modifier-only shortcuts

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Thursday 06 July 2006 21:25, Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Thursday 6 July 2006 21:02, Andriy Rysin wrote:
> > 5) now the main agrument for things like Ctrl+Shift is convinience
>
> ...
>
> > Now imaging that you used to do that with two adjucent fingers and
> > now you have to use Ctrl+Alt+K taking two hands(!!!).
>
> I feel their pain; really. But this is a worse default for a lot of
> reasons. I mean; even ctrl-alt-x is better for you.
> There are a lot of possible combinations between a 2-hands shortcut
> and a modifier-only combination.
>
> I suggest you come up with one that works for you the people you
> share this problem with. Please note that the Ctrl-Alt-K is also
> something that can be changed by you, so please experiment and let
> your friends experiment. And let us know what works best.

You do realize that Ctrl+Alt+X (or any other latin1 character) doesn't 
work anymore as soon as you've switched to a keyboard layout that 
doesn't have the 'X' or has it on another key. Try setting the shortcut 
to Ctrl+Alt+Z (which is even more convenient than Ctrl+Alt+X IMO) and 
then switch between the German and the English keyboard layout. How 
usable is that?

The (default) shortcut must be something which works for any keyboard 
layout and that rules out basically all normal keys (letters, numbers 
and symbols). Too bad there's nothing left on the left side of my 
keyboard except for the modifier keys. Tab and space are too far away 
to reach easily. Maybe Aaron can easily press Ctrl+Shift+Tab with his 
left hand. I can't. A physical key shortcut might be a better solution.


Anyway, I don't see why we shouldn't make it possible to let the user 
decide which shortcut they want to use. If they choose a 
modifier-keys-only shortcut then they'll have to live with it. So, I'm 
all for allowing modifier-keys-only shortcuts at least for kxkb.

OTOH, choosing a modifier-keys-only shortcut as default shortcut 
probably isn't such a good idea for the reasons stated by others. It 
took me months to realize why from time to time there were those 
annoying yellow rectangles all over Konqueror.

Regards,
Ingo
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