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Bug 227853 - Inadequate keybinding for show/hide preview pane
Inadequate keybinding for show/hide preview pane
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: evolution
Classification: Applications
Component: general
2.4.x (obsolete)
Other All
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: Srinivasa Ragavan
Evolution QA team
: 230410 234126 234408 234540 237308 239622 245709 247572 254922 268879 323111 324131 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: 310552
 
 
Reported: 2002-07-16 17:31 UTC by Gerardo Marin
Modified: 2013-09-10 14:04 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Gerardo Marin 2002-07-16 17:31:54 UTC
Please fill in this template when reporting a bug, unless you know what you
are doing.
Description of Problem:
Keybindig for preview pane is defined as ` however in keyboard layouts that
have grave accents (Spanish for sure, I suspect French too) that key is
part of a compose, meaning it's queued until a second grave-valid character
is typed, hence failing to show/hide preview pane.

Steps to reproduce the problem:
1. Use a keyboard layout that has grave accent
2. Try to show/hide preview pane


Actual Results:
Doesn't work

Expected Results:
A keybinding that works.

How often does this happen? 
All time.

Additional Information:
Workaround: use the mouse, Luke.
Comment 1 richard.bellavance 2002-07-19 15:23:51 UTC
As a workaround, you can press the spacebar after the [`] to generate
it by itself (at least, on a french-canadian keyboard).  Not very
convenient, but maybe better than reaching for the mouse...
Comment 2 Peter Williams 2002-07-22 17:10:35 UTC
Well, we can add another key that does the same thing, but I only have
US keyboards so I don't know what would be good. How about \ ? 
Comment 3 Gerardo Marin 2002-07-22 18:16:13 UTC
Sounds good to me...
Comment 4 Gerardo Marin 2002-09-17 17:30:01 UTC
*** bug 230410 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Mårten Woxberg 2002-09-17 19:24:31 UTC
\ is a bad selection... it requires ALTGR+'+'
Bind it to the key left of 1... nothing important is ever stored
there on any layout.. in the duplicate bug 230410 I mention
the keycode to lock on for it to work on any layout
Comment 6 Gerardo Marin 2002-11-18 18:03:18 UTC
*** bug 234126 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 Gerardo Marin 2002-11-23 01:10:05 UTC
*** bug 234408 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 8 Gerardo Marin 2002-11-25 20:18:18 UTC
*** bug 234540 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Gerardo Marin 2003-01-29 07:18:41 UTC
*** bug 237308 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Nils Philippsen 2003-02-08 12:48:53 UTC
This is a bit related to bug#211387
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211387) -- if we would be
able to change shortcuts, this specific shortcut could be changed to
something more convenient.
Comment 11 Gerardo Marin 2003-03-14 19:35:05 UTC
*** bug 239622 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 Gerardo Marin 2003-07-01 23:57:57 UTC
*** bug 245709 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 Gerardo Marin 2003-08-12 22:57:19 UTC
*** bug 247572 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 14 Itamar Almeida de Carvalho 2003-08-13 20:10:37 UTC
Why not just restore the old key (q)?
If there is any way to change a binding it's the best solution.

In the brazilian ABNT2 keyboard don't work the spacebar after the [`].

My workaround is to use the menu with [ALT]+[V], then [P] (but this
keys are in the brazilian portuguese translated menu).
Comment 15 Romain Riviere 2003-10-02 05:03:12 UTC
There is a side-effect of this bug.
I have a French keyboard, and the ` key is also the è key.
As a result, while typing in the Search field, pressing that key will 
result in toggling the preview pane. Therefore the only way to include 
the character è in the query string is to copy/paste it from 
elsewhere.
Comment 16 Anna Marie Dirks 2003-10-03 18:22:49 UTC
Hi Guys.

Rest assured that we will fix this. I believe that the best way to
address this problem is to conduct a survey of the menus, hence
figuring out which keys are accessible to us for this use. 

We will also consult the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines, so as to
figure out what keybinding of the available possibilities is most
acceptable. 

