#4646 HIGH Update.: Systemwide keyboard shortcuts break terminal apps (e.g. nano)

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#4646: Systemwide keyboard shortcuts break terminal apps (e.g. nano)
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  Reporter:  bemasc            |       Owner:  Eben     
      Type:  defect            |      Status:  new      
  Priority:  high              |   Milestone:  Update.2 
 Component:  interface-design  |     Version:  Build 650
Resolution:                    |    Keywords:           
  Verified:  0                 |    Blocking:           
 Blockedby:                    |  
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Changes (by mtd):

 * cc: mtd (added)


Comment:

 I know now's not the best time for peanut-gallery comments/patches, but
 I'll toss this out anyway:

  * #5376 has made terminal able to copy & paste from the keyboard
  * ctrl-o, ctrl-s, other shortcuts seem to be OK to remove (see below)

 I'm attaching three patches:

 4646-0001) revert ctrl-s from #4591 - useful for deployments and addresses
 the original purpose of this ticket.

 4646-0002) remove non-contentious keyboard shortcuts (see below for
 rationale) - not detrimental for deployment usage (see below, again)

 4646-0003) add back emulator-required keyboard shortcuts, but with
 additional <ctrl> modifier key (in front of <alt>) to make them much less
 likely to interfere with activity shortcuts.

 I split this up into three patches because:

  * 4646-0001 I imagined to be trivial / agreed; and

  * 4646-0002 to have no effect on deployments and be in line with my
 interpretation of eben/bemasc's exchange:

 > > My primary concern is that activities be able to override and
 > > deactivate shortcuts, for whatever bizarre uses they desire. Only
 > > a handful of special keys should be trapped by Sugar, to ensure
 > > minimal functionality like the ability to exit the activity.
 >
 > This is fair enough. The ability to override the defaults could be a
 > reasonable option.

 ...as:

  1. NOT allowing removal of any keyboard shortcut involving a keyboard key
 that has an XO-specific image/glyph (this reserves all the F-keys, and the
 XO-only keys on the keyboard and monitor like search, overlay, rotate,
 dpad, etc.) and/or are obviously required for minimal sugar
 functionality (this reserves ctrl-esc for exit/quit activity and alt-tab
 and ctrl-alt-tab for obvious window-switching features) - this is all
 justified, IMHO, by eben agreeing with bemacs's
 "only a handful of special keys should be trapped by sugar, to ensure
 minimal functionality . . ."; and

  1. allowing removal of any keyboard shortcut that is not required by
 minimal sugar functionality - this is all justified both as the converse
 of what eben's agreement with bemasc means and also as a consequence of
 eben explictly not objecting to removing the Ctrl-O shortcut ("I wouldn't
 be sad if [the ctrl-o/open] shortcut went away").

 The only contentiousness I can see (if I've interpreted eben/bemasc
 sympathetically) with this patch (4646-0002) is that non-XO users of sugar
 could lose access to the functionality now only available with the XO-only
 keys (e.g., rotate, overlay).  I argue 1) this is not a concern for any
 deployment; and 2) this can easily be addressed by choosing different,
 less likely-to-interfere shortcuts.  As I'm less comfortable choosing
 these shortcuts and without these shortcuts all deployments can still make
 full use of Sugar/XO, I defer the
 choice of these alternates to a 4646-0003 so this patch (4646-0002) can
 easily be cherry-picked.

  * ...and 4646-0003 to be contentious and definitely none-of-my-business
 (aka needs eben/someone's blessing on the choice of new modifiers).  I
 imagine these <alt><somekey> shortcuts were added mainly for emulation (on
 non-XO hardware) developers/users because they duplicate other shortcuts
 (except for screenshot).  I've made them <ctrl><alt><originalsomekey>.  As
 they're already not-required-for-XO-hardware / dupes I suppose they are
 grandfathered / don't conflict with eben's "[we eliminated] 3-key
 shortcuts" / bemasc's "[a single task shouldn't be assigned two
 shortcuts]".

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/4646#comment:14>
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