Hi. On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:54:24 +0100, Vegard Vesterheim wrote: > I have been pondering a bit on the subject on global vs. local > keyboard bindings, and I have come to realize that there are quite a > few levels to consider. Basic functionality like 'keyboard > navigation' takes place on several layers. One way to subdivide this > hierarchy is this: > > - Virtual Consoles (Alt-Fn in Linux) > - Virtual desktops within a Console (window manager) > - Windows within a virtual desktop (window manager) > - Windows within windows (firefox tabs, terminals tabs, emacs frames) > - Menues within a tab/window > - Menu entries within a menu > - Tabs within a window/form (GtkNotebook) > - Fields within a form (X11, gtk, HTML forms, HREFs in webpage) > - Values within a field (radiobuttons) > - Characters within a Field (possibly multi-line/fullscreen, emacs)
Your classification is valuable and worth keeping. Thanks. At the same time, there's no 'solution by clear-cut boundaries'. You seem to beware that levels intertwine, and it's one of the reasons. Others I noticed are: * Each software arbitrarily defines its own bindings. Some of them, say Microsoft's Win/Office, are so influential, but their ways are too often really bad. Not or hardly configurable, awkward for fingers, etc. * Each platform has its own key design. Some softwares are cross-platform, so their key spec has to support them all. I remember some doc of emacs, X11 or firefox says "If you think it is too complicated, then you're right." But the fact is it can't be helped. > Personally I have developed muscle-memory for most emacs > keybindings, so I keep trying to reuse those in other > applications. The extreme flexibility and extensibility in sawfish > is one of the reasons I am still using it. My situation & solution are close to yours. We love sawfish. > I would like to see a clever suggestion on how to handle keyboard > navigation across these levels. Find guru(s) on the web. You can do it, if you're lucky. ;) How about this? (Mainly on emacs): http://m17n.org/ntakahas/npx/aggressive/index.en.html > I guess we need more modifiers on our keyboards... Yeah. Teika (Teika kazura)