In the meantime, if people would like to provide information about the
keyboard layouts they use (including specs if you have them), that
would be great. We can use this information to prevent ourselves from
making the same mistake in the future. 
Comment 17 Itamar Almeida de Carvalho 2003-10-07 01:54:43 UTC
What kind of "information about the keyboard layouts" you want?  My
keymap or xmodmap file?  Or some hardware specs?
Comment 18 Gerardo Marin 2003-11-28 20:02:08 UTC
I hate to say this, but I had to set a "Future" milestone.
Reassigning to "Miscellaneous"
Comment 19 Karsten Bräckelmann 2003-12-17 01:56:55 UTC
Strange. According to evolution-mail-global.xml the keybindings are
grave and tilde (` and ~ or am I wrong here?) and this keys with shift.

The situation on my (German) keyboard (using English UI for Evo):
- Grave is accessible only with shift.
- Tilde does not work at all (only accessible with AtlGr).
- However, hash (#) *does* work. But isn't mentioned anywhere...

So, what about the # key on other localized keyboards?

And why does # work at all? It's not mentioned in the XML file...
Comment 20 Itamar Almeida de Carvalho 2003-12-17 02:15:37 UTC
Neither ` or ~ works for me (I think it's because of my "dead keys"
keyboard - I need to press [~], then [space] to make a ~).

Hash (#) don't works for me, and it's not for the same reason, it's
only [shift]+[3].

(again, my keyboard is brazilian ABNT2)
Comment 21 Gerardo Marin 2003-12-17 06:59:31 UTC
I have two Spanish keyboads with different layouts. One of them
(Spanish layout) has # as rightAlt-3, latin american Spanish keyboard
behaves like Itamar's
Comment 22 Gerardo Marin 2004-01-30 01:30:26 UTC
This is worst in 1.5 since hide/view panel is ctr-`
Comment 23 Gerardo Marin 2004-02-27 19:51:20 UTC
*** bug 254922 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 24 Tuomas Kuosmanen 2004-08-27 19:56:35 UTC
Somehow I think a function key might be easier - it is the same for
every layout. Makes you realize why Microsoft is using them so much..
Comment 25 Gerardo Marin 2004-10-28 16:23:23 UTC
*** bug 268879 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 26 Rodney Dawes 2005-02-23 19:11:22 UTC
I can't think of an overly good suggestion for this right now, so I'm
going to punt it to 2.3, since 2.2 hard code freeze is coming up in a
week, and we're already into UI freeze, which this would also break.
Comment 27 André Klapper 2005-07-13 10:51:44 UTC
running evolution-2.3.4.0.200507070552-0.snap.novell.11.1 on suse9.3 here:

* mail:     " view | message preview    ctrl + m "
* contacts: " view | preview pane       ctrl + ` "
* calendar: not available, should be introduced, perhaps (one
  could view attendees, the place, comments and/or other things)
* contacts: menu item does not exist, but should!

this should be solved before ui freeze takes place. :-(
Comment 28 André Klapper 2005-07-13 10:52:27 UTC
...and adjusting version number, sorry, forgot.
Comment 29 Calum Benson 2005-07-28 10:37:16 UTC
Apologies for any spam... cc'ing usability-maint on all Evolution usability
bugs. Filter on EVO-USABILITY-SPAM to ignore.
Comment 30 André Klapper 2005-08-26 10:27:41 UTC
comment #27, second "contacts" should be "tasks".
guess this won't go anymore into 2.3 but 2.5; would be very cool if one also had
a preview pane for the tasks; an unique expression for {message preview|preview
pane} or at least {message preview|contact preview|task preview}; and a unique
shortcut that does not interfere with other ones. sigh...

good luck, srinivasa. ;-)
Comment 31 Srinivasa Ragavan 2005-08-28 12:25:45 UTC
Hmm, preview for tasks/calendar doesnt exist. I dont think of a plan to add it
either. Atleast i could help solve the keyboard short cut in this release.

I guess a unique key has to be place for preview pane in both mail and contacts.
I can add Ctrl + Alt + V (for preView pane). It should be called Contact preview
and Message preview respectively. Probably in the next release i'll add this.
Comment 32 Nils Philippsen 2005-08-29 08:07:31 UTC
Hmm. Ctrl + Alt + V is even worse than Ctrl + ` (which is Ctrl + Shift + ´) for
me -- after months of practicing, I can do the latter with one hand and we
already have a complicated combination for it (Alt + V, P). It's nearly
impossible to do the former with one hand (without breaking it ;-).

