GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 166821
Add a shortcut to Object->Properties... menu item (patch included).
Last modified: 2006-12-03 12:53:16 UTC
Please apply the patch listed below to apps/menus.c to add a Ctrl-R shortcut to the Object->Properties... menu item, or some equivalent. I haven't learned how to specify default properties for objects (such as text, lines, curves, et al.), so I open the properties window for just about every object I create. A keyboard shortcut for this menu item would be very helpful. I saw that Ctrl-P is already used, but Ctrl-R is not, so I used it. I know that the Gnome HIG wants Ctrl-R to be used by "View->Redraw", but I don't think that it would recommend using "Alt-Return" for this purpose... that's for "File->Properties". Please substitue some appropriate other shortcut. Other information: --- dia-0.94.0.orig/app/menus.c +++ dia-0.94.0/app/menus.c @@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ {N_("/Objects/Align/Adjacent"), NULL, objects_align_h_callback, DIA_ALIGN_ADJACENT}, {N_("/Objects/Align/Stacked"), NULL, objects_align_v_callback, DIA_ALIGN_ADJACENT}, {N_("/Objects/---"), NULL, NULL, 0, "<Separator>"}, - {N_("/Objects/_Properties..."), NULL, dialogs_properties_callback, 0}, + {N_("/Objects/_Properties..."), "<control>R", dialogs_properties_callback, 0}, {N_("/_Select"), NULL, NULL, 0, "<Branch>"}, { "/Select/tearoff", NULL, NULL, 0, "<Tearoff>" }, {N_("/Select/All"), "<control>A", select_all_callback, 0},
Thanks for your patch (now marked as such for easy finding). There's already the shortcut of double-clicking the object, though that may not be obvious. As for setting defaults, double- clicking the icon for the object in the toolbox lets you set that.
Double-clicking on an object is sometimes hard to accomplish; I'd *also* like to see a keyboard shortcut, but I'll defer to your judgement. Thanks for pointing out the "double-click on toolbar to set defaults" feature.
I'd like to see some way to reenable the Dynamic keybindings feature built in to GTK. I'm not entirely sure why you would want another keybinding when double clicking on a object already works. Ctrl+R doesn't seem like a particularly obvious choice of keybinding, I would have considered using it for Rulers or perhaps Rotation (if) when that becomes available.
Dynamic keybindings would be just fine. As for Ctrl+R, that's straight from the Gnome HIG (albiet for File->Properties, an option that is absