Ned Konz <ned at bike-nomad.com> wrote on 25.10.2003 22:26:52:
>
>Martin Wirblat wrote:
>
>> So having the alt-key with other modifiers together in use is a 
>> barrier of entry, and a help text which is not precise, adds to 
>> that ( 'Shift-Alt on other platforms; sometimes Ctrl works too' ). 
>> 
>> Having copy, cut and paste not where they used to be, is of course 
>> problematic in itself. In Germany took a long debate place about 
>> Windows vs Opensource in government offices. At one point 
>> Opensource was rejected mainly because the copy/cut/paste-problem! 
>> 
>> My suggestion would be a preference to switch all hotkeys, i.e. to 
>> simply switch the modifiers, and to somehow have under windows this 
>> preference enabled. This would simplify an updated help text too.
>
>I don't think you'll like the result, but try this.
>
Why not? I like it, surprise :). Especially the fact that more common 
shortcuts like p, d, q and to a lesser extent i, m, n, b are on what I 
call the main modifier key. This way one can use an easier to remember 
subset with only one modifier. I like too, that the help text gives a 
little prefix which describes the most wanted shortcuts, and that it 
accommodates somewhat to the different settings. 

However there are some problems, mainly the result of things getting 
somewhat complicated with such 'unlinear' preferences. 

- For no swapping or duplicating Utilities>>commandKeyMappings comes 
up with an error 

- For swap-all the second ( big ) part of the keyhelp shows the same 
modifiers. "sometimes Ctrl works too" instead of Alt 

- Here is a puzzling one: For swap-all ctrl-n will bring up senders, 
but ctrl-m does not work for implementors, neither does any other 
modifier combination. I vaguely remember that I had some similar 
effect when expanding the group of swapped keys to more than the 8 
default ones. 

For now I think this should go into 3.7. If we had in the future a 
more sophisticated configtool for keybindings I guess I would prefer 
this: real editing shortcuts on the main modifier, browser starting 
ones on the second one. 

regards,
Martin