[Geany] revisiting default keyboard shortcuts: a proposed solution

[John Gabriele]

On 9/4/07, Enrico Tröger <enrico.troeger at uvena.de> wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 09:41:13 -0400, "John Gabriele" <jmg3000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > > Finally then, this leaves us with the Ctrl-Alt modifier. I propose
> > > > this be used for how Shift-Alt has previously been used: for
> > > > special, possibly-less-used or advanced features. This would
> > > > include:
> > > >
> > > > * Ctrl-Alt-D to insert the date
> > > >
> > > I guess that's less common, so maybe we could use that even though
> > > it won't work by default on Gnome.
>
> Hmm, I don't like this. We set a keybinding while knowing it won't work
> on Gnome? Not that I'm a Gnome fan but I guess there are several people
> using Geany on Gnome(GTK2...). So, I would agree with John and change
> it to Ctrl-Alt-D.

Just to be clear, Gnome already uses Ctrl-Alt-D for something. I was
proposing that Geany go ahead and use that combo anyway, letting users
decide what to do with it. I think Nick had agreed with me, possibly
figuring that that key combo isn't used too often on Gnome anyway.

Geany's insert-date doesn't *have* to be Ctrl-Alt-D. You could always
use something else, like Ctrl-Alt-T (for "Today" or "Time"). Unless
someone can think of an opposite or extension of duplicate-line, I
suppose you could use Shift-Ctrl-D to insert the date, if that's a
feature you use a lot. My hunch is that there's probably some other
future Geany feature lurking around that you'll want to use
Shift-Ctrl-D for, but I'm not sure what that would be yet... ;)

> [snip]
> > Also, those Ctrl-foo keys are pretty valuable keyboard real estate. :)
> > I keep feeling like you're going to find something really useful and
> > common that you're going to want to use them for. For example, after
> > loading a tags file, personally, I'd expect to use Ctrl-< to go to tag
> > definition, and use Ctrl-> to go back to where I previously was, but
> > seeing as how Enrico seems to often prefer using letters, I could see
>
> There is even a reason why I do this ;-).

Yup, you've explained why in the past.

> For example, take Ctrl+{[,]}: on a German keyboard you have to press
> Ctrl-Alt GR-{8,9}.

All the more reason to change up-/down-by-paragraph to Ctrl-{Up,Down}.
:) Is there any way to override the built-in GTK default of scrolling
the view with those keys?

If that's not possible, in the interim, maybe you could use Ctrl-Alt-N
("next") and Ctrl-Alt-P ("previous")?

> And as one mentioned in the first keybindings thread
> on some keyboard it is even necessary to use a modifier to just type
> numbers. The letters a-z should be on most keyboards accessable without
> any other action and so IMO we should prefer these letters whenever
> possible.

Check.

---John