From kde-core-devel  Fri Jun 05 00:53:40 2009
From: Andrew Dorrell <andrew.dorrell () gmail ! com>
Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:53:40 +0000
To: kde-core-devel
Subject: Re: F11 - fullscreen shortcut
Message-Id: <200906051053.40290.andrew.dorrell () gmail ! com>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=124423991821008

Insane number of posts on such an innane topic.

There is a need, and has been for ages, to create a set of rules that 
application developers can use when selecting short-cut keys.  Currently there 
is *no* guiding principle - only common practice - which moves and doesn't 
make much sense.  Nor is there a guiding principle on what should be given a 
shortcut (there are lots of candidates in any one application).

From a users perspective I love consistency.  I'm not so fussed on the actual 
key - I will have to learn that anyway.  But consistency means I only have to 
learn it once - not once for each application I use.   This suggests shortcuts 
are most important for common functionality.  Application specific 
functionality should take a back-seat *but* should have adequate options 
available - options that won't be snaffled on a whim.

I think the KDE community should take a step back from this particular post 
and decide what it wants to do about this issue.  There are only two real 
options:

1. Follow common practice (does it mean what windows does?) document it and 
and get over it.
2. Break with common practice and make the large number of changes that might 
be required to make everything "consistent"

While I can see the advantage of, for example, reserving the meta modifier key 
for all window related shortcuts, etc.  I can see that there will be a lot of 
change and a lot of complaints along the way.  It might be just too big and 
not important enough to fight on.  Remember that emacs has a vi mode ;-)

And don't start this kind of discussion after going beta.

My 2c.