[Geany] revisiting default keyboard shortcuts: a proposed solution

[John Gabriele]

On 9/4/07, Enrico Tröger <enrico.troeger at uvena.de> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:17:07 +0100, Nick Treleaven
> <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> > > [...]
> > > Currently, the F-keys are used the way I'm proposing Shift-Alt be
> > > used. This is fine, and some users who really want certain F-key
> > > commands really at their fingertips may want to re-assign them to
>
> I can't understand why you have such a big antipathy against the
> F-keys ;-). Seriously, I don't believe I'm the only one who likes to
> use the F-keys. One reason should be that many(or even most [besides
> Emacs ;-)]) apps use the F-keys by default.

I probably use my editor more than all the other apps on my system
combined. And most of that time, my fingers on on the home row. I can
hit Ctrl, Shift-Ctrl, Alt, Shift-Alt, and Ctrl-Alt just fine and zoom
around the editor and text files with those keys without removing my
hands from the home row. Having to resort to using an F-key throws a
monkeywrench into the works and I've got to remove my hands *and* look
down to find those F-keys.

I'm not saying don't use F-keys, I'm just saying that users who are
using Geany as a programmer's editor may want to remap certain
commands from F-keys to Shift-Alt keys, to make them easier to reach
while working. So it's good to have that option available (which Geany
provides). Using Shift-Alt (or Alt) specifically for dealing with
GUI-related elements not only makes it easier to memorize the Geany
key combos (since we can group them mentally a little better, ie:
"Shift-Alt has to do either with selecting text or dealing with a GUI
feature"), but it also means that there's probably going to be a fair
number of Shift-Alt combos available (with no default mapping), so
that gives users a place to move some of those F-key mappings to, if
they wish.

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").

---John