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List:       kde
Subject:    [kde] KMail key binding and the User Interface Guidelines
From:       Robin Rosenberg <robin.rosenberg () dewire ! com>
Date:       2004-02-01 23:59:30
Message-ID: 200402020059.30899.robin.rosenberg () dewire ! com
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Not sure if I should report this as a bug or not. 

For some time KMail has not obeyed the "standards" with regard to the common keys \
like arrow-up, down, Ctrl-A etc. In most applications arrow up mens "focus on next \
item", in KMail it is "scroll down in mail". Ctrl-A means select all item, i KMail it \
means select all messages, typing a letter focuses on the list item starting with \
that letter (in kmail its a combination oa actions and selecting items).

Of course these are useful to some and people coming from inconsistent mail clients \
may not notice the inconsistency. I do notice. The consistency in KDE's user \
interface is a big reason for me preferring KDE over Gnome (and GTK applications in \
general) I'm used to being  able to navigate just about everything from the keyboard \
using  the "standard" conventions common in Windows and KDE and some other  \
environments. Kmail breaks a lot.

I could subscribe to the idea that without a predefined focus some non-standard \
bindings could be used, but when I explicitly select a pane, by clicking in it or \
using tab to shift focus to the next pane, things should work the same in all \
applications.

The "focus" is very unclear in KMail. If I use the arrow keys it appears that the \
messge has focus, but if I press Ctrl-A it appears that the message list has focus \
pressing J (or something not prebound in Kmail) shifts focus on the first message box \
starting with the letter 'J'.  Pressing 'K' does not focus one the KDE-list folder

If I click on a message and press Ctrl-A, the whole message would be selected in any \
KDE application I can think of. Except KMail. 

Another thing is the +/- keys which is most apps mean open/close trees in lists. \
Again Kmail has it's own idea.

A very "similar" application is KNode, but keybindings are very different, but more \
consistent with the KDE User Interface Guidelines. 

It seems KDE is moving towards the ad-hoc key bindings of traditional unix apps, \
where every developer has his own standard.

Ofcourse, considering the alternatives, KMail is still my choice, but these are \
things that annoy me and are possibly very annoying to peoply who cannot choise their \
method of interaction as easily. 

-- robin
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