build 8.2-760, Read activity and ebook mode - how to make them work together?

[Eben Eliason]

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 6:58 PM, NoiseEHC <NoiseEHC at freemail.hu> wrote:
>
>> Another possible option, for general use, which we've discussed in the
>> past is a palette dedicated to keyboard mappings, revealing a user
>> configurable set of actions.  This would make it possible to see all
>> of the shortcuts for an activity in one consistent place, and even
>> allow the user to adjust them on the fly to suit their tastes (which
>> might be good, if the mnemonics, for instance, are designed for
>> another language.)  This, of course, requires an API so that
>> activities can expose lists of available "functions", and then make
>> use of the new mappings throughout their activity.
>>
>
> I would vote against it. Simply make shortcuts/accelerators/mnemonics
> translatable and require activity authors to think about the usability of

Yes, they should certainly be translatable, so perhaps that's not a valid use.

> their applications. This standardized "function" thing seems a little bit
> over designed, and the keyboard mapping setting palette is a complication. I
> do not know what programs are you planning for the XO, but I can hardly
> think about anything which would require this level of customization (and as
> we all know, customization has a price, less simplicity).

Again, agreed.  I'd like to think no activities will be complex enough
to need it.

> See, actually I do not have much weight in this conversation since I will
> not be the man who will code this thing. Another problem is that the only
> application where I have ever customized the keys was Visual Studio so I
> could be a little bit biased.

That's ok.  Feedback does matter, and we listen to it.

In any case, I brought this idea less due to the customization idea,
and more due to the expressed desire to have a list of available
keyboard shortcuts.  It sounded like you were proposing a system by
which they appeared all at once -- as hovering bubbles, perhaps? -- on
screen contextual to the control they related to.  That sounds
interesting, but extremely complicated to do. On the other hand, it
might not be too much to generate a list of those available somehow.
Did I misunderstand what you were saying?  Thanks for any
clarification.

Perhaps the list is revealed upon press of alt or ctrl (of course
filtered appropriate to the modifiers pressed), instead of in a
palette.  Of course, then you have the problem that you might want to
alt-click on something, or alt-drag something, and such a window could
get in the way.  I'm not sure the best way to go about it, but let's
keep ideating around it. It sounds promising.  For it to work well,
we'd have to have a way to detect all available accelerators,
probably, so the activities don't have to set it all up on their own.
I'm not sure how that would work either.

- Eben