Well, the great piece of free software called "Netscape" doesn't allow me
to cut & paste today, so I am going to have to retype a lot of stuff.
> There is no way to resolve duplicates - and what does it help if the
> shortcut-key is the third letter of the Word you want to select? You
> want to accelerate your work - and decyphering from some accidentally
> underlined letter which is the current shortcut does not improve your
> speed.
First of all that's why care is (or should be) taken when determining
which letters get underlined. Second, there is no posible way you are
going to run out of 26 letters of the english alphabet on the same
menu. Remember, these keys only work while you are on that particular
menu. On most software packages (not for Linux, though), the
"underline" action keys are generally organized well enough so that it's
quicker to push that key instead of moving the mouse. For laptop users
this is true especially since most laptop mice don't have as much control
as standard desktop mice. If you ever tried to pick a menu item from a
1024x768, 10" laptop screen , using a kludgy input device like a
touchpad or one of those pointing sticks, you would appreciate the ability
to push a key instead of moving the mouse. Again, seems like the
dominating attitude around this area is "I *hate* alt-f-x style of
navigating the menus, so it must not be implemented". Hopefully these
examples describe this issue better than the original post.
Also, while this is probably a really minor issue compared to -other-
issues, when the "Help" menu is dropped down from the main gimp window
(the toolbox palette), and using keyboard to move the menu selector around
the help menu, it gets stuck when pressing "down" from "Help..." item, or
when going backwards, from "Context Help". It's really not funny that
something standard like a menu would have different behaviour depending on
the context.
> it is inconsistent and impossible to translate between different
> languages (and I *do* switch between german and english): Now you can
> give hints like "Press Ctrl+L" to open the L&C Dialog", this would be
> impossible with "If you use an english Gimp, press Alt-D-L, if you use a
> german Gimp, press Alt-D-E(benen)"... I remember the switch from
> pagemaker 4 to 5: all shortcuts changed, because they changed their
> translation philosophy to translate the shortcuts too: It was definitely
> a PITA.
I believe you are missing the point. Nobody is complaining about general
shortcut keys. Things like Ctrl+L are never going away. This has nothing
to do with the issue I am talking about, which is putting accelerator keys
on menu items to allow faster navigation once the menu is already open.
On the translation issue, there are two ways you can go about it. And
remember, this is about the "underlined" shortcuts, not general ones like
Ctrl+L. Since the menus get translated, you can either translate the
shortcut as well, making sure that it's still intuitive as choice in that
particular language (but uhm... we are back to the same problem of GTK - I
don't think it will allow you to have anything other than english letters
to the underline actions), or you can do it the way japanese software has
done it for years, and that is translating the menu entry, and providing
the accessibility key in parenthesis after the item:
"File (F)" "Exit (x)" "Image (I)" etc. The ja.po file for gimp already
does this kind of things with the "File", "Xtns", and "Help" menu, and
others. This is not the most "pretty" way of doing it, but there is no
issue of having to "relearn" key combinations to get around menus. In my
personal experience, at one point I had to spend some time in front of a
desktop machine which was running "spanish" localized version of Windows.
And yes, Microsoft happily translates the shortcut keys as
well. Seriously annoying, especially since I am used to things like
Ctrl-Esc-S-C to get to control panel, etc. Anyway, back to Gimp issue.
> it is blocking a huge amount of "regular" shortcuts. I *want* to use
> alt-f/e/s/v/i/l/t/d/r (note that the filters entry would probably end up
> with an "R" as a shortcut because all other letters are already
> occupied...)/G/V/C for something other than invoking menus.
Sigh. Once again, you are missing the issue and exaggerating the
problem. The way Gimp's "image" menu was designed, there is no possible
way to do the "Alt-blah" thing to open it. Now if all that menu was on
top of the drawing area (like a normal menu type thing), then yes, one
would expect to operate that menu by doing Alt-F or Alt-I etc to open
it. But since the main menu is hidden until you right click, then it will
take that right click to open it. It is AFTER the fact that its open that
these shortcut keys come to use. You say:
> A shortcut to open the <image>-menu would be good, further menupoints
> could be reached with the cursor-keys
Now wouldn't it be so nice if you could right click, and hit "I" key to
get to the Image menu instead of pressing the "down" key 4 times? Or
following the same example, right click, "i", "s" to get to the scale
dialog? Say you don't know that it already has a shortcut, or just
learning the interface? Or maybe it's painful for you to press the key
combination for the "Pencil" tool (shift-p), so instead it would be
easier to right click, "t", "p", "p" or something to that effect.
Most of you are probably thinking by now I am either crazy or nuts or an
asshole, or all of the above, but these really are valid issues.
I imagine most of you *hate* the Win95 key that you get for free on most
keyboards (all of them now, actually) - but why not put it to good
use? Why not make it open the gimp's right click menu? Then you can
control everything from keyboard without moving the mouse at all! This is
provided that all of menu items have appropriate underlined
shorcuts. Hopefully some day they will.
> So I guess this remains unimplemented - and I am not unhappy about this
Not to pick on the particular person who posted that message, but he might
have no problems in life. He's got both arms, hands, and has no problem
doing fine motor operations like selecting a menu. Not everyone is so
gifted. One of the reasons Linux will never succeed on the desktop is
because there is complete lack of "accessibilty" features. These
underlined keyboard things I have been talking about that most people just
shrug off as "blah, useless shit I never use" could actually come quite
handy for using the program. Not to mention that pressing a key is always
easier than moving the mouse, especially if the person has trouble doing
so, or the screen is small, etc etc.
tc
--
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timecop at japan.co.jp | ＯＡ通信サビース株式会社 | NTT DoCoMo
I thought everything that Linus Torvalds is involved with was divine
perfection? Must be a problem with NEC and Sony -about Crusoe recall
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