Re: Idea for GSoC 2007 : Shortcuts improvement
Hi Matthias, First of all, thanks for taking time to comment on it! 2007/3/31, Matthias Clasen [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I have to admit that I really don't like the idea of popups for mnemonics/shortcuts. Maybe that is just because I have first encountered this idea in Lotus Notes... Matthias Regardless the software, let's focus on the feature itself and which benefits both GTK+ application developers and users could have by using such feature. So, please allow me to explain it better with a practical example. For instance, open Rhythmbox, hide or unplug your mouse and try to do some very common tasks: - Change the music source - Select an album - Choose your favorite music from the play list - Go back and change the artist Soon you will be asking your self 'where is the keyboard focus?' or 'what are the shortcuts for those nice toolbar buttons?'. No doubt navigating by using a keyboard will be a pain and we will realise how mouse dependent our software applications are nowadays. Is it because Rhythmbox developers are evil and did not follow the Gnome HIG? Obviously it is not! Indeed they are following it and using all the available features to provide a consistent keyboard access to our lovely music player. Although it is clear it is not working well because modern GUI applications have keyboard interaction needs that can't be well addressed by the available features. Let's review the above example using shortcuts tips. Rhythmbox developers now provide keyboard shortcuts to (P)lay list, (L)ibrary, (A)lbums and (S)ource, all activated by the ALT key modifier. Now the user can: - Press ALT+S and change the music source - Press ALT+A and select an album - Press ALT+P and choose the music from play list - Press ALT+L and go back to change the artist Jus simple like that and the best about this feature is that the user does not have to remember the accelerator to some desired GUI area because, when pressing the modifier, all the accelerators will pop up. So the benefits I see are: - Novice and Power users can easily jump across UI areas. - Users can discover and associate the available shortcuts - Users do not need to know all shortcuts by heart - We expand our software user base Sometimes it's the little things that can make your work so much easier. [1] Who will be happy having such feature? - Software Developers would be happy because they will be able to provide an accessible keyboard navigation. - Novice Users would be happy because they will be able to intuitively discover and associate key combinations - Power Users would be happy because they wont even have to touch the mouse. - Physically impaired Users would be happy because they will be able to at least use our software. - Usability engineers would be happy seeing we are paying attention to their claims. One last thing I want to point out here is an advice from usability test made by Sun in 2001: We are not our (future) users. Many current GNOME users are developers. Many future GNOME users won't be. GNOME's ongoing success will rely on how well it will supports both novice and power users [2] By the way, GNOME has made an extraordinary progress since 2001 and would be nice to have a GNOME 2 usability test such as the above. Best Regards, Lucas [1] - Quoting somebody I don't remember to properly name here. Forgive me the lack. [2] - User Testing and How to Strengthen GNOME by Doing It (Calum Benson, Sun Microsystems Inc., GUADEC 2001) - http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/usertesting.html -- This email recommends Free and Open Source Software (R) ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Idea for GSoC 2007 : Shortcuts improvement
Hi 2007/3/29, Calum Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: One problem you'll have to address there, then, is that keys like Ctrl are often used as modifiers for drag-and-drop. And you wouldn't want the shortcuts to pop up while you were dragging something-- not even in the brief moments between holding down Ctrl and starting to move the mouse. You have a really good point here I haven't thought about before. I agree with you, the accelerators shouldn't be shown during a DnD event. The simplest solution might be to grab the pointer modifier mask and if it has an active GDK_BUTTON1_MASK we shouldn't pop up the shortcuts. If we have a pressed mouse button1, even if it's not necessarily a DnD, our user is probably doing something relevant and we must avoid distracting the user from the current task. I believe it is valid for all the mouse buttons as well. No doubt it is an important design decision we will need to take! Thanks for your feedback, Calum! Regards, Lucas -- This email recommends Free and Open Source Software (R) ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Idea for GSoC 2007 : Shortcuts improvement
Hi folks, I'm exposing here a GSoC project idea not listed in the 2007 Ideas Pool and I would appreciate any comments/suggestion from you, GTK+/GNOME Developers, especially concerning the idea relevance to GTK+ project. Please let me know if this list is not the right place when asking for this kind of feedback. The idea was motivated by my experience as user/developer and by the following GNOME HIG quote: A well-designed keyboard user interface plays a key role when you are designing applications. Here we go.. IDEA: Improve the visual indication of keyboard shortcuts in UI. SHORTCUTS IN GTK: The shortcuts support in GTK+ is very well designed and powerful, although visual indications of available shortcuts are provided just by Labels and AccelLables. It allows software developers to design a very nice keyboard support to their applications and most of the users I know understand well access keys indicated on those Labels and AccelLabels. POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS: GTK+ might allow developers to expose the available mnemonics near to it's widgets even when there is no (Accel)Label related to it, e.g. a Canvas area. When user holds the first key of an accelerator key combination, e.g. CONTROL or ALT, then the available shortcuts with that key might pops-up near to it's widgets. It will allow users to easily identify and jump fast across application UI areas without having to press several TABs or SHIFT+TABs to get there (Have you ever wondered where is the focus now?). This approach should work very well even on 'keyboard centric' applications like Text Editors. On this applications users can't navigate properly using TABs. We might go even further allowing a second level of shortcuts to widget's children. Just to make it clear, the user could press ALT+T to activate the 'Toolbar' and then all active ToolItems might show it's mnemonic so user could press one and get it activated. There are some mock-ups to illustrate this idea applied to Nautilus [1], Gedit [2] and GtkFileChooser [3]. BENEFITS: * Novice and advanced users alike will be able accomplish tasks quickly and easily [GNOME HIG] * Helping users to identify available mnemonics in order to navigate easily across the user interface. * Improving the applications accessibility. * Software developers could improve it's applications keyboard support to fits even better into GNOME HIG. I'm looking forward to receiving your feedback. Best regards, Lucas [1] Nautilus: http://picasaweb.google.com/lmveloso/GnomeSoC2007Idea/photo#5040744879812560818 [2] Gedit: http://picasaweb.google.com/lmveloso/GnomeSoC2007Idea/photo#5040744879812560834 [3] GtkFileChooser: http://picasaweb.google.com/lmveloso/GnomeSoC2007Idea/photo#5040744879812560850 -- This email recommends Free and Open Source Software (R) ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Idea for GSoC 2007 : Shortcuts improvement
2007/3/11, Steve Frécinaux [EMAIL PROTECTED]: What's harder is to play nice with the shorcuts that are already defined, like mnemonics and regular shortcuts (Shouldn't ctrl+n appear directly near the new icon from the toolbar ?). Really nice you have pointed it out. Yes, it should. In fact, already defined shortcuts should work without any (or with minimal) code modifications. So, when users holds CONTROL, all those already defined shortcuts have to pops-up. This must be the project primary goal. The second goal is about allowing a complementary keyboard approach: software developers might be able to design a menu-like shortcuts to some desired UI components (as shown by those mock-ups). By 'menu-like' here I mean keyboard sequences as ALT+F Q, ALT+F P, ALT+E X. Toolbars could be accessed in both ways if the software developer add this complementary shortcut approach. Good luck in completing the spec :-) Thank you! -- This email recommends Free and Open Source Software (R) ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
