why don't people put accelerators on dialog buttons?
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coming from a background of UNIX, i.e. doing all of my work from a windows workstation on a UNIX box via a terminal emulator, i am used to being able to do everything with the keyboard, or to be more exact i am used to being forced to do everything with the keyboard ;) we use cvs under UNIX, so reasonably enough we use wincvs under windows. in version 1, whenever i commit a change there was no keyboard shortcut for the OK buttom :mad: we have now moved to version 2. in the standard commit dialog there is a keyboard shortcut to jump to every single control... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Help". however, in deference to people like me they have put a label on the screen telling me to press CTRL-ENTER to accept the dialog... :wtf: and there i was expecting to use something traditional like ALT-O... :confused: i put this down to some strange design quirk of this program, but i have just downloaded and installed WinMerge, since it is often recormended in the lounge, therefore good :) when i am selecting two files to diff there are keyboard shortcuts for every control in the dialog... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Save project". both programs are aimed at programmers, and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric. so where does this (to me) truely incomprehensible behaviour come from? is there some guide somewhere that says buttons must only be triggered via the mouse or many presses of the tab key? on the plus side, in the same fit of anger that prompted this post i have discovered that if i open the exe file in VS 2003 i can just edit the dialog's to add the keyboard shortcuts to the buttons myself! :rose: zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
...except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel"...
Since I started using Windows some 15 years ago, I've never seen mnemonics on the OK or Cancel button of a dialog.
"Take only what you need and leave the land as you found it." - Native American Proverb
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coming from a background of UNIX, i.e. doing all of my work from a windows workstation on a UNIX box via a terminal emulator, i am used to being able to do everything with the keyboard, or to be more exact i am used to being forced to do everything with the keyboard ;) we use cvs under UNIX, so reasonably enough we use wincvs under windows. in version 1, whenever i commit a change there was no keyboard shortcut for the OK buttom :mad: we have now moved to version 2. in the standard commit dialog there is a keyboard shortcut to jump to every single control... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Help". however, in deference to people like me they have put a label on the screen telling me to press CTRL-ENTER to accept the dialog... :wtf: and there i was expecting to use something traditional like ALT-O... :confused: i put this down to some strange design quirk of this program, but i have just downloaded and installed WinMerge, since it is often recormended in the lounge, therefore good :) when i am selecting two files to diff there are keyboard shortcuts for every control in the dialog... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Save project". both programs are aimed at programmers, and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric. so where does this (to me) truely incomprehensible behaviour come from? is there some guide somewhere that says buttons must only be triggered via the mouse or many presses of the tab key? on the plus side, in the same fit of anger that prompted this post i have discovered that if i open the exe file in VS 2003 i can just edit the dialog's to add the keyboard shortcuts to the buttons myself! :rose: zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
In a well designed Windows program: Enter = OK, Esc = Cancel and F1 = Help, so no need for it ;) - Anders
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coming from a background of UNIX, i.e. doing all of my work from a windows workstation on a UNIX box via a terminal emulator, i am used to being able to do everything with the keyboard, or to be more exact i am used to being forced to do everything with the keyboard ;) we use cvs under UNIX, so reasonably enough we use wincvs under windows. in version 1, whenever i commit a change there was no keyboard shortcut for the OK buttom :mad: we have now moved to version 2. in the standard commit dialog there is a keyboard shortcut to jump to every single control... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Help". however, in deference to people like me they have put a label on the screen telling me to press CTRL-ENTER to accept the dialog... :wtf: and there i was expecting to use something traditional like ALT-O... :confused: i put this down to some strange design quirk of this program, but i have just downloaded and installed WinMerge, since it is often recormended in the lounge, therefore good :) when i am selecting two files to diff there are keyboard shortcuts for every control in the dialog... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Save project". both programs are aimed at programmers, and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric. so where does this (to me) truely incomprehensible behaviour come from? is there some guide somewhere that says buttons must only be triggered via the mouse or many presses of the tab key? on the plus side, in the same fit of anger that prompted this post i have discovered that if i open the exe file in VS 2003 i can just edit the dialog's to add the keyboard shortcuts to the buttons myself! :rose: zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric
I'm not sure how true this is anymore. I suspect a lot of *old* programmers are keyboard centric, not younger ones. I *used* to be in the old days when we didn't have the tools we have now, but I will do anything conceivable with a mouse now before I'll touch the keyboard as necessary. Although I do agree with you about the accelerators, plus they are standardized anyway so any company making english language software should stick to Microsoft guidelines.
