[Geany] tuning Geany key combos

[John Gabriele]

On 6/28/07, Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> On 06/26/2007 07:03:48 PM, John Gabriele wrote:
> > On 6/26/07, Enrico Tröger <enrico.troeger at uvena.de> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:43:27 -0400, "John Gabriele"
> >> <jmg3000 at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:

>
> >> > > >    * Tab, Shift-Tab --> use Ctrl-9 & Ctrl-0 to indent/de-indent
> >> > > >      by one space, and Ctrl-) & Ctrl-( to indent/de-indent by
> >> > > >      one tab width.
> >> > >
>
> I like this, but maybe it should be the other way around - on most
> layouts ctrl-number is easier for common tab width indenting, and
> holding shift for the less common case makes sense (for me anyway).
>

Guess it depends on which philosophy you want Geany to go with:

A. Most common usage without the Shift key
B. Less common requires Shift

or

A. Basic feature without Shift
B. Extended with Shift

But just a moment...

After fiddling with key combos a bit, I'm starting to see things
Enrico's way. Not only are the Alt keys used for activating menus, but
they're also used extensively to control GUI dialog elements. If a
given dialog is not modal, there could be confusion (ex. "will Alt-P
find previous, or will it select paragraph?"). It's actually possibly
(probably?) more consistent to only use Ctrl-key, Shift-Ctrl-key, and
Shift-Alt-key to control editing functions, and leave Alt-key for
dealing with the GUI elements.

I'm still not sure about using Shift to make a key do the opposite,
but I see that it's not all that uncommon (ex, in Firefox, using
Ctrl-G to find next, and Shift-Ctrl-G to find previous). Maybe using
Shift in this way isn't a bad thing, and I just need to take more time
to get used to it.

If that's the case, then maybe optimum key combos are:

* when a Ctrl-key combo has an obvious opposite, add Shift to it to
get that opposite.
* When it doesn't have an obvious opposite, use Shift-Ctrl-key to get
some kind of extended behaviour.
* Use Shift-Alt-key for other specialized functions. If these
functions have an opposite, you'll just have to work to find a
Shift-Alt-another_key to provide that function (or else just use a
menu item to get it).

Applying this to Geany's current key bindings, F3/Shift-F3 is good.
Shift-Alt-D even makes sense this way. :)

The inconsistent keys now become:

* undo, redo: Ctrl-Z, Ctrl-Y. Maybe should be Ctrl-Z, Shift-Ctrl-Z?
* toggle line comment: Ctrl-B. Maybe should be Ctrl-B to comment,
Shift-Ctrl-B to uncomment? (That way it would be similar to how Ctrl-G
works.)
* toggle marker: Ctrl-M. Maybe Ctrl-M to mark, Shift-Ctrl-M to unmark.

And this opens up those Shift-Alt-keys for ones such as:

* Shift-Alt-W to select current word
* Shift-Alt-L to select current line
* Shift-Alt-P to select current paragraph

without anything being inconsistent. :)

Getting back to indent then, it looks like Ctrl-I to indent and
Shift-Ctrl-I to de-indent is good. And maybe Shift-Alt-I could be for
inserting that elusive raw tab character. :)

---John