Bug#45945: menu and widget hotkey conflict resolution

[Thomas Diehl]

Am Dienstag, 30. Juli 2002 21:39 schrieb Otto Bruggeman:

> On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> > On Tuesday 30 July 2002 04:01 am, ramon.casha at linux.org.mt wrote:
> > > Package: kde
> > > Version: KDE 3.0.2
> > > Severity: wishlist
> > > Installed from:    Mandrake RPMs
> > > Compiler:          Not Specified
> > > OS:                Linux
> > > OS/Compiler notes: Not Specified
> > >
> > > A common problem, especially with translated applications, is that it's
> > > easy for two menuitems or two widgets to end up with the same "hotkey"
> > > (alt+letter). When this happens in KDE, one can get undesired results.
> > > It's very difficult to visually check that every widget/menu has a
> > > different hotkey, especially when menuitems are added/removed
> > > dynamically based on the context.
> > >
> > > This issue could be resolved if KDE ran some kind of check when a
> > > menu/dialog is displayed, checking for duplicate hotkeys, and removing
> > > the second instance if found. By outputing a message to stderr for each
> > > instance, it could also become easier for translators/developers to
> > > find and fix them.
> >
> > We have such a check already, unfortunately I have no idea how it works.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Waldo
>
> Add this to $KDEHOME/share/config/kdeglobals:
> [Development]
> CheckAccelerators=F12
>
> You can choose your own key to activate the check for duplicate
> accelerators. Unfortunately it does not suggest available accelerators
> yet.

This is exactly the problem. Apart from the fact that many translation teams 
are not aware of this mechanism (although it is described in the HOWTO) it is 
too much work to do this via try+error (press F12, get list of conflicts, use 
other hotkeys, recompile, press F12, find that you caused new conflicts, try 
other hotkeys, recompile, press F12, find more conflicts ...). Apart from the 
fact that it is almost impossible to cover all possible cases of dynamic 
KPart menus, changing control modules etc.

Most teams have to do their translations as last minute jobs before releases. 
Context checks are often very superficial, hotkey checks rarely happen at 
all. In fact, I don't know of one single team that really sorted this out. 
I'd say there are tons of hotkey conflicts in all translations.

Thomas


> Screeny of this window is here:
> http://bruggie.dnsalias.org/accelclashdetector.png


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