gEDA-user: pcb keyboard shortcuts (and usability in general)

[Stefan Tauner <stefan.tauner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

i have finally fetched the source from git and rebuilt pcb.
the most prominent new feature seems to be the polygon hole mode (which
seems to create "negative" polygons inside polygons essentially). it
has no keyboard shortcut assigned. since it is related to polygons i
would suggest to assign some modifier (e.g. shift) + F6, what do you
think?

there was some discussing about adding tooltips with the shortcuts to
the tool buttons in the "new icon set..." thread. are there any
concrete plans to implement this?

the Btn3 (shift+rightmouse) tools menu also lacks display of these
shortcuts. is that intended or just not implemented?

shortcuts for enabling/disabling layers is documented, but seems
to be broken for me. 
docs say: "âToggleVisibility(Layer)â
Toggles the visibility of the layer.
Mod1<Key>1: ToggleVisibility(1)"
Mod1 is mapped to alt in gnome afaik, so this should be alt+1?
also the command itself does not work if entered via die command line:
"unknown action `ToggleVisibility'".

also i am missing default shortcuts for some things i do _all_ the time
while working with pcb:
toggling settings/"orthogonal moves"
toggling settings/"crosshair snaps to pins and pads"
toggling settings/"autoenforce DRC clearance"
opening menus (this is alt+some_char_from_the_menu_name in all* pc
applications (*all but finitely many ;) why not in pcb?)
saving (ok its possible to do this vi-style (:w<enter>), but assigning
ctrl+s would not hurt anyone?)
...

and there are so many (useful) commands, that are not visible in the
gui at all, like the recently added FreeRotateBuffer().
e.g. MorphPolygon or ChangeClearSize(SelectedPins|SelectedVias, ...).
maybe including every command would clutter the menus too much, but
having a list of all commands similar to the shortcut list at hand
without the manual would be useful imho.
the shortcut list should be completed to list all available shortcuts
in the program (maybe even those mentioned somewhere else (that
would allow easier customization without creating conflicts with
existing shortcuts).
tab complete for the command line would help also (i think i saw
it in some todo in the source tree already).

is that all deliberately not included in the gui or would you accept
patches? is there any written masterplan for (gui) enhancements? is
there interest to debate reorganizing the current menu system +
(re)assigning shortcuts at large?

i have to admit, that i have not looked into the code a lot and that i
don't really have a clue about (gtk) menu programming (yet). i also
don't know how much time i want to dedicate to this, but i think pcb's
usability, especially to newbies, can easily be improved by some of the
things mentioned. i have not looked yet at (the) developer docs/design
guidelines if there are any. if there are any not obvious/google-able
docs, please advise.

(i hate those mails, that start with that tiny question and result in
something like this. :)
-- 
Kind regards, Stefan Tauner


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