On Fri, 14 Oct 2005, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 15:16:19 -0300 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: Inkscape is a vector graphics editor inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Proposed changes to Keyboard shortcuts
On 10/14/05, Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> wrote:
=== Patch first ===
The Patch
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/download.php?group_id=93438&atid=604308&...
The Patch assigns F1 to Help, Keys and moves some other keys around mapping them to ones used by Xara.
It would be very helpful if you just gave a full list of old and new key assignments here. Not everyone can read patches,
Okay. I'll attempt to explain it futher. It aint poetry but here it is:
F1 was used by the Selector F2 is now used for the Selector
F2 was used by the Node tool F4 is now used for the Node tool
F3 was used for the Zoom tool Shift F7 is now used for the Zoom tool (as well as other keybindings)
F4 was used for the Rectangle tool Shift F3 is now used for the Rectangle tool
F5 was used for the Arc/Ellipse tool Shift F4 is now used for the Arc/Ellipse tool
previously F1 was used by the Selector F1 now used by Help Keys
It is hard to visualise or imagine it which is why I'd be much happier if it could be commited for a while and we could have some test binaries to for people to play with. Isn't that the whole point of the patch now ask questions later policy?
and not everyone has Xara
In the footnote I link to a page which covers a short keyboard reference for Xara. I hope to provide a full list in a day or two.
The long term solution is of course to have fully switchable keyboard profiles. That doesn't change the need for good defaults and I hope by trying out these ideas (even if they need to be reverted before the next release) it will encourage people who do not like it to come up with better suggestions rather than blocking changes.
Like I said in the bug, any wholesale key reassignment patch is only acceptable if it adds a preference option making it possible to use the old layout as well
Does everyone feel that way? Are other changes held to such a high standard? If every change was required to maintain the old behaviour it would be a lot tougher to make progress. Inkscape version 0.42 will always provide the old layout.
I have already suggested this could be tried out and reverted before 0.43 if you people feel very strongly about it. Putting it in even for a while might encourage people to discuss it and come up with better ideas.
(in the absense of proper keyboard profile switcher, that is). Whether
No one disagrees keyboard profiles will be needed in the long run, I think we can safely say that much. Ideally there would be a visible user interface for assigning keybindigns and switching profiles, at least part of which is offered in recent versions of the GNU Image manipulation program. Older versions offered a menurc file as do various other GTK applications (gtk actions or summink?). If Inkscape were saving keyboard shortcuts to a runtime configuration file rather than having them hardcoded it would greately increase what non-developers could do. It might even enable us to put together various profiles before the full profile switching infrastructure is available. Maybe it is not as hard as one might think to move this area forward in some small incremental way?
the new layout becomes on by default depends on how much support it gathers, but in any case, it must not be pushed down my throat if I prefer the old one.
It is not about just you or just me and I do sincerely believe these changes will improve things for a wider audience. Given your enthusiastic comments for Xara over the past few months I'm amazed you are not happier or even enthusiastic about these changes which more than anything else make inkscape more like Xara.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
Inkscape http://inkscape.org Abiword http://www.abisource.com Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/ Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org
Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/