Global Shortcuts

[Andreas Hartmetz]

Am Montag, 17. März 2008 03:50:00 schrieb Michael Jansen:
> Some ramblings over global shortcuts.
>
> I have some problems with the current state of global shortcuts. So i tried
> to write up what >I< think is correct behavior. Some kind of vision i would
> say.
>
> The things that annoy me currently
>
> 1. I don't care for applications registering global shortcuts without
> telling me and without giving me the oppurtunity to disable them. I start a
> application i don't know, accidently press some button combination and
> something happens. Don't like it.
>    No global shortcuts without my consent. Basta. A application is allowed
> to advertise actions it thinks are appropriate for global shortcuts, and
> give default values, but after starting the application the first time they
> arent active. It's opt-in.
>
I am somewhat split on this. I can see the reasons for that but I think the 
reason against it is stronger: You want users to start using an app right 
away and if a user walks from one machine to the next it would be nice to 
have mostly (barring clashes which should be rare) the same shortcuts on 
both.

> 2. I don't care for kde shortcut dialogs dictating that having two
>    applications listening to the same global shortcut is a conflict and not
>    acceptable.
>    When i want to configure a conflicting shortcut let me do it. A warning
>    would be ok. Especially when shortcuts are opt in (1). I can imagine use
>    cases were pressing one shortcut should trigger two or three actions and
> i would want that. And i don't think pointing to khotkeys is the right
> thing to do in that case.
>
It wouldn't hurt to let the user say "I know there is a conflict and it's 
okay". That would require some additional code; I would expect something like 
of 100 lines of rather involved and hard to debug code to implement it. It 
simply doesn't seem to be worth it to me but if you can pull it off without 
breaking anything, more power to you.

> 3. When running a application i do not care for kde telling me there exists
> a conflict between global shortcuts when the other application isn't
> running. Warn me when two applications listen to the same shortcuts at the
> same time. Perhaps give me the option to suppress that warning for selected
> shortcuts.
>
> 4. I don't like having all shortcuts together in kglobalshortcutsrc. Call
> it personal preference. I think the belong into the kxmlgui.rc file of the
> application.
>
You can "steal" shortcuts from other applications. This usually happens at the 
user's request. When the application from which you stole the shortcut isn't 
running you cannot save that decision. The idea seems to break here.
It would have been nice to have indeed :(

> [snip snip]

David seems to be better qualified to talk about XMLGUI so I keep my mouth 
shut here.

-- 
It's the rubber pants commando!