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

[Andrew Poelstra <asp11@xxxxxx>]

----- Stefan Tauner <stefan.tauner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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?
> 

I have tooltips on my "new icon set" branch at home. I can make a patch
with just the tooltips, if you'd like.

> 
> 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'".
> 

I have tried enabling the shortcut for this. There is a strange
problem with Gtk such that if you toggle the visibility of the
currently selected layer, the visibility is not toggled. I hunted
after the bug for a few days but didn't get anywhere.

So right now in the code there is no keyboard shortcut for this.

This problem prompted me to suggest redoing the layer selector
entirely to clean up the code, which in turn spawned the
workspace/functional block discussion.

> 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?)
> ...

I've also done this, but if you take it to its logical conclusion,
you should also add Ctrl+O for open, Ctrl+Z/Y for undo/redo, Ctrl+N
for new, Ctrl+P for print, Ctrl+A for 'select all', etc.

In the end I had to displace a number of existing shortcuts, a
move that I didn't expect would be popular among long-term users
of the program. Also, I wanted to eventually add the ability to
customize shortcuts, which would override my changes anyway.

> 
> 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.

This is a known issue. It comes down to "UI design is hard" :) if you
want to take a crack at it, go for it.


Andrew



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