On 9/5/07, Nick Treleaven nick.treleaven@btinternet.com wrote:
On 09/04/2007 05:27:32 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
For example, after thinking about this discussion, I'd probably change F7 --> Shift-Alt-F ("incremental *f*ind"), and maybe F2 --> Shift-Alt-E ("back to *e*ditor").
Fair enough, personally I prefer F-keys though (I guess my fingers are used to finding the bumps on the F and J keys, so it's easy to move back to the 'home' position).
Just to mention that sometime I/we will probably add incremental find backwards, which would be nice to do by adding shift to the incremental find binding.
Really looking forward to that feature! :) Maybe a checkbox connected with that search field widget (indicating search direction), where the key combo would check the checkbox before making the field active?
I can see how it's now getting into a gray area between using Shift-Alt vs. Ctrl-Alt, since even though you're still manipulating GUI elements, they're acting an awful lot like regular editing commands. I guess this is one of those cases where you need to think about what the user is using the command for, and choose the key combo based on that (keeping things consistent for the user), rather than strictly deciding key combos based on the editor feature implementation. So, that said, here's an updated and summed-up (and supplemented) list of some key combos that I think are worth mulling over:
* Ctrl-Alt-T -- insert date ("*t*oday", or "*t*ime") (Ctrl-Alt-D would be a collision with a Gnome binding) * Ctrl-Alt-U -- toggle case of selected text (though I think Enrico likes Ctrl-U for this one -- maybe he changes case a lot. :) ). Or, if you like having two separate key combos for changing case (as is the current setup), you could use:
* Ctrl-Alt-U -- make selection uppercase * Ctrl-Alt-L -- make selection lowercase (though, this collides with a Gnome key combo)
* Ctrl-Alt-N -- down-by-paragraph (possibly in addition to Ctrl-], for users of non-english keyboards) * Ctrl-Alt-P -- up-by-paragraph (possibly in addition to Ctrl-[, for users of non-english keyboards)
* Shift-Alt-V -- scroll to current line ("center *v*iew") (instead of Shift-Ctrl-L). * Shift-Alt-B -- select text between innermost matching brackets (**who snuck this in here? ;)**). It does seem to go rather well with Shift-Alt-{W,L,P} though...
* Alt-{Up,Down,Left,Right} -- scroll window view by line/character. * Alt-{PgUp,PgDn} -- scroll back and forward through editor tabs (seems to follow nicely with the other Alt key commands, right?). * Alt-{Home,End} -- Go to first tab (like Alt-1), and last tab (Alt-0)? Just an idea here, but these two combos seem to just flow nicely from the rest of the Alt keys dealing with the GUI. Also, Enrico, you noted that someone once mentioned that numbers keys aren't always easy to hit on some keyboards, so maybe Alt-{Home,End} would be easier than Alt-{1,0} for some users?
Finally, getting back to the main point of this reply, noting the (future) reverse incremental search feature:
* Ctrl-Alt-F -- incremental search forward (just a possible alternative to an F-key) * Ctrl-Alt-R -- incremental search reverse (just a possible alternative to an F-key) * Ctrl-Alt-E -- bring focus back to editor window (just a possible alternative to an F-key)
Most of those above are new Ctrl-Alt combos, which was Nick's (and later, Enrico's) original concern (since some folks find the Shift-Alt combo cumbersome to hit). Add to that, using Alt for scrolling/tabbing, and Shift-Alt for selecting (and some GUI manipulation) seems nicely self-consistent and easier to remember than the current keys -- for example, my fingers expect the Ctrl-movement keys to move the cursor (like Ctrl-{Right,Left} do), and so both Ctrl-{PgUp,PgDn} and Ctrl-{Up,Down} *still* seem to me to behave in an unexpected way.
Hope that was useful. ---John