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
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feline_dracoform wrote:
and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric
I'm not sure how true this is anymore. I suspect a lot of *old* programmers are keyboard centric, not younger ones. I *used* to be in the old days when we didn't have the tools we have now, but I will do anything conceivable with a mouse now before I'll touch the keyboard as necessary. Although I do agree with you about the accelerators, plus they are standardized anyway so any company making english language software should stick to Microsoft guidelines.
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
John Cardinal wrote:
but I will do anything conceivable with a mouse now before I'll touch the keyboard as necessary.
I'll do anything conceivable with the keyboard before I'll touch the mouse.
John Cardinal wrote:
I suspect a lot of *old* programmers are keyboard centric
I'm 41, is that old? -- modified at 10:34 Wednesday 19th October, 2005
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feline_dracoform wrote:
...except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel"...
Since I started using Windows some 15 years ago, I've never seen mnemonics on the OK or Cancel button of a dialog.
"Take only what you need and leave the land as you found it." - Native American Proverb
*wanders off for a quick survey of MS Word 2000* some dialogs have accelerators on the OK button but not on the Cancel button. some dialogs have no accelerators on any buttons. by the looks of it, there is an accelerator if you could ever get stuck, i.e. if there is a text field, so that pressing Enter does not automatically accept the dialog. looking at the buttons the experience is very odd, since it looks random. of course, by default in win2k and winXP windows hides the mnemonics all over the place until you press the ALT key. thinking of which, this is the best bit about wincvs. by default focus is placed in a big edit field, which allows you to enter new lines via the Enter key. so much for the default button on a quick visit. i can feel another edit in visual studio coming on :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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In a well designed Windows program: Enter = OK, Esc = Cancel and F1 = Help, so no need for it ;) - Anders
normally i would agree :) work with me while i create a text mode picture, ok? commit a wincvs change on a file, so i enter some text:
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
press Enter to accept the change
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
*um* lets try that again, perhaps it will work better:
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
the default button seems remarkably inefective when focus is inside a multiline text edit field *sigh* then again i have long claimed that wincvs is not a well designed windows program, but that could simply because i don't like it ;) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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feline_dracoform wrote:
and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric
I'm not sure how true this is anymore. I suspect a lot of *old* programmers are keyboard centric, not younger ones. I *used* to be in the old days when we didn't have the tools we have now, but I will do anything conceivable with a mouse now before I'll touch the keyboard as necessary. Although I do agree with you about the accelerators, plus they are standardized anyway so any company making english language software should stick to Microsoft guidelines.
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
i am not old, i am simply experienced :-D plus i need to find some spare desk surface when i need to use my mouse :| which is why i got myself a wireless mouse, to make it easier to get the mouse and the desk space to overlap :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
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normally i would agree :) work with me while i create a text mode picture, ok? commit a wincvs change on a file, so i enter some text:
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
press Enter to accept the change
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
*um* lets try that again, perhaps it will work better:
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
the default button seems remarkably inefective when focus is inside a multiline text edit field *sigh* then again i have long claimed that wincvs is not a well designed windows program, but that could simply because i don't like it ;) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
the default button seems remarkably inefective when focus is inside a multiline text edit field
That'll be the ES_WANTRETURN style, then. My guess is, with that turned off, you'd be complaining that CVS accepted only the first line of your comment, since when you pressed [Enter] to add a second line, it closed the dialog. I understand what you're saying, but I don't see how it can work both ways. If you really don't want to use the mouse, tab to the OK button, and then press the spacebar... :-D
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*wanders off for a quick survey of MS Word 2000* some dialogs have accelerators on the OK button but not on the Cancel button. some dialogs have no accelerators on any buttons. by the looks of it, there is an accelerator if you could ever get stuck, i.e. if there is a text field, so that pressing Enter does not automatically accept the dialog. looking at the buttons the experience is very odd, since it looks random. of course, by default in win2k and winXP windows hides the mnemonics all over the place until you press the ALT key. thinking of which, this is the best bit about wincvs. by default focus is placed in a big edit field, which allows you to enter new lines via the Enter key. so much for the default button on a quick visit. i can feel another edit in visual studio coming on :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
*wanders off for a quick survey of MS Word 2000* some dialogs have accelerators on the OK button...
