Thinking about a better UI

Joachim Durchholz joachim.durchholz at munich.netsurf.de
Wed May 19 18:10:26 UTC 1999


Marcel Weiher wrote:
> 
> > From: Joachim Durchholz <joachim.durchholz at munich.netsurf.de>
> > They didn't mess it up. Windows just has two command keys: Ctrl
> > and Alt. Roughly speaking, Alt is for activating the window menu and
> > Ctrl is for doing things directly without going through a menu. I
> > think this is very useful.
> 
> Yes it is.  The problem (I think) is that this is one modifier key
> short of what is needed, Apple and NeXT had 3 (in addition to shift).
> 
> Apple Key:      Menu shortcuts  (Command key on NeXT)
> Option Key:     Special characters (Alt Key)
> Control Key:    Control characters

Ah, I forgot. Windows uses the right Alt key for special characters.
That's one of the things about Windows that I don't like though; on
German keyboards, {[]}\ are entered as special characters and live on
the 7890- keys. Whenever I have to type a Windowese pathname, it's
RightAlt-Minus for me - really wristwrenching.
Some keyboard drivers interpret Ctrl+Alt as Right-Alt to accommodate for
C (and Squeak :) ) programmers with a German keyboard.

Regards,
Joachim
-- 
Please don't send unsolicited ads.





More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list