Re: [TilEm-devel] Key bindings

[Thibault D. <t.d...@gm...>]

Hi,


Assigning key bindings is perhaps a rather important user interface
> issue, so let's talk about it a little.  Ideally, the default key
> bindings should be the same for GTK+ and Qt interfaces.  And while
> there's an argument to be made for keeping bindings consistent with
> the old TilEm (or with other emulators), that shouldn't stop us from
> making improvements where we can.  I've copied the TI-83 bindings from
> the old TilEm for testing purposes, but these are still very much up
> for debate. :)
>

I 'm not a fan of the "old tilem" key bindings.
Some modif/improvement should be a good idea.


> I think the most important criterion is that all 50 calculator keys be
> accessible somehow.  This should be true both for full-size 101+-key
> keyboards, and for smaller keyboards (e.g., layouts without a numeric
> keypad.)  And it should be true for all of the most common American
> and western European layouts (QWERTY in its various incarnations,
> AZERTY, QWERTZ.)  People with really weird keyboards, of course, can
> define their own bindings, but the defaults should be sensible for
> most of our users.
>
> In addition:
> - As many calculator keys as possible should have at least one binding
> that doesn't require pressing any modifiers.
> - As many keys as possible should have some mnemonic association with
> their bindings.
> I don't think it's possible to satisfy all of these criteria at once.
> So we have to make some compromises.
>

For me, the most important is to provide an user friendly key bindings.
By example, a new tilem user should be able to find by himself how to use
bindings without looking into the help or keybindigs.ini.
To have at least one bindings by calculator key is really important too for
advanced user like developpers.
We must look for which calculator keys are the most used to do the
compromise.


Once we have working bindings for all 50 individual keys, then we can
> think about 2nd and Alpha sequences.  But the individual keys should
> take priority.  For instance, I'm inclined to keep bracketleft=LParen
> and bracketright=RParen (rather than changing them to 2nd,Mul and
> 2nd,Sub), because ( and ) are more commonly used than 2nd+[ and 2nd+],
> and (on a US keyboard) the [ and ] keys are more accessible than ( and
> ).
>

Bracket is not really user friendly and ( ) are more accessible than [ ]
into azerty keyboard ...
But no problem, there's more qwerty users I think, so I let you choose ;)

In the old TilEm bindings, left Control is 2nd and left Shift is
> Alpha.  This causes a lot of difficulties, but I'm not sure what would
> be better.  Perhaps Tab for 2nd?  Almost all keyboards have a right
> Shift key, but many don't have a right Control.
>

I will try without thinking the old tilem, just testing wich key seems
instinctive.
I remember it was not really user friendly with old tilem.

Is it a good idea to try to give to a key his calculator representation...?
By example, pressing = gives 2nd Math 1
Or another example with ! (see keybindings.ini)
And % (gives Send(9 )

I think it could be instinctive and/or powerful.

What do you think about that, good or bad idea?

Last thing :
We could maybe provide more than one keybindings.ini...
By exemple one for developpers, another for "basic" users.

Regards.

Thibault