Re: Suggestions for keyboard binding interface
I've just thought of a way to make creating and troubleshooting bind files much easier. If someone would create an LFUN_REREAD_BINDFILE, then I could directly edit user.bind and then run LFUN_REREAD_BINDFILE to assess the result without closing and reopening LyX. Cool, huh? I'd like to see a similar LFUN_REREAD_CONFIGURATION to do what Tools- Reconfigure does but without necessitating leaving and reentering LyX. SteveT On Monday 11 January 2010 19:31:15 Steve Litt wrote: Hi all, I think the user interface for setting keyboard bindings can use considerable improvement. Let's start with the worst thing: If you've done something wrong with the keyboard binding function area, LyX closes the keyboard binding dialog box and prints an error message like you can't insert that in this list or some other generic error, AND THEN CLOSES THE DIALOG BOX! So you can't even experiment to get it right -- you need to redo Tools-Preferences- Editing-Shortcuts and then redo everything. Do this ten times you've burned up an hour, whereas if it left the dialog box you could do ten in ten minutes. Also ugly: I could see no way to look up a binding by keystroke. This means there's no way to know an available keystroke other than try one and have the interface tell you this is already bound to function bibitybop and that needs to be disabled first, and then, as I remember, close the dialog box. You can already search on function -- it would be wonderful if you could search on keystroke too. Then there's the fact that some keystrokes seem to be magically excluded from possible key bindings. Ctrl+2 is one, even though I removed the Ctrl+2 binding that went to bookmark 2. There are other anomalies I haven't documented because they only happened once or were intermittent or whatever. The cleanest way I've found is to just directly edit user.bind, in violation of the comment at the top saying it will automatically be written etc. Of course, to do that I have to close all instances of LyX while doing the editing, so troubleshooting is once again a very long iteration. Part of all of this could be solved by documentation, but a big part of it is lack of the principle of least surprise -- the interface is just so weird that documenting it would take pages and pages of explanations and warnings. Thanks SteveT Steve Litt Recession Relief Package http://www.recession-relief.US Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt
Re: Suggestions for keyboard binding interface
I've just thought of a way to make creating and troubleshooting bind files much easier. If someone would create an LFUN_REREAD_BINDFILE, then I could directly edit user.bind and then run LFUN_REREAD_BINDFILE to assess the result without closing and reopening LyX. Cool, huh? I'd like to see a similar LFUN_REREAD_CONFIGURATION to do what Tools- Reconfigure does but without necessitating leaving and reentering LyX. SteveT On Monday 11 January 2010 19:31:15 Steve Litt wrote: Hi all, I think the user interface for setting keyboard bindings can use considerable improvement. Let's start with the worst thing: If you've done something wrong with the keyboard binding function area, LyX closes the keyboard binding dialog box and prints an error message like you can't insert that in this list or some other generic error, AND THEN CLOSES THE DIALOG BOX! So you can't even experiment to get it right -- you need to redo Tools-Preferences- Editing-Shortcuts and then redo everything. Do this ten times you've burned up an hour, whereas if it left the dialog box you could do ten in ten minutes. Also ugly: I could see no way to look up a binding by keystroke. This means there's no way to know an available keystroke other than try one and have the interface tell you this is already bound to function bibitybop and that needs to be disabled first, and then, as I remember, close the dialog box. You can already search on function -- it would be wonderful if you could search on keystroke too. Then there's the fact that some keystrokes seem to be magically excluded from possible key bindings. Ctrl+2 is one, even though I removed the Ctrl+2 binding that went to bookmark 2. There are other anomalies I haven't documented because they only happened once or were intermittent or whatever. The cleanest way I've found is to just directly edit user.bind, in violation of the comment at the top saying it will automatically be written etc. Of course, to do that I have to close all instances of LyX while doing the editing, so troubleshooting is once again a very long iteration. Part of all of this could be solved by documentation, but a big part of it is lack of the principle of least surprise -- the interface is just so weird that documenting it would take pages and pages of explanations and warnings. Thanks SteveT Steve Litt Recession Relief Package http://www.recession-relief.US Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt
Re: Suggestions for keyboard binding interface
I've just thought of a way to make creating and troubleshooting bind files much easier. If someone would create an LFUN_REREAD_BINDFILE, then I could directly edit user.bind and then run LFUN_REREAD_BINDFILE to assess the result without closing and reopening LyX. Cool, huh? I'd like to see a similar LFUN_REREAD_CONFIGURATION to do what Tools- >Reconfigure does but without necessitating leaving and reentering LyX. SteveT On Monday 11 January 2010 19:31:15 Steve Litt wrote: > Hi all, > > I think the user interface for setting keyboard bindings can use > considerable improvement. Let's start with the worst thing: If you've done > something wrong with the keyboard binding function area, LyX closes the > keyboard binding dialog box and prints an error message like "you can't > insert that in this list" or some other generic error, AND THEN CLOSES THE > DIALOG BOX! So you can't even experiment to get it right -- you need to > redo Tools->Preferences- > > >Editing->Shortcuts and then redo everything. Do this ten times you've > > burned > > up an hour, whereas if it left the dialog box you could do ten in ten > minutes. > > Also ugly: I could see no way to look up a binding by keystroke. This means > there's no way to know an available keystroke other than try one and have > the interface tell you "this is already bound to function bibitybop and > that needs to be disabled first", and then, as I remember, close the > dialog box. You can already search on function -- it would be wonderful if > you could search on keystroke too. > > Then there's the fact that some keystrokes seem to be magically excluded > from possible key bindings. Ctrl+2 is one, even though I removed the > Ctrl+2 binding that went to bookmark 2. > > There are other anomalies I haven't documented because they only happened > once or were intermittent or whatever. > > The cleanest way I've found is to just directly edit user.bind, in > violation of the comment at the top saying it will automatically be > written etc. Of course, to do that I have to close all instances of LyX > while doing the editing, so troubleshooting is once again a very long > iteration. > > Part of all of this could be solved by documentation, but a big part of it > is lack of the "principle of least surprise" -- the interface is just so > weird that documenting it would take pages and pages of explanations and > warnings. > > Thanks > > SteveT > > Steve Litt > Recession Relief Package > http://www.recession-relief.US > Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt >
