On 9/23/05, Eric Wilhelm <scratchcomputing@...400...> wrote:
What if you took this criticism and turned it into a killer feature? i.e. how difficult would it be to make this list of shortcuts into a set of menus in a pop-up window where each function is clickable? Then, the Help->Keys&Mouse menu entry could have F1 bound to it and the user could lean on the point-n-click interface while learning the shortcuts via osmosis.
Many if not most of these shortcuts are not keyboard shortcuts but mouse or mouse+keyboard, and most of these heavily depend on the context: where is your mouse and what is the current state of an object. Obviously, you cannot make them into menu command, because you can't specify where you drag or click via a menu command, and even if you could, going to that menu to call that command would often destroy the context for this shortcut (e.g. release object being dragged).
As for the purely keyboard shortcuts, most of them already have their own menu command and/or toolbar buttons, and those that do not will get them eventually.
He's right about the lack of floating toolboxes being a good way to streamline the interface, but adding the pop-up discoverability would (IMHO) give the best of both worlds.
The approach I've been pushing for discoverability is using statusbar tips, cursor shapes, and other consistent visual means to communicate what this thing is and what you can do to it. Of course a right-click menu with relevant commands would be good too. But it's a sadly neglected aspect of the UI currently.
I like the layout and color coding of the svg (can you do that with drop-down menus?) but it is already a tight fit on smaller screens, and the key to making it work would be to have everything within two clicks F1.
Oh, and we already have F1 assigned, and I really don't like the idea of changing it (though there were several attempts to persuade me but I'm stubborn on this :)
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