From kde-core-devel Thu Jul 06 19:02:26 2006 From: Andriy Rysin Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:02:26 +0000 To: kde-core-devel Subject: Re: modifier-only shortcuts Message-Id: <44AD5E42.1030703 () myrealbox ! com> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=115221258821093 Thomas Zander wrote: > On Thursday 6 July 2006 15:55, Andriy Rysin wrote: >> There's one very often requested feature for keyboard layout switcher - >> to be able to use modifier-only shortcut for switching layouts. E.g. >> Alt+Shift or Ctrl+Shift like it is on Windows. > > Doing so will disable a _lot_ of potential shortcuts to be used by others. > That and the fact that its really bad usability to stray from the rule > that a 'normal' key should always be included in the shortcut. > > See for a related issue: http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/1569 1) it's not a single key shortcut, so it's not completely applicable to the related issue you've posted above - I'd agree that one key shortcut is bad/dangerous but two modifier keys don't have problems described in the link 2) catching e.g. Ctrl+Shift not gonna affect _any_ derivative shortcuts, as it'll be activated only if you press and RELEASE ctrl+shift, if you press ctrl+shift+a it'll go through to corresponding handler 3) thousands (millions?) people use those combinations on windows and even X (check xkb options for switching groups) and they don't complain, instead I see people complain about kxkb 4) the only problem with two modifiers is if you were thinking pressing e.g. ctrl+shift+a and then changed your mind before pressing 3d key - I occasionly get into that situation - in this case I have to press it again to switch back to my original layout - but this is not special - I occasionly get into similar situation by holding Shift for 8 secs thinking :) 5) now the main agrument for things like Ctrl+Shift is convinience - people who type latin languages may not notice it that much but when somebody uses e.g. Cyrillic the story is different - in modern world there so much latin words or signs missing from localized layout (especially in IT) that you may find switching layouts several dozen times while you type simple email. Now imaging that you used to do that with two adjucent fingers and now you have to use Ctrl+Alt+K taking two hands(!!!). Imagine more - you have more than two layouts and you'll feel those who report this bug to kxkb. 6) the only suggestion I can do to people right now for KDE3 is to use smth like Ctrl+Menu (which I am using myself) or Ctrl+/ which MAY happen to be together on your keyboard. The problem is obvious - many keyboards either don't have those keys or they are not together. 7) just to keep in mind how convinience may matter - to simplify my life I use another trick from X - using Right Alt key to switch layout groups temporary. I.e. I define my layout as e.g. en+ua (by 'Include latin layout' option which also helps with latin key shortcuts problem - but that's different story), thus if I am typing ukrainian and need to insert 1 or 2 latin symbols I just press RtAlt+ and then continue typing in cyrillic. Taking to accound I have 3 layouts, that means otherwise I'd have to a) switch to en b) type my symbol c) switch back to ru d) switch back to ua So if we're not going to implement modifier-only shortcuts in kdelibs I have only two suggestions: 1. Implement this functionality only in kxkb, transparently for other apps - that's how it's done in gnome-switcher/libxklavier, and I am working on libxklavier integration so we could potentially have this functionlity almost for free. NOTE: we would have two places for defining shortcuts or having main shortcut in kcmkeys and 'advanced' in kcmkeyboard_layout 2. Make standard layout switching shortcut from Ctrl+Alt+K to smth which is very convinient, e.g. Ctrl+Menu but hopefully applicable for most of the keyboards (and also don't use a letter - that's another problem Ill describe later this week). Again, please understand me right - I am for clean design both in UI approach and coding but it's just that this is the place where by simplifying our life we make users suffer. Andriy