Shared keybindings

[Waldo Bastian]

On Monday 15 August 2005 21:01, Claes at work wrote:
> There is a long thread at lwn.net about keybinding conflicts:
> http://lwn.net/Articles/147467/. One issue that is mentioned is that
> traditional unix keybindings conflict with keybindings with
> Windows heritage.

The problem seems limited to ^U, ^W and ^C. The latter is only a problem in terminal programs. 

> Mac OS X has solved this issue well by using the Command key instead of
> the Control key. So to copy you press Command-C rather than Control-C.
> This way there is no conflict. (Well perhaps Mac never had the problem to
> begin with but nonetheless this conflict does not exist on Mac).
>
> On PC keyboards the Win key sits in about the same position as the Command
> key does on Mac keyboards.
>
> There is a wiki page on shared keybindings here:
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards_2fdefault_2dkeys_2dspec. It
> refers to a spreadsheet with Gnome/KDE/Mozilla/OpenOffice keybindings
> listed:
> http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~fcrozat/shortcuts/shortcuts2.gnumeric. This
> link is broken,
> but http://people.mandriva.com/~fcrozat/shortcuts/shortcuts2.gnumeric
> works.

It's unfortunately not in a very accessable format. Could you convert it to txt or html and attach it / add it to the wiki?

> Is it realistic to imagine a migration to something similar for the
> major toolkits and desktop environments in the Linux universe?
> I am thinking LONG TERM now.

I don't think it is. The changes needed for such transition would cause more confusion that you would safe. It would also make the Linux desktop more different from Windows, making migrating to Linux harder.

> Currently at least the following conflicts exist:
>
> o Console applications, for working with the shell for example, can not use
> the same keybindings as other applications since the Control-C, Control-Z
> etc already have a special meaning for the shell.
>
> o Application keybindings can conflict with window manager keybindings

Some keybinding guidelines can prevent that relative easy: E.g. by stating that Alt-<Fx>, Ctrl-Alt-<key> and Win-<key> are reserved for the window manager / desktop environment.

> Using different modifier keys for different contexts would be a
> possible way to avoid conflicts.

That's already happening to a certain extent, no?

> Such a migration would also be a good
> opportunity to resolve other differences that exist. For example "Redo",
> "Find next match", "Find and replace", "Add bookmark", "Redraw" differs
> today, according to the above document.
>
> But this means that some keybindings have to change
> modifier key,  and it only makes sense if it can be implemented
> generally. Of course it also needs to be communicated to and accepted by
> users. Not easy - is it even possible?

I think it's possible for some individual keybindings to change to a different key if that helps uniformity, in general I wouldn't change too much about how modifier keys are used.

Cheers,
Waldo
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/attachments/20050816/b6bf43db/attachment.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/attachments/20050816/b6bf43db/attachment.pgp