GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 672909
Shortcut for Application menu
Last modified: 2012-10-15 23:39:59 UTC
In GNOME 3.4 there is a new feature - Application Menu: https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointThree/Features/ApplicationMenu However, there seems to be no easy keyboard shortcut how to invoke it. Using Ctrl+Alt+Tab -> right arrow -> Enter is extremely inconvenient. Please add new keyboard shortcut for triggering Application Menu. My proposal is Super+Space shortcut. (I tend to believe that the operating system should use the Super key in its shortcuts while applications should not. That would solve possible collisions. Of course this is not followed in current GNOME, so it's just a proposal).
(In reply to comment #0) > Please add new keyboard shortcut for triggering Application Menu. Patch coming. > My proposal is Super+Space shortcut. In a brief discussion on #gnome-design, we settled on Super+F10 (as F10 is already used to focus the window menu). > (I tend to believe that the operating system should use the Super key in its > shortcuts while applications should not. > That would solve possible collisions. Of course this is not followed in current > GNOME, so it's just a proposal). See https://live.gnome.org/action/edit/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/KeyboardShortcuts :-)
Created attachment 210695 [details] [review] panel: Add keyboard shortcut to open app menu With the application menu now being more than a stub, it has become a much more interesting target, so add a keyboard shortcut to open it directly. This should also ease some of the pain for focus-follows-mouse users.
Review of attachment 210695 [details] [review]: I take the list written by Jimmac as designer approval; the code looks good to me.
Super+F10 requires one to use both hands. Super+Space can be single-handed and on most keyboard can be done with either left or right hand.
Attachment 210695 [details] pushed as c51acf7 - panel: Add keyboard shortcut to open app menu
(In reply to comment #4) > Super+F10 requires one to use both hands. Super+Space can be single-handed and > on most keyboard can be done with either left or right hand. Note that you can change the default shortcut if you want to: gsettings set org.gnome.shell.keybindings open-applications-menu '["<Super>space"]' "space" in particular has the nasty side-effect of activating the selected menu item when using the keyboard shortcut while the menu is open, which is why I think that Super+F10 makes for a safer default.
Did this receive a string freeze break approval that I missed?
(In reply to comment #7) > Did this receive a string freeze break approval that I missed? Is one needed for *adding* new strings? i.e it did not change any existing ones.
(In reply to comment #8) > Is one needed for *adding* new strings? i.e it did not change any existing > ones. I think so, yes (In reply to comment #7) > Did this receive a string freeze break approval that I missed? No, sorry - I checked for user-visible strings before pushing, but missed the markers in the schema (not that I consider strings in GSettings schemas "user-visible"). Speaking of which - could we remove all translations from the schemas rather than requesting the freeze break? Do those translations serve any purpose except for wasting translators' time?
(In reply to comment #8) > (In reply to comment #7) > > Did this receive a string freeze break approval that I missed? > Is one needed for *adding* new strings? If you add them to stable branches: Yes, as stable branches are considered string frozen. See https://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/HandlingStringFreezes > Speaking of which - could we remove all translations from the schemas > rather than requesting the freeze break? Do those translations serve > any purpose except for wasting translators' time? It's not the first time this question comes up and as usual I ask to ask and discuss this on the gnome-i18n@ mailing list...
(In reply to comment #10) > (In reply to comment #8) > > (In reply to comment #7) > > > Did this receive a string freeze break approval that I missed? > > Is one needed for *adding* new strings? > > If you add them to stable branches: Yes, as stable branches are considered > string frozen. See > https://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/HandlingStringFreezes OK "Any addition or change of a string marked for translation" is pretty clear, thanks.
*** Bug 665318 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
One issue: the keybinding does not appear in the control-center panel - should it ?
(In reply to comment #13) > One issue: the keybinding does not appear in the control-center panel - > should it ? Good question - neither F10 nor <shift>F10 can be modified from gnome-control-center as far as I can see, so should <super>F10 be configurable? (In any case, I've got some old patches for adding gnome-shell keybindings to g-c-c lying around, I'll get those cleaned up and posted)
From my end-user perspective it would be great to have it configurable. I'd probably change it to some single-hand combination.
(In reply to comment #15) > From my end-user perspective it would be great to have it configurable. I'd > probably change it to some single-hand combination. Hmm... not sure that a config option is the right choice then. If users feel that a single handed combination is a better choice (which makes sense IMO) we should just change the default (we can still make it configurable but we should choose a good default). What about Super+F3 or F4 ?
I personally like to assign Super+letter combinations, because modifier+Function key puts too much strain on my hands. E.g. I have changed default Alt+F4 to Super+Q and I'm very pleased with it. But I don't expect GNOME defaults to be like this. Using letters is tricky because of different keyboard layouts. Apple can afford it, because they also provide all the hardware, so that can draw special symbols onto the keyboard. We can't. So no matter what the default is, I'd love to have it configurable, because I'll probably want to change it. As for the default, Super+Space was proposed already, Super+Escape can be interesting as well. But Super+F10 is not that bad either. I think all the shortcuts should be considered as a whole, it would be nice to have some overall strategy, not just pick them randomly. The document linked in comment 1 is a good start.
(In reply to comment #16) > (In reply to comment #15) > > From my end-user perspective it would be great to have it configurable. I'd > > probably change it to some single-hand combination. > > Hmm... not sure that a config option is the right choice then. > If users feel that a single handed combination is a better choice (which makes > sense IMO) we should just change the default (we can still make it configurable > but we should choose a good default). > > What about Super+F3 or F4 ? I'm not sure we're going to come up with a combination that 'just works'. I agree that Super-F10 is somewhat pessimal from the single-handed use perspective. My interest in having the keybinding in the keyboard panel is not solely for changing it, but also for discovering in the first place - I had forgotten about this being added, and could not work out which combination it might be...
(In reply to comment #14) > (In reply to comment #13) > > One issue: the keybinding does not appear in the control-center panel - > > should it ? > > Good question - neither F10 nor <shift>F10 can be modified from > gnome-control-center as far as I can see, so should <super>F10 be configurable? > > (In any case, I've got some old patches for adding gnome-shell keybindings to > g-c-c lying around, I'll get those cleaned up and posted) Could you post those? This came up today on IRC. What about making these configurable again?
My thoughts are to change it to the xf86menu key. It just makes sense to swap the 2 or possibly find a way to do something like xf86menu+f10 and swap them. Menu should open the more modern appMenu and the alternate should open the old application specific menu.
I.e: Swap the Context menu shortcut with the appMenu shortcut. Of course this bug also need taken care of before we can change the context menu shortcut as well: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=660566
(In reply to comment #19) > (In reply to comment #14) > > (In any case, I've got some old patches for adding gnome-shell keybindings to > > g-c-c lying around, I'll get those cleaned up and posted) > > Could you post those? They are in 3.6.
Created attachment 226262 [details] [review] data: Expose '<Super>F10' shortcut in System Settings
Attachment 226262 [details] pushed as 3a8e723 - data: Expose '<Super>F10' shortcut in System Settings