[haiku-development] Re: Key roles vs. key label in menus

Hi Ryan Leavengood!

On Sat, 7 Apr 2012 13:35:27 -0400 Ryan Leavengood wrote:
> Also after all the discussions about maybe needing to translate Ctrl
> or Alt or whatever words we would use in the menus, the symbols are
> becoming more appealing to me. We would just need a good way of
> explaining them to new users.

This key role/label issue seems to be quite complicated and
controversial.
Maybe there should be a small configuration procedure following the
installation by Installer, or even while installing.  Besides time,
locale, and general keymap the future "Modifier keys" panel of the
standard keymap prefs is shown.

To sync the labels/roles to the physical keyboard, several panels have
to be run through, wizard-style. Each panel askes the user to press the
key associated with an action and allows him to customize the label
that'll be shown in menus etc. Like this:


1. Command key
<screenshot of a menu bar with an open menu, showing commands with a
"??" instead of the command key, like "Copy   ?? C">

"Press the key to invoke a command in the menu of an application."
[wait for the user to press a modifier key]

"Choose the label for this key," <popup menu with all sensible options,
e.g. ALT, CTRL, WIN, CMD, and various symbols>

<Next>


2. Control key
<screenshot of Terminal prompt>

"Press the key sending control characters in Terminal, e.g. to abort a
program with ^C."
[wait for the user to press a modifier key, warn if that is already
taken]

"Choose the label for this key," <popup menu with all sensible options,
e.g. ALT, CTRL, WIN, CMD, and various symbols (already chosen entries
are removed)>

<Back> <Next>


3. Compose key [show only when a specific keymap is chosen (de,fr...)?]

"Press the key used to enter special characters like € or @."
[wait for the user to press a modifier key, warn if that is already
taken]

"Choose the label for this key," <popup menu with all sensible options,
e.g. ALT, CTRL, WIN, CMD, and various symbols (already chosen entries
are removed)>

<Back> <Next>


4. Option key
<screenshot of Tracker's add-ons menu>

"Press the key used as additional modifier."
[wait for the user to press a modifier key, warn if that is already
taken]

"Choose the label for this key," <popup menu with all sensible options,
e.g. ALT, CTRL, WIN, CMD and various symbols (already chosen entries
are removed)>

<Back> <OK>


Maybe the examples where that key is used could be improved...
Or is this totally ugly insane overkill?

Regards,
Humdinger

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