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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Standard shortcuts (was RE: The Ctrl-A controversy)
From:       "Santiago Burbano" <santib () mtservicios ! com>
Date:       1999-12-17 18:07:39
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 > >
> > Here goes a suggestion:
> > File -> Open, Save, Print, Exit
>
> Also "Save as" (?), "New", "Close"
>

I personally don't like 'Save as...'. Usually, when hitting a shortcut, I
expect the application to make the action I want straight away. If the
shortcut just opens a dialog box where I have to use mouse/keyboard to
actually perform the action, there is no time saving in using the shortcut.

As for the 'Close', as far as I remember from the Close/Quit/Exit discussion
some days ago, Close was removed because there was no use in a SDI
environment. I might be wrong (I can't check the style-guide right now).

> Also "Next Line", "Previous Line", "Next Char", "Previous Char",
"Beginning of
> paragraph"
>

Well, if you consider arrow keys a shortcut, agreed. ;-)

> Also, "View" --> "Zoom in" and "Zoom out".
> For "Go" --> one might consider "Back" and "Forward".
> For "Bookmarks" --> one might consider "Add to Bookmarks".
> For "Tools" --> one might consider "Spell Check"
>

Don't know, some may say that these are too application specific

>
> The natural thing would be for the developer to use the shortcuts he/she
likes
> but when the app launches, before drawing them in, the standard keys class
> should be queried for whether they are available; the ones that are not
> available are dropped (or the program can have a series of 'backup'
shortcuts,
> but if all fail they will still have to be dropped

Don't like this. Shortcuts have to be predictable. If the sysadm changes
Save from Ctrl+S to Ctrl+A, so suddenly my Select All stops working (or
changes to Ctrl+K), I won't like it.

An idea: may be we could reserve Ctrl+key for system keybindings and the
rest (Alt+key, Alt+Shift+key, etc) left application specific. This way,
developers (if they follow the style-guides, of course) would know which
shortcuts are free for sure, and which aren't. Non-compliant apps would
still be problematic, but who cares about them ;-P

Santiago

PS: Could somebody, PLEASE, set the Reply-To field. I just sent this message
to Andreas Pour's private e-mail by mistake (my apologies, Andreas).

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