On 03/25/2010 01:00 AM, saulgoode@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > The mnemonics are unrelated to GIMP's keyboard shortcuts (which will > still be visible in the menus, unless the user has specified otherwise > in his gtkrc). Wait. I thought they were using the word 'mnemonics' to mean what is commonly called 'shortcuts'. I see now that what was meant by 'mnemonics' was the underlined letters in menu items. As I understand it, these underlined letters are only useful if you are navigating the menus via keyboard. Well, making those visible only when navigating the menus by keyboard makes sense. Pardon my confusion. The UI-world use of the words 'mnemonic' and 'shortcut' seem confusing to me, since the functionality of the two in this case is very similar. I would call that a misuse of the word 'mnemonic'. But this isn't a debate about language use. > Advanced users will learn to avail > themselves of such optional conveniences without requiring prompting > from talking paperclips or animated walkthroughs, and the neophytes > are better off not being confronted with the additional complications. I don't think that philosophy applies to the presence of keyboard shortcuts next to the names of menu items. These subtle bits of additional information are a different species than talking paperclips. One is helpful but not intrusive. The other is condescending and intrusive when on by default. In my experience 'neophytes' or non-expert users don't even notice that the shortcuts are there. I have people at work that supposedly work on computers every day that don't know the keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste. For some it seems the GUI is filled with lots of small details that they don't comprehend, so they just ignore those details and continue working to the highest level of efficiency that they are capable. -Jason Simanek _______________________________________________ Gimp-developer mailing list Gimp-developer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
