On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 15:22:05 +0200, Michael Natterer <mitch@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > David Neary <dneary@xxxxxxx> writes: > > In the current situation, I think it's reasonable to fit in with > > what others do in the general case, which dynamic shortcuts > > provide a way to revert to the old behaviour. When the others are > > everyone using a Mac, plus people who come to the GIMP from KDE > > or GNOME applications, and PhotoShop users, I think the benefits > > of a familiar keybinding are self-evident. > > Is familiarity an argument when what's "familiar" is *way* less > comfortable than the less-familiar but better shortcut? IMHO, yes. It does not matter how awkard a keybinding is - if you cannot remember it, you might as well not use it. If those who do not use the GIMP frequently can remember the Redo shortcut easily, then it will be easier for them to use the program. And anyone who use the shortcut frequently (all experienced GIMP users do) can bind it to some other key, such as Ctrl-Y, Ctrl-R or anything else. > IMHO needing <shift> to toggle between undo and redo is an > absolute usability desaster. The reasons have been said earlier > in this thread: repetitive undo/redo is a a common operation in > graphics applications, unlike e.g. text editors. > > I completely follow the rationale of consistency but IMHO > usability overweights it. I agree with your arguments, but disagree with the conclusion. ;-) [...] > And btw, a considerable percentage of mails in this thread > voted for ctrl+R, does this count less than questionable > "consistency"? How many of these mails have been written by the 99% of the users who do not use the GIMP more than once per week (or month)? Yes, I am teasing you. ;-) [... big snip ...] > I don't know about others' doubts, but I have no doubt that we should > keep <ctrl>+R, since we are not talking about feature xy of > application xy (how often do you use undo in your word processor), but > we talk about the most-used shortcuts in the GIMP. Making them > less accessible is no option IMHO. If your main argument is that we should not have more than one modifier for Redo because it is used frequently (I agree with that, but I think that we should let the users rebind this _if they really need it_), then we should not use Ctrl-R. We could use Ctrl-Y, because there is a chance that it would be consistent with some other programs. But we should not keep Ctrl-R if all other applications have chosen different shortcuts. Historical reasons are not valid because otherwise we would never be able to improve the user interface. So the choice should be between Ctrl-Shift-Z and Ctrl-Y. I prefer the former, for the reasons that I have stated in another message. I could live with the latter, but please do not bring back the old Ctrl-R. -Raphaël
