[Sugar-devel] Keyboard shortcuts

Gary C Martin gary at garycmartin.com
Thu Apr 30 23:48:52 EDT 2009


Still think this is a tough, disruptive sell for very small gains. We  
should focus on getting activity authors (and sugar) using the now  
fully functioning accelerator feature to self document shortcuts.

Anyway, just some quick comments:

On 1 May 2009, at 03:28, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> I am interested in making our keyboard shortcuts discoverable,  
> ubiquitous, and consistent.

--- snip ---

>     '0x93'                 : 'frame',
>     'Insert'               : 'frame', #for SoaS
>     '0x00'                 : 'frame', #for SoaS on Xephyr, see below.

None of my 3 Mac laptops has an Insert key, and the standard keyboard  
that ships with iMac desktops also has no insert. Think all Macs  
currently ship with such keyboards, sans numeric pad, though you can  
make a custom order for "Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad"...  
actually, just checked that key layout as well and no insert key  
either – but hey, you get 19 function keys for your money ;-)

--- snip ---

>     '<alt><ctrl>Escape'    : 'close_window_discard_from_journal',


Not sure what this one is.

--- snip ---

>  #... alt-numeral should be like the top row of the frame, so alt-5  
> would be journal
>  #and alt-6 first running activity


So is the reason behind this idea to help keyboards without any F  
keys? Should this not also include the F5 key being made to show the  
Journal (equiv. to open_search I think).

--- snip ---

> # the following are intended for emulator users
> #    '<alt><shift>f'        : 'frame', #removed
> #    '<alt><shift>o'        : 'open_search', #removed
> #    '<alt><shift>r'        : 'rotate', #removed

Why the removals?? Now I would have no working keys at all for  
accessing the frame!

--- snip ---

> ...
> Also, ctrl-numeral would choose toolbars, and toolbar tabs would get  
> little translucent numbers when you held control.

So what happens to an activity that uses some ctrl-numerals already  
(labyrinth does)?

For my bike-shed, I'd be happy with F1-F4 as is, F5 can be Journal, F6  
could be frame, then we could make little bits of printed card with  
icons on, and kids could sticky-tape them just above their F keys ;-)

Regards,
--Gary



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