#1721 NORM Trial-2: Standardize keyboard shortcuts

[Bert Freudenberg]

On Jun 21, 2007, at 8:14 , Zarro Boogs per Child wrote:

> #1721: Standardize keyboard shortcuts
> ------------------------------- 
> +--------------------------------------------
>   Reporter:  bert              |       Owner:  Eben
>       Type:  defect            |      Status:  assigned
>   Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:  Trial-2
>  Component:  interface-design  |     Version:
> Resolution:                    |    Keywords:
>   Verified:  0                 |
> ------------------------------- 
> +--------------------------------------------
> Comment (by gnu):
>
>  Using CTRL, and the standard X, C, V keys is a great thing.

Actually, having a cut/copy/paste key as on many pre-PC keyboards  
would be a Great thing. Modifiers in itself are a barrier to  
discovering functions, whereas separate keys have "affordance" in  
Norman's sense.

Now I'm not actually proposing this because of limited space on the  
keyboard, but "great" isn't exactly what I'd call it.

Besides, only C for "Copy" is even vaguely mnemonic for these keys.  
They just happen to be placed next to each other on some (most?)  
keyboards. Which might be unproblematic since mist users will not  
speak English anyway.

> Mozilla made
>  that change some years ago and improved its cross-platform  
> compatability
>  significantly.

That's nonsense. You want *platform* consistency, shortcuts should  
follow the expectation of a user's platform. And indeed, on a Mac  
Mozilla uses Cmd-X/C/V which is the Right Thing on that platform.

> Use CTRL-W for close-window and CTRL-Q for quit while
>  you're at it (when there's no dialog box up, they'd probably do  
> the same
>  thing in a Sugar, uh, "activity").

Ctrl-W doesn't make too much sense in a window-less environment like  
Sugar. Dialogs are better closed with an accept or cancel button, for  
which we use escape and enter. Quitting an activity via Ctrl-Q might  
be sensible, and Q for "quit" might work in more languages because of  
its Latin origin (whereas "window" in Latin would start with an F).

>  Please, not the obscure Apple graphics about the modifier keys!   
> Whenever
>  I use a Mac, I can never figure out the shortcuts, because I can  
> never
>  remember which bizarre symbol goes with which key.  And there's no  
> easy
>  way to "read them out loud" either, e.g. "Just press two strange  
> lines and
>  then the C key".  These even appear to the right in the top-of-screen
>  menus, making THOSE unreadable and unpronounceable.

This is all about convention. Of course you can assign a name to  
these keys, in fact, people always do. For example, to refer to the  
Apple Option key I heard people saying "Badewanne" which is German  
for "bath tub", and indeed it looks like half a bath tub. Or  
"propeller-c" for Cmd-C because of the key cap's resemblance to a  
propeller. So having easily distinguishable icons is actually a plus  
over English-derived labels in a multilingual environment.

>  What is wrong with CTRL, SHIFT, ALT GR, and FN as both the preprinted
>  names on the keys, and the way that documentation, text, menus,  
> control
>  panels refer to these keys?

For one thing, these are English. Assuming you're a native speaker  
you might not realize how hard it is for speakers of other languages  
to derive any meaning from those labels.

Secondly, except for "shift" these aren't even proper English words.  
Try to pronounce CTRL as written. And "shift"? What's actually  
"shifted"? Nothing since the demise of the mechanical type writer.  
Haven an up-arrow to indicate "bigger" letters is nearly universal  
for latin/greek/cyrillic languages. Other languages don't have the  
concept of uppercase letters, or even letters.

> There are already too many odd keys like the
>  "grab" keys with a hand on them; the "Eye/mouth" key, the "gear"  
> key, and
>  the ESC key that mysteriously contains an X (we already have an X  
> key,
>  too).
>
>  So, don't change the keyboard.  It's time to buckle down and ship  
> this
>  product, not keep endlessly changing it for no particularly good  
> reason.

I'm just saying things aren't as clear-cut as you suggest. You need  
to step back for a moment and try to unfocus from the one platform  
and one language you're accustomed to, to see a bigger picture.

We're defining a platform, so we need a platform standard, and that's  
what the bug report is about.

- Bert -