Re: gEDA-user: accel keys (was: why some skip KiCAD and gEDA)

[Andrew Poelstra <asp11@xxxxxx>]

There are some standard shortcuts that both gschem and pcb should
be using by default:

  New         Ctrl+N
  Quit        Ctrl+Q
  Open        Ctrl+O
  Save        Ctrl+S
  Save as     Shift+Ctrl+S
  Undo        Ctrl+Z
  Redo        Shift+Ctrl+Z
  Select all  Ctrl+A
  Select none Shift+Ctrl+A
  Help        F1

There should really be no controversy on this. Maybe we should
ship a "vi keys" keymap for people who want u for undo, etc.

For single-key bindings, it would then make sense to use (I'm
thinking of pcb here):

  F2-F10     open window (DRC, library, message log, netlist,
                          route style editor, layer editor, etc)
  F11        fullscreen?
  F12        text editor?
  Page up    next layer
  Page down  prev layer
  Ctrl+PgUp  next route style
  Ctrl+PgDn  prev route style
  v          via
  l          line
  L          lock tool
  a          arc
  r          rectangle
  R          rotate tool
  t          text
  T          thermal
  h          hole
  p          polygon
  x          delete tool
  Esc        arrow tool
        .
        .
        .
       etc

I'm not sure how well this integrates with Kai's list of gschem/pcb
correspondences. IMHO we should try to use single-key mappings
everywhere, in both tools. As somebody mentioned, there are roughly
40 of them, which is more than enough for common tasks.


We shouldn't have shortcuts for things like "clear undo buffer".
Why is this even a menu option?


On a qwerty keyboard, Ctrl+[zxcva] can all easily be done with
one hand. (On dvorak this is not the case, but those users are
usually more comfortable remapping their keyboard shortcuts.)

The other shortcuts are not common commands, so optimizing them
for one-hand usage doesn't justify the loss in discoverability,
IMO.

***

In pcb it would be very easy to ship the new keymaps alongside
the old ones, and add a "Classic shortcuts" option to the
preferences dialog. I'm not sure how easy it would be in gschem,
since the keymap could be mixed in with other scheme code.

The existing keymap, especially when combined with the old pcb
layer selector, gives the impression of an ancient and non-standard
UI.

-- 
Andrew Poelstra
Email: asp11 at sfu.ca OR apoelstra at wpsoftware.net



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