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Bug 697533 - Several keyboard shortcuts don't work in 2.99
Several keyboard shortcuts don't work in 2.99
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: rhythmbox
Classification: Other
Component: general
2.99
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: RhythmBox Maintainers
RhythmBox Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2013-04-08 04:50 UTC by Jeremy Bicha
Modified: 2013-08-24 00:51 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Jeremy Bicha 2013-04-08 04:50:25 UTC
Rhythmbox 2.99 on Ubuntu 13.04

According to help, these shortcuts should work but they don't:

Shortcuts	Actions

Ctrl+Space	Play / Pause
Alt+Left	Jump to the Previous Track / Back to the beginning of the track
Alt+Right	Jump to the Next Track
Ctrl+R	Enable / Disable Repeat play
Ctrl+U	Enable / Disable Shuffle play
Ctrl+N	Create a New playlist
Ctrl+O	Add a folder to the library
Ctrl+S	Show / Hide the Song Position Slider
Alt+Return	Display the Track Properties
Ctrl+W	Close the Rhythmbox Music Player window
Comment 1 Jonathan Matthew 2013-04-08 09:35:52 UTC
Of those you listed, I only want these to work:

> Ctrl+R    Enable / Disable Repeat play
> Ctrl+U    Enable / Disable Shuffle play
> Alt+Return    Display the Track Properties

and I'm not particularly sure about the first two.

> Ctrl+Space    Play / Pause

this causes problems with some keyboard layouts. ctrl-p works, along with all the GtkTreeView keys for activating rows.

> Alt+Left    Jump to the Previous Track / Back to the beginning of the track
> Alt+Right    Jump to the Next Track

ctrl-left, ctrl-right still work. why do we need both?

> Ctrl+N    Create a New playlist
> Ctrl+O    Add a folder to the library
> Ctrl+S    Show / Hide the Song Position Slider

I don't see a need for these.

> Ctrl+W    Close the Rhythmbox Music Player window

closing the window is the same as quitting the application, so it shouldn't have two shortcuts. ctrl-q works.

I'm probably not going to update the docbook help. I may update the mallard help branch if someone else doesn't get to it first.
Comment 2 Jeremy Bicha 2013-04-08 16:22:04 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> > Ctrl+Space    Play / Pause
> 
> this causes problems with some keyboard layouts. ctrl-p works, along with all
> the GtkTreeView keys for activating rows.

Ctrl+P doesn't work. Totem uses Ctrl+Space. (I think both would be good. I believe Windows Media Player uses Ctrl+P but using the spacebar is an easier shortcut.)

> > Alt+Left    Jump to the Previous Track / Back to the beginning of the track
> > Alt+Right    Jump to the Next Track
> 
> ctrl-left, ctrl-right still work. why do we need both?

Well, Alt+Left and Alt+Right is what Totem uses and I think it makes sense with other GNOME apps using those shortcuts for moving forward and back (for instance, Nautilus or web browsers). In general, I think Rhythmbox should use the same keyboard shortcuts as Totem.

> > Ctrl+N    Create a New playlist
> > Ctrl+O    Add a folder to the library
> > Ctrl+S    Show / Hide the Song Position Slider
> 
> I don't see a need for these.

Think of someone who for whatever reason does not use a mouse. Also, Ctrl+N and Ctrl+O are standard shortcuts. I don't think Ctrl+S is particularly useful though.

> > Ctrl+W    Close the Rhythmbox Music Player window
> 
> closing the window is the same as quitting the application, so it shouldn't
> have two shortcuts. ctrl-q works.

Ah, maybe this is Ubuntu-specific. Ubuntu allows closing Rhythmbox but the music continues to play in the background. See https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-desktop/rhythmbox/ubuntu/view/head:/debian/patches/05_hide_on_quit.patch

Thanks
Comment 3 Bastien Nocera 2013-04-08 18:01:59 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > > Ctrl+Space    Play / Pause
> > 
> > this causes problems with some keyboard layouts. ctrl-p works, along with all
> > the GtkTreeView keys for activating rows.
> 
> Ctrl+P doesn't work. Totem uses Ctrl+Space.

It also uses Space and "P".

> > > Alt+Left    Jump to the Previous Track / Back to the beginning of the track
> > > Alt+Right    Jump to the Next Track
> > 
> > ctrl-left, ctrl-right still work. why do we need both?
> 
> Well, Alt+Left and Alt+Right is what Totem uses

It doesn't. It uses Left and Right. Alt and Ctrl can be used as modifiers to make the seeks shorter or longer.
Comment 4 Jeremy Bicha 2013-04-08 20:16:50 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> It doesn't. It uses Left and Right. Alt and Ctrl can be used as modifiers to
> make the seeks shorter or longer.

