[sugar] [PATCH] fix #4646 - replace/normalize some keyboard shortcuts

Eben Eliason eben.eliason
Tue Apr 29 12:10:01 EDT 2008


On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 8:02 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at tomeuvizoso.net> wrote:
> Eben, Ben, are you ok with this?

I'm certainly all for removing alt-n and alt-p.  We don't need
redundant shortcuts here, and alt-tab and alt-shift-tab will work
fine.  Also, I'm the one who mentioned that we should use
alt-shift-tab instead of ctrl-alt-tab for going backwards, to be
consistent with the modifier semantics we are aiming for, so I approve
of that change.

Ctrl-Q is likewise redundant with the ctrl-esc shortcut, which is a
mostly non-standard shortcut, but somehow makes sense in this context
anyway.  (Hey, it beats alt-F4, right?...there's no logic there that I
can see)  In other news, after looking it up, it turns out that
ctrl-esc used to be used to reveal the task manager in Windows,
allowing one to terminate running programs (semantically aligned with
our use here).  Oddly, it has since been remapped to invoke the
Windows start menu, with opposite semantics.  This despite the fact
that many PC keyboards even have a Windows key which does this anyway.
 In any case, I support our interpretation of ctrl-esc and think it
serves the purposes without need for redundancy.

In general, I would say that it's silly to use basic shortcuts for
actions that have a dedicated button on the XO (rotate, frame), which
means in general I approve of making alt-f and alt-r more "complex"
for emulator users.  On the other hand, if we do have a goal of making
Sugar portable to other hardware, we can't make these assumptions as
easily.  Is it possible to define the shortcuts in a dynamic way,
based upon some settings which determine what type of platform we are
running on/in?

My only other comment applies to the comment itself, which I feel is
slightly presumptuous.  I would cut off the stuff after the comma, and
leave it at that.  Who knows, maybe kids in the field will install
Fedora and emulate Sugar themselves!

- Eben



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