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[Luke Faraone <luke@xxxxxxxxxx>]

** Changed in: pidgin (Ubuntu)
       Status: Confirmed => Opinion

** Changed in: empathy (Ubuntu)
       Status: Triaged => Opinion

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/304477

Title:
  Ctrl-L is a poor keybinding for "Clear"

Status in Chat app, and Telepathy user interface:
  Confirmed
Status in PSI+ Ubuntu packages:
  New
Status in empathy package in Ubuntu:
  Opinion
Status in gnome-terminal package in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix
Status in pidgin package in Ubuntu:
  Opinion
Status in xchat package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  The Ctrl-L keybinding to clear the conversation history in empathy is
  horribly annoying. At this point, most applications (most notably
  nautilus and gedit, but many others as well) have followed the lead of
  Firefox to use Ctrl-L to present a "Go to location" UI.

  It is remarkably annoying when you press Ctrl-L expecting this and yet
  your current conversation is cleared due to empathy accidentally still
  having focus. Moreover, "L" is on the home-row of most keyboard
  layouts, thereby making it extremely easy to hit accidentally.

  I have hit Ctrl-L accidentally countless times both out of finger-
  fatigue and just carelessness. This requires me to interrupt my
  thought, go up to the menu, open the log window, find the log, restore
  my previous mental state, and then keep two windows open until I'm
  finished referring to the conversation history. From a desktop
  usability standpoint, that's a pretty destructive operation for a
  home-row keybinding.

  As a distribution which seeks to meet Apple's standard of overall
  desktop usability (especially for casual users), issues like these are
  going to need to be handled on a community-wide level (hence the
  various projects included on this bug). There are few ways to alienate
  new users faster than by putting legacy-driver keybindings with little
  applicability to every-day tasks in easy-to-hit positions.

  Moreover, in this instance, the legacy argument hardly holds water.
  While in terminal applications Ctrl-L has historically redrawn the
  screen to recover from terminal corruption, this doesn't map onto the
  GUI environment. Having a clear key is certainly understandable, but
  putting it in a home-row position is just sloppy UI design.

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