[UX advise] Key navigation in ValueSet controls

[Cor Nouws]

Hi Matteo, Stefan,

Great that you care for this, Matteo!
And of course that you helped with discussing, Stefan.

I'm a bit late: trouble to keep in track with the various topics in the 
community, but found this important enough to read and try to add some 
thoughts. Sorry if it is a bit too late.

Matteo Casalin wrote (03-03-12 18:54)
> On 03/03/2012 04:07 PM, Stefan Knorr (Astron) wrote:

>>> * left/right motion should not wrap around from first to last (or last
>>> to first) item. Moving through lines is fine (behavior similar to
>>> moving through text), although we can also just stay on the same line
>>> and stop at its borders.
>>
>> Makes sense to me. Although, of course the decision depends on whether
>> we want to make it fast to go to an arbitrary position without much
>> exactitude or whether we want to make it fast to go to the exact
>> start/end. Your proposal seemingly aims for goal #2.
>
> Well, in this case my goal is to let the user see the content of
> not-full rows without explicitly looking for it, and to move rapidly
> from an item to another without too much corrections.

OK for me.

>>> * page up/down should mimic the behaviour of up/down keys: move in the
>>> same column when possible (even if the distance is less than a page)
>>> and, when pressed again and no motion in the current column is
>>> possible, reach the first/last element. I don't know if disabling
>>> navigation when key-modifiers are pressed makes sense.
>>
>> Makes sense. I guess, modifiers should be allowed (but not modify
>> anything), in all cases where that's possible without unintended
>> consequences.
>
> I don't know the original goals of that features: currently it seems to
> me that if you use modifiers than nothing happens.

One could say, that because in other locations using modifiers do make a 
difference, it is good to have that here too, thus that unintended use 
of the modifiers, while no specific function is linked to that use, 
indeed results in nothing happening.

>>> * If "none" item is present, then it could be accessed only from the
>>> first item by pressing any of left/up (also page up/home ?) keys.
>>> When selected, it can be exited only by pressing right/down (also
>>> page down/end?) keys, but always lead to the first item.
>>
>> Makes sense.
>
> I'm less sure of this, now. If a wrap around for up/down is desired, the
> current behavior of always passing through the "none" item probably
> makes more sense. Unless we find a dedicated key to select that item,
> which could solve the situation. Any idea?

I agree with always passing through the "none" item.

>>> * Return key behavior: at least it should not close the color
>>> configuration window, but my guess is that's a misconfiguration of
>>> the specific instance of ValueSet.

Not sure which window you are looking at (Tools > Options > General -> 
Colors -> Edit ?) and what behaviour is odd.

>> Not entirely sure about this one, although probably most people would
>> want to use Return and Tab the same way (i. e. to get to the next
>> widget and select a colour).

When there is some select+close behaviour, I never expect the Return to 
move to another widget.
>
> Wow. Too many things I didn't consider!
> Honestly, my plans were to simplify code and provide a more consistent
> behavior than the current one, that I find somehow confusing.
> I guess we should wait for some hints on the desired up/down behavior
> and then see how to proceed (if there's need to).

More: there is different (Alt) Return-key behaviour sometimes in various 
windows. Sometimes Space selects an item, sometimes Return and space can 
do. etc. etc.
Is this included in your current investigation too ?

Regards,


-- 
  - Cor
  - http://nl.libreoffice.org