[Geany] default keybindings, revisited

[John Gabriele]

On 8/31/07, Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> On 08/30/2007 06:46:31 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
> > On 8/30/07, Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > > I noticed in the Balsa email client they used Ctrl-Alt-F for one
> > > shortcut - are there any problems with using Ctrl-Alt-[a-z0-9]? I
> > know
> > > that Ctrl-Alt-F[1-12] are taken for consoles. If there aren't any
> > > important conflicts with window managers, perhaps we should use
> > Ctrl-
> > > Alt instead of Alt-Shift for some bindings - Alt-Shift seems more
> > > difficult to hold down because they are diagonally separated.
> > >
> >
> > It seems to me that GUI programs usually use the Shift key, with
> > either Ctrl or Alt, whereas terminal-based programs only use the
> > Shift
> > key to reach various non-alphanumeric symbols.
> >
> Can you give some examples of Alt-Shift usage - it just seems like an
> awkward combination, and I thought it would be the least preferable
> combination of two out of Ctrl, Alt, Shift.

I just meant, in general, since bash (for example) doesn't care about
case when you're using Ctrl or Alt key combos (afaict).

Specifically though, no, now that you mention it, I just looked at a
bunch of GUI apps on my system (including Gedit and Scite), and none
use much besides Ctrl-foo and Shift-Ctrl-foo. They sometimes use the
Fkeys, too, possibly as a punishment of some kind. ;-)

> [snip]
> > If you start having Ctrl-Alt-foo keys in Geany, you begin to get a
> > lot
> > of keys to remember ("Can't remember that key combo. Was it Ctrl-L?
> > Shift-Ctrl-L? Shift-Alt-L? Ctrl-Alt-L? How about Shift-Ctrl-Alt-L?").
>
> I was saying to replace all the Shift-Alt-X bindings with Ctrl-Alt-X,
> just because on most keyboards it seems easier to type.

Ah. I use an ergonomic keyboard that has the keys set up so Shift-Ctrl
and Shift-Alt are both really easy to hit with either hand. I forget
that others might not have it so easy.

> Perhaps we can make a pattern to the keybindings - e.g. at the moment
> all bar one of the Alt-Shift bindings is for selecting something.

I think maximizing consistency is a great idea.

---John