launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Adi Roiban <adi@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2010-06-08 at 14:16 -0400, Maris Fogels wrote:
> On 06/08/2010 01:11 PM, Adi Roiban wrote:
> > We can add a list of keybindings on help.lp.net/Translations but it
> > would be nice to automatically inform or hint translators about the
> > available translations.
> >
> > We can underline the letter, or put them KEY in brackets, but not all
> > actions have an associated text.
> > Exemple: Shift+Alt+C - copy original text.
> >
> > It looks like most webapps don't provide a visual clue for their
> > shortcuts, but rather document them on the help page.
> >
> > This is bug:
> > https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/rosetta/+bug/591358
> >
> > Do you know how can we implement such clues in Launchpad?
> >
> > Many thanks!
> >
> 
> Hi Adi,
> 
> That is a really interesting idea.  One of the most successful examples of 
> keyboard shortcut use I have seen is the Gmail interface.  They have a number of 
> useful designs, such as pressing '?' to get the help overlay, and a helpful link 
> near the bottom of every page that says 'Work faster with Keyboard Shortcuts'.

Pressing MODIFIERS+? to display a modal window could be a good solution
for reminding users about the available keyboard shortcuts.

Still, how will users know that pressing "?" will show them the help
page / window / div, on their first access ?

Also, the GMail help page shows a big list of shortcuts and is not that
easy to search it.
For example I would like to know the shortcut for "Send email" button,
so when pressing "?" I prefer to see a visual hint around/near the "send
email" button/link.

I remember seeing a similar implementation in Opera and previous Gmail
versions.

Something like this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/174543/lp-translations-pofile-message-with-error-translator-shortcut-hints.png

I think that 'Work faster with Keyboard Shortcuts' in Gmail is just a
random "tip of the 5minutes" and not necessarily dedicated to keyboard
shortcuts.

> Gmail also don't bother with key modifiers, just plain old character keys like 
> 'n' and '#'.  I have seen these single-key shortcuts criticized as 
> "non-standard, against all convention" but IMHO they work well enough to 
> overcome any such objection.

As noted in the initial email, simple keys are wonderful as long as the
focus is outside of a textarea or text input field.
In Launchpad Translations the focus will be most of the time on the "new
translation" input text field.

Many thanks for our feedback!

-- 
Adi Roiban