Pardon my replying in mid-post format instead of top-posting like we normally do on lists populated primarily by blind people. I'm forwarding this entire message to a Skype guy who's currently sitting across a table from me in a Hilton hotel bar. <grin>
On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 07:03:10PM -0700, jim grimsby Jr. wrote: > I would first like to start out by commending doug for excellent work on > the new scripts. You are simply amazing getting a beta version of the > scripts out only three days after the initial release of Beta one is quite > impressive. They were actually out on the same day as the beta release, but I'm afraid that wasn't as amazing as you might think. I started work on these weeks ago. <smile> > That being said I would like to say a few things about the Skype beta > itself. > I will try to keep most of my comments on accessibility concerns since that > is the purpose of this list. > Skype has switched from a multiple window system and multiple tab system to > a multiple pain system. > This being said, the standard keyboard command for switching between panes > is F6 to move forward by pain and shipped F6 to move backward by pain. > They should implement jumping to pains with control and the number keys. > With all of the available panes appearing in the view menu. There are only two panes. The left pane is where the Contact list or the Conversation list appear, whichever you choose. Skype natively lets you type Alt+1 or Alt+2 to show and focus Contacts or Conversations in that pane, respectively. I changed those to Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+2 to keep from conflicting with the normal Alt+numbers for reading chat messages, and I am encouraging Skype to make that change internally. The View menu also has options to switch between Contacts and Conversations, but again, those are two lists in the left pane, only one of which shows up at a time. My recommendation, based on yours and on what's already being done, is that F6 and Shift+F6 be implemented because they are standard pane-switching commands, but that Ctrl+numbers *not* be assigned to jumping to specific panes, as they have better uses. If more than two panes can exist in Skype 4, I don't know it but that might change my recommendations a bit. > The context menu shortcuts should be changed to mean something useful. For > example, when in the context pane and you right click on a contact all of > the items for sends spell out the word send. Sorry this is not > intuitive. If I want to send an instant message, the intuitive shortcut > would be i. if I want to send a person a file the intuitive shortcut would > be f, and so on. > We have the same problem in the menu bar with three items starting with the > letter C. all of them having the shortcut of c. > Let the shortcut for Paul be the letter a. Let the shortcut for > conversation be the letter C. and let the shortcut for contacts be the > letter o. Agreed: (1) each shortcut must be unique to make them useful, and (2) they should be assigned mnemonically, not aesthetically. Standard shortcut assignment rules are to pick the first available letter for each option, but this was causing problems of consistency before, like Alt+O for Options changing to Alt+P when an item was added above Options in the Tools menu, and View Profile in Context menus being V in some and W in others. I therefore propose that a mnemonic assignment, once assigned, not change as new menu items are added--particularly when the already-assigned item is frequently used. > Put the change your mood text back in the profile menu. After all, you > have add video to my mood. So why not a change your mood text menu item? Agreed. > Remove duplicates > For example in the options dialog there are two places to configure sound > and video. They do the same thing one place for this configuration is > enough. > Another thing is there is an option to set privacy in the skype menu this > can already be done within the options dialog so having this menu option is > pointless. I am sure you get the idea. I don't care one way or the other on this, but I suspect business/marketing forces drive where menu items appear sometimes. I would consider this a low-priority issue. > In the skype menu you have the option called presence. Short cut again is > p. > And then you have the option called profile, and guess what the short cut > is p. change presence back to change status. Short cut of s put sign out in > that sub menu where it belongs. > Put change pass word in the profile section where it belong. Remove the buy > credit menu option it is a link in the account section and there for not > needed in the skype menu. > Put share skype with a friend in the contacts section. After all you are > sharing it with him in Oder to contact him right? A lot of ideas there, but again, I think we're up against business decisions, and I would not urge high priority on these items. > Rename the tools menu to options. > Rename the options dialog to preferences. I do not think this is a good idea because the existing names have been around for a long time and people are used to them. > More exselorator keys. > Like create new contact control+n. > Preferences control+p. etc. > Or as I said in the past the ability to set global hot keys and local ones. > With defaults set and turned on. The extra accelerators would be helpful, yes. To explain local vs. global hotkeys for the benefit of those who never saw that discussion: "Global hotkeys" are what we have now. "Local hotkeys" would only work when a Skype window is in focus. I thought this would be too confusing for most users, but I'm forwarding the idea for others to ponder. > Doug take these ideas and forward what you think will be helpful and discard > the rest as usual. Doing so directly. I will not often do things quite like this, but since I am actually out here with Skype developers in person, it seems to make sense this weekend. :-) Btw, pardon any typos, I'm typing this over the top of some fairly loud music and conversation. -- Doug Lee dgl at dlee.org SSB BART Group doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com http://www.ssbbartgroup.com "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum
