controls take focus, in 
contrast with the existing "Accessibility mode" that lets any control 
take focus. Unless you have trouble using a pointing device, including 
controls you can't type in in the tab order is quite inefficient.

--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/