Such as?
"Take only what you need and leave the land as you found it." - Native American Proverb
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John Cardinal wrote:
but I will do anything conceivable with a mouse now before I'll touch the keyboard as necessary.
I'll do anything conceivable with the keyboard before I'll touch the mouse.
John Cardinal wrote:
I suspect a lot of *old* programmers are keyboard centric
I'm 41, is that old? -- modified at 10:34 Wednesday 19th October, 2005
Turtle Hand wrote:
I'll do anything conceivable with the keyboard before I'll touch the mouse.
It's really too bad this is the Lounge, and the 'kid sister' rule is in effect. There are just so many places you could go with a remark like that... :laugh:
Software Zen:
delete this; -
coming from a background of UNIX, i.e. doing all of my work from a windows workstation on a UNIX box via a terminal emulator, i am used to being able to do everything with the keyboard, or to be more exact i am used to being forced to do everything with the keyboard ;) we use cvs under UNIX, so reasonably enough we use wincvs under windows. in version 1, whenever i commit a change there was no keyboard shortcut for the OK buttom :mad: we have now moved to version 2. in the standard commit dialog there is a keyboard shortcut to jump to every single control... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Help". however, in deference to people like me they have put a label on the screen telling me to press CTRL-ENTER to accept the dialog... :wtf: and there i was expecting to use something traditional like ALT-O... :confused: i put this down to some strange design quirk of this program, but i have just downloaded and installed WinMerge, since it is often recormended in the lounge, therefore good :) when i am selecting two files to diff there are keyboard shortcuts for every control in the dialog... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Save project". both programs are aimed at programmers, and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric. so where does this (to me) truely incomprehensible behaviour come from? is there some guide somewhere that says buttons must only be triggered via the mouse or many presses of the tab key? on the plus side, in the same fit of anger that prompted this post i have discovered that if i open the exe file in VS 2003 i can just edit the dialog's to add the keyboard shortcuts to the buttons myself! :rose: zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
As has been mentioned, the standard for Windows is Enter == Ok, Esc == Cancel. In addition, multi-line edit boxes generally trap enter to allow entering a newline - so you first need to tab out of the edit box and then hit Enter to submit the dialog. Occasionally, a dialog author will forget this when adding a multi-line edit - in this case, Enter will submit the dialog, and Ctrl+Enter will add a newline. I use the keyboard heavily, more so now that i spend a lot of time using a laptop. If you've noticed when using CPhog, the only place on the reply form where Enter doesn't cause the reply to be sumbitted are the text and signature textareas. :)
My god, you're a genius! - Jörgen Sigvardsson, The Lounge
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normally i would agree :) work with me while i create a text mode picture, ok? commit a wincvs change on a file, so i enter some text:
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
press Enter to accept the change
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
*um* lets try that again, perhaps it will work better:
fixed the bug, all is now wonderful
the default button seems remarkably inefective when focus is inside a multiline text edit field *sigh* then again i have long claimed that wincvs is not a well designed windows program, but that could simply because i don't like it ;) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
the default button seems remarkably inefective when focus is inside a multiline text edit field *sigh*
Normally a multiline edit control traps both Enter and Ctrl+Enter keys. WinCvs 2.x however allows you to configure the behaviour so that when inside multiline-edit control you either use Enter to confirm and Ctrl+Enter to line-break or vice-versa. Go to "Admin"->"Preferences"->Command Dialogs. Use the "Ctrl+Enter to confirm" checkbox to control this function.
feline_dracoform wrote:
then again i have long claimed that wincvs is not a well designed windows program, but that could simply because i don't like it
Or simply because you have the "instant gratification" attitude. WinCvs is designed for programmers - it is assumed that you will spend some time trying to understand the tool and the way it works. Or at least read the entry labels - the behaviour is described on the very dialog right above the edit control. It will tell you what commits and what line-breaks depending on the current settings. Oh, and there is a source code for you so you can "improve" it any way you want...
