Re: on keyboard shortcuts
Re: on keyboard shortcuts
- Subject: Re: on keyboard shortcuts
- From: Alex Zavatone <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:30:27 -0400
FYI, if you're interested in creating a GUI interface for the key bindings for the user, please do it better than how Xcode did it.
In Xcode's Key Bindings GUI, the key bindings are not always represented in the form of all the modifier keys required for the command to be invoked.
For example, in the bindings section of Preferences, there are cases where you will see command | (pipe or vertical bar) and command _ .
What these really mean are command shift \ and command shift -, since shift on the \ gives you the pipe and shift on the minus gives you the underscore.
Likewise, you'll see command { and command } which really mean command shift [ and command shift ]
Also option command ? which means option command shift /.
However, in other areas of the binding GUI, you'll clearly see the shift requirement be clearly indicated, as in command shift M.
Needless to say, if your users have to guess when to use a modifier key because your GUI reference doesn't consistently indicate when one is required, it can get confusing.
On Sep 19, 2012, at 10:09 AM, Martin Hewitson wrote:
> Ken, thanks for your thoughts. That helps me a lot. You say that providing good keyboard shortcuts in the first place is the best approach, and that's what I think I did, at least for people using a US keyboard. It's hard to predict what others find comfortable and it certainly depends on the keyboard they are using.
>
> I'll take a look at the mechanism the system provides, that might save me a lot of work!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Martin
>
>
> On 19, Sep, 2012, at 03:21 PM, Ken Thomases <email@hidden> wrote:
>
>> On Sep 19, 2012, at 2:23 AM, Martin Hewitson wrote:
>>
>>> I distribute a LaTeX typesetting and project manager app and one of the main feature requests is the ability to assign keyboard shortcuts (or rather modify the ones I ship).
>>
>>> But during my reading I also started to wonder if offering such a feature is frowned upon. I'm finding it hard to find an example desktop app which offers changing the keyboard shortcut bindings.
>>
>> Xcode. TextWrangler and, presumably, its big brother BBEdit. It's pretty common in programming editors/IDEs. It seems reasonable for your LaTeX app.
>>
>>> Also, with these solutions, it's not clear to me if the actual keyboard shortcut associated with a menu item can be changed, and whether that will be reflected in the UI. That's really what the users want to do.
>>
>> If you set the key equivalent and the key equivalent modifier mask of the menu item, then that is reflected in the UI.
>>
>>
>>> Does anyone have any advice, opinions, or suggestions as to how to implement the ability of the user to modify menu item keyboard shortcuts, and whether this is a good idea or not?
>>
>> Usually, I would suggest that you try to set good shortcuts yourself. You can build in a feature to let your users customize the keyboard shortcuts. It's not a horrible idea. But, sometimes, offering customization is just an excuse to avoid making the hard choices that design demands.
>>
>> Also, note that the system already comes with a mechanism to allow the user to customize the keyboard shortcuts for the menu items in any application. System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts > plus ('+') button.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Ken
>>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Martin Hewitson
> Albert-Einstein-Institut
> Max-Planck-Institut fuer
> Gravitationsphysik und Universitaet Hannover
> Callinstr. 38, 30167 Hannover, Germany
> Tel: +49-511-762-17121, Fax: +49-511-762-5861
> E-Mail: email@hidden
> WWW: http://www.aei.mpg.de/~hewitson
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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