[haiku-development] Re: AltGr Key, key_map, and the US-International Keyboard

  • From: Stefano Ceccherini <stefano.ceccherini@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 08:53:13 +0200

2012/4/6 John Scipione <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx>:
> On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 1:20 AM, Humdinger <humdingerb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Option alone + a key isn't used, because that is reserved for special
> characters. Ctrl+Alt is a fine replacement for what Win is used for on
> Windows.
>
> John Scipione

The more I read into this thread, the more I'm convinced that we
should simply conform to what it's done on windows (or, better, on
linux) wrt modifier keys.
The original motivations to use alt for shortcuts instead of ctrl
(ctrl is used in the terminal for control characters) are becoming
less and less important, and an user who switches from another OS will
be very annoyed by these changes. I mean: 10 years ago I thought that
using ALT for shortcuts was indeed better, also if you think about the
position of the keys on the keyboard. But doing this change means
either:
- Your AltGR key is used like the left ALT, so you lose the ability to
enter special charachters (and that's bad, since you use it like this
on other OS, and frankly, no one uses Haiku exclusively, and no one
will ever switch, if it means learning again all the key combos)
- Your AltGR key is used to enter special characters, so you lose the
ability to use it like the left ALT (for example, for CTRL-ALT key
combos) and it's still bad in case the combo keys are on the right
side of the keyboard.

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