I've skimmed over the comments but didn't find a reason why it can't be a
character without modifiers ('#' was mentioned in the comments for instance).
"Previous ..." and "Next unread mail" are ',' and '.' anyway.
Comment 33 André Klapper 2005-08-29 12:22:09 UTC
srini: preview for tasks does exist - it's just always enabled... :-)
see bug 262330 for the request to hide the task preview pane.
Comment 34 Srinivasa Ragavan 2005-10-04 14:48:03 UTC
andre i missed out. thx for directing me.

Nils event those ',' and '.' are changed to C+] C+[

See i cant find a unique for all the three. Im going with C+A+V.
Poor keyboard has very limited chars ;-).
Comment 35 Nils Philippsen 2005-10-05 07:44:46 UTC
Argh. Sorry. Ctrl+] and Ctrl+[ are just as finger breaking -- these are
Ctrl+AltGr+8 and Ctrl+AltGr+9 on German keyboards. Often used combinations
shouldn't ever require three keys to be pressed IMO. Perhaps shortcuts should be
made dependent on the keyboard layout, or even changeable by the user?
Comment 36 Srinivasa Ragavan 2005-10-18 05:08:31 UTC
Nils, i understand, but remember there are so many shortcuts that we are unable
to find something unique :-(. Still user can change in the .xml file in
evolution install area. Or one can write a short-cut editor for evolution, which
goes as a different enh altogether.

These are fixed and committed to head.
Comment 37 André Klapper 2005-12-06 10:13:47 UTC
*** Bug 323111 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 38 Karsten Bräckelmann 2005-12-12 18:22:34 UTC
Ctrl-Alt should not be used in apps. It's commonly used for window manager
accelerators. We should not start using these modifiers together.

Reopening.

Personally, I am always applying a patch to use the numbersign. Easy and
available one key accelerator. Maybe revert to grave like it used to, or
whatever. But do not use Ctrl and Alt together.
Comment 39 André Klapper 2005-12-12 18:31:46 UTC
i'm also voting for globally setting this to grave.
Comment 40 Karsten Bräckelmann 2005-12-12 19:27:00 UTC
Regarding comment #36:

This comment partially is wrong. The *user* can NOT change the .xml files.

a) Generally, they are owned by root. The user can read them. That's all the user
   is allowed to do. Period.
b) We simply can not expect any user to manually mess with these files. Either
   there is a UI, or the user can't.

I already mentioned something similar in various bugs. Users are users. No
hackers, no admins. Please, never ever forget this.
Comment 41 André Klapper 2005-12-12 20:34:08 UTC
i'm all of the time mixing up this bug report and bug 322499, sigh...

okay: i vote for "control + m" here, and i vote for removing the shortcut in bug
322499, it's an unimportant one.
Comment 42 Karsten Bräckelmann 2005-12-12 21:27:53 UTC
Ugh... The accelerator for toggling the Preview should be the very same in all
components. See bug #323112 for proposed, consistent menu entry names.

M does not work well, cause it is associated with Mails only...

Andre: Mixed it up yet again? Did you mean to propose M for Move?
Comment 43 Srinivasa Ragavan 2005-12-13 16:56:42 UTC
I WONT agree for grave. Since in other keyboards it isnt possible to use it.
About the xml file, my point was for a shortcut editor and for a better per user
preference. But thatz not really in any near future.

Please find a unique key comb in all three components. but no grave. We need
think  about other users as well.
Comment 44 André Klapper 2005-12-13 18:21:57 UTC
hah, if "in other keyboards it isnt possible to use it" is really an argument,
then bug 250873 has much more importance then this one here. :-)

again: let's roll with control+m.
Comment 45 Karsten Bräckelmann 2005-12-13 19:12:06 UTC
See comment #38, what about the numbersign?

Srinivasa: Please, drop that stupid accel editor idea. It is not what this bug
is about. File a new bug for this.
Comment 46 André Klapper 2005-12-13 19:49:22 UTC
<http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input-keyboard.html>:
"Do not use Alt-key combinations for shortcut keys, as these may conflict with
window manager or menu access keys."
Comment 47 Srinivasa Ragavan 2005-12-15 02:29:19 UTC
*** Bug 324131 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 48 Srinivasa Ragavan 2005-12-16 08:10:56 UTC
Committed C+M as the shortcut for all previews.