kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/5/2011 6:18 AM, fabrizio wrote:
> Hi,
> I think the reason of proposed change will cause the following:
> 1) "Place" menu will look good.

I agree with you that the <W> is not very aesthetic.  It is also
confusing because pressing the W key is not the same action as selecting
the Place->Wire menu item.

> 2) behaviour of the hotkeys will be what most people expect (place a
> wire: hotkey ctrl-W + click + double click).

I think you meant accelerator not hot key here.  JP is correct that
using Ctrl as the modifier key will probably not work because they may
already be used elsewhere.  Using Alt or Ctrl+Shift should prevent any
conflicts with existing menu accelerators.  If there are not any other
accelerator conflicts, then by all means use the Ctrl modifier.

> 3) current users will stay happy because the current behaviour (place
> a wire: hotkey W + double click) is maintained.
> 
> The Key L seems the only key which will suffer a change of some sort.

I wouldn't object if you changed the global label hot key to G.

> 
> Is the proposed change difficult to implement?

This should be an easy change to make and should be acceptable to most
users.  The only problem I see is that the hot keys are no longer going
to be discoverable.  How do we make it obvious to new users that there
is an even faster way to place objects than using the menu accelerator?
 I'm not suggesting that you provide a solution to this problem as part
of your changes but it is something that we should consider.

Wayne

> 
> fabrizio
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 11:03 AM, jp.charras <jp.charras@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Le 05/09/2011 10:01, fabrizio a écrit :
>>>
>>> Wayne,
>>> thanks for your e-mail. Yes I did receive it, sorry if I did not
>>> answer... I didn't really know what to answer.
>>>
>>> Well I think what you propose is good, I am happy to change all
>>> "accelerator" keys in to ctrl-X. Would that satisfy all you guys ?
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Fabrizio
>>> PS thanks Fred for the diplomatic e-mail.
>>>
>>
>> Is the proposed way means use W as hotkey and ctrl-W accelerator for the
>> same function (add wire) ?
>> This way has some drawback:
>> - most of keys are used, so new hotkeys will use ctrl-X or alt-X.
>> - hot keys are programmable, and ctrl-W or alt-key could be selected by an
>> user for some hotkey.
>>  and L and ctrl-L are already in use. Should the place label menu use alt-L
>> key ?).
>> What happens ( Do you want the hot keys editor to have 2 entries: one for
>> the hotkey and one for the corresponding  accelerator?  )?
>>
>> I believe the problem is not simple and difficult to solve just by changing
>> labels in menus.
>>
>> And the reason of this change is a cosmetic enhancement.
>> This is a good reason, but not a major reason.
>>
>> --
>> Jean-Pierre CHARRAS
>> KiCad Developers team.
>> KiCad Developers <kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
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