Global Shortcuts

[Andreas Hartmetz]

Am Montag, 17. März 2008 14:37:55 schrieb Anders Lund:
> On Monday 17 March 2008, Andreas Hartmetz wrote:
> > > 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.
>
> I'm with Michael here, I find the sudden missing functinoality in one
> application due to stolen shortcuts *very* disturbing, and an automated way
> to turn them off would be nice indeed.

It's expected that application programmers do a little bit of searching for a 
good shortcut on their own. Stealing a *global* shortcut that is already 
assigned *never* happens automatically. The API is there but it's documented 
that you shouldn't use it willy-nilly and so far nobody does.
Also, global shortcuts usually have two modifiers and should be exotic enough 
not to override local shortcuts.