/* I C++, therefore I am... */
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coming from a background of UNIX, i.e. doing all of my work from a windows workstation on a UNIX box via a terminal emulator, i am used to being able to do everything with the keyboard, or to be more exact i am used to being forced to do everything with the keyboard ;) we use cvs under UNIX, so reasonably enough we use wincvs under windows. in version 1, whenever i commit a change there was no keyboard shortcut for the OK buttom :mad: we have now moved to version 2. in the standard commit dialog there is a keyboard shortcut to jump to every single control... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Help". however, in deference to people like me they have put a label on the screen telling me to press CTRL-ENTER to accept the dialog... :wtf: and there i was expecting to use something traditional like ALT-O... :confused: i put this down to some strange design quirk of this program, but i have just downloaded and installed WinMerge, since it is often recormended in the lounge, therefore good :) when i am selecting two files to diff there are keyboard shortcuts for every control in the dialog... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Save project". both programs are aimed at programmers, and a lot of programmers are quite keyboard centric. so where does this (to me) truely incomprehensible behaviour come from? is there some guide somewhere that says buttons must only be triggered via the mouse or many presses of the tab key? on the plus side, in the same fit of anger that prompted this post i have discovered that if i open the exe file in VS 2003 i can just edit the dialog's to add the keyboard shortcuts to the buttons myself! :rose: zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
we have now moved to version 2. in the standard commit dialog there is a keyboard shortcut to jump to every single control... except for the three buttons "OK", "Cancel" and "Help".
Enter -> does OK Esc -> does Cancel F1 -> does Help This is standard in Windows applications.
feline_dracoform wrote:
however, in deference to people like me they have put a label on the screen telling me to press CTRL-ENTER to accept the dialog... and there i was expecting to use something traditional like ALT-O...
I find it interesting that you would pick WinCvs here since it is actually going an extra mile trying to ease the multiline editing - "traditionally" you would have to Tab-out to the next control to be able to confirm the dialog using Enter. This can also be configured for people with different habbits.
/* I C++, therefore I am... */
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John Cardinal wrote:
but I will do anything conceivable with a mouse now before I'll touch the keyboard as necessary.
I'll do anything conceivable with the keyboard before I'll touch the mouse.
John Cardinal wrote:
I suspect a lot of *old* programmers are keyboard centric
I'm 41, is that old? -- modified at 10:34 Wednesday 19th October, 2005
Well to each their own, but I suspect a good mouser is a *lot* more efficient than someone who avoids it at all costs.
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
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i am not old, i am simply experienced :-D plus i need to find some spare desk surface when i need to use my mouse :| which is why i got myself a wireless mouse, to make it easier to get the mouse and the desk space to overlap :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
I sought out a keyboard that doesn't have the ridiculous number pad on the right side and it's made my muscles about 90% less achier after a day of work. I realized one day that I was using the mouse a lot, reaching out to the right at a wierd angle all the time and that I really had no use for the number pad being a programmer and not a data entry clerk so I found a wicked keyboard that is full sized but compact as it has no number pad on the right side and it's been great, everyone should get one. (Unless you're a data entry clerk that is). Not where I bought it, but a good description: PSK-3300 compact keyboard[^]
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
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Well to each their own, but I suspect a good mouser is a *lot* more efficient than someone who avoids it at all costs.
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
I find the pattern of mouse and click and type and mouse and click and type very inefficient. I am having to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse, back to the keyboard. Also I find Ctrl + n or Alt + n simpler than positioning the mouse on an item, right click, select menu choice. Example: Alt + Enter = Properties of anything in Windows. That is alot simpler then, position mouse over item -> right click -> select properties.
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*wanders off for a quick survey of MS Word 2000* some dialogs have accelerators on the OK button but not on the Cancel button. some dialogs have no accelerators on any buttons. by the looks of it, there is an accelerator if you could ever get stuck, i.e. if there is a text field, so that pressing Enter does not automatically accept the dialog. looking at the buttons the experience is very odd, since it looks random. of course, by default in win2k and winXP windows hides the mnemonics all over the place until you press the ALT key. thinking of which, this is the best bit about wincvs. by default focus is placed in a big edit field, which allows you to enter new lines via the Enter key. so much for the default button on a quick visit. i can feel another edit in visual studio coming on :) zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
I thought the shortcut key for "OK" was the Enter key and "Cancel" was the ESC keys. :~ Steve
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I find the pattern of mouse and click and type and mouse and click and type very inefficient. I am having to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse, back to the keyboard. Also I find Ctrl + n or Alt + n simpler than positioning the mouse on an item, right click, select menu choice. Example: Alt + Enter = Properties of anything in Windows. That is alot simpler then, position mouse over item -> right click -> select properties.
do what I do, type with your left hand and use the right one for moving the mouse :-O Steve