#1721 NORM Trial-2: Standardize keyboard shortcuts

[Kent Quirk]

Jumping into the discussion, not necessarily on one side or the other:

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> On Jun 21, 2007, at 8:14 , Zarro Boogs per Child wrote:
>
>   
>> 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.
>
>   
Yes, the keys were assigned originally because they are near each other 
on western keyboards, and the mnemonic suggested was that X looks like 
scissors, C is for copy, and V is like the arrow used by editors to mark 
"insert here". They're arbitrary, but they're also extremely 
conventional at this point. There's no reason to throw the baby out with 
the bathwater.


>> 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.
>   
It's still XCV though.


>>  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.
>   
Ehhh...not so much.

I shipped a product called "Cosmic Blobs", which was a 3D product for 
kids. The first version of it had NO text in it whatsoever.

One of the biggest problems is that if you don't tell them, people don't 
know what to call things. Sure, Germans might say bathtub sometimes as a 
convention, or they might say option. But if you had used "bathtub" to 
me without explaining it, I wouldn't have known what the hell you were 
talking about.

It's really painful when you're trying to support someone by voice to 
tell them "press the icon that looks like a pair of hands, it's in the 
upper right corner, just below the one that looks like a little pile of 
bricks, next to the one with the banana on it."

People name things -- it's what we DO. I completely understand the 
desire to get away from language in a multilingual environment -- but 
having been the lead on a product where we did that, I also now believe 
it was a big mistake. Icons are good, but they should be supplemented by 
language.

As a purely practical matter, if you use icons for keys you also have to 
make sure that wingdings are available that represent those icons, and 
that everyone who writes about them knows how to find them. However 
nonsensical it may be for non-english speakers, CTRL is easy to recreate 
even on a non-western keyboard.

> 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.
>   

On the converse, it's not necessarily clear-cut the other way. Please 
understand these points:

* Language, both written and spoken, is a key part of being human
* There are conventions that should probably be respected
* A purely iconic representation has a lot of flaws

    Kent

-- 
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Kent Quirk           I'm making a game about global warming.
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