Alt+Left and Alt+Right do skip to the previous/next song:
https://help.gnome.org/users/totem/stable/totem-usage.html#totem-usage-seek

Thanks Bastien for the extra info about play and pause. I really like the spacebar shortcut as it's easier to hit if you're using the computer as a media box and not actively using the keyboard.
Comment 5 Jonathan Matthew 2013-04-08 22:17:16 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > > Ctrl+Space    Play / Pause
> > 
> > this causes problems with some keyboard layouts. ctrl-p works, along with all
> > the GtkTreeView keys for activating rows.
> 
> Ctrl+P doesn't work. Totem uses Ctrl+Space. (I think both would be good. I
> believe Windows Media Player uses Ctrl+P but using the spacebar is an easier
> shortcut.)

I don't want to use spacebar for anything. Enough widgets use it for their own purposes (including GtkTreeView) that even without specifically creating any shortcuts, what happens when you press the space bar is already inconsistent.

ctrl-p didn't work because I forgot to update it when I changed how the play action works. commit 797ed54 fixes this and adds the shuffle and repeat shortcuts.

Can you still get keyboards that don't have dedicated media player keys on them? I rarely use anything else to control playback.

> > > Alt+Left    Jump to the Previous Track / Back to the beginning of the track
> > > Alt+Right    Jump to the Next Track
> > 
> > ctrl-left, ctrl-right still work. why do we need both?
> 
> Well, Alt+Left and Alt+Right is what Totem uses and I think it makes sense with
> other GNOME apps using those shortcuts for moving forward and back (for
> instance, Nautilus or web browsers). In general, I think Rhythmbox should use
> the same keyboard shortcuts as Totem.

I agree to some extent, but again we have to deal with key bindings within widgets a lot more than totem does. A shortcut that only works if the right bit of the app has focus isn't much use.

> > > Ctrl+N    Create a New playlist
> > > Ctrl+O    Add a folder to the library
> > > Ctrl+S    Show / Hide the Song Position Slider
> > 
> > I don't see a need for these.
> 
> Think of someone who for whatever reason does not use a mouse. Also, Ctrl+N and
> Ctrl+O are standard shortcuts. I don't think Ctrl+S is particularly useful
> though.

I'd agree that these should be keyboard accessible, and they're currently not. I'd prefer to add shortcuts for opening the app menu (to get to 'add music') and the page menu (for creating playlists) rather than adding shortcuts for individual actions.

> > > Ctrl+W    Close the Rhythmbox Music Player window
> > 
> > closing the window is the same as quitting the application, so it shouldn't
> > have two shortcuts. ctrl-q works.
> 
> Ah, maybe this is Ubuntu-specific. Ubuntu allows closing Rhythmbox but the
> music continues to play in the background. See
> https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-desktop/rhythmbox/ubuntu/view/head:/debian/patches/05_hide_on_quit.patch

It is. I don't like this behaviour at all.
Comment 6 Jeremy Bicha 2013-04-08 23:09:26 UTC
(In reply to comment #5)
> I'd agree that these should be keyboard accessible, and they're currently not.
> I'd prefer to add shortcuts for opening the app menu (to get to 'add music')
> and the page menu (for creating playlists) rather than adding shortcuts for
> individual actions.

Fair points about your UI being more complex than Totem's is currently. Super+F10 opens the app menu.

Thanks
Comment 7 Jonathan Matthew 2013-04-11 09:04:25 UTC
I've added F10 to open the app menu when it's in the toolbar, alt-a to open the 'add' menu in the source list, alt-enter to open the properties window, ctrl-x,c,v,a,shift-a for the usual cut and paste.
Comment 8 chriechers 2013-04-20 14:39:57 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> I've added F10 to open the app menu when it's in the toolbar

openSUSE 12.3, Gnome 3.8
Upgraded to rhythmbox 2.99, and then to 2.99.1. The menu bar is gone, and F10 doesn't work. Pressing F10 does nothing. There is no way to bring up the menu bar. The alt-a, alt-e, and alt-enter shortcuts do work.
Comment 9 Jonathan Matthew 2013-04-20 21:20:58 UTC
Try the app menu?
Comment 10 chriechers 2013-04-20 22:22:19 UTC
(In reply to comment #9)
> Try the app menu?

There isn't an app menu either.
Comment 11 Jonathan Matthew 2013-04-20 22:34:11 UTC
Your distribution has screwed something up, go talk to them about it.
Comment 12 chriechers 2013-04-20 22:38:22 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
> There isn't an app menu either.

Correction:
The app menu is there (I guess I had something else in mind initially). But still F10 doesn't do anything.
Is the app menu supposed to entirely replace the menu bar? The way Firefox does this makes more sense to me, where F10 brings up the menu bar.
Not having a menu bar at all isn't very intuitive.
Comment 13 Jonathan Matthew 2013-08-24 00:51:28 UTC
The shortcuts section in the help is now up to date and I'm pretty comfortable with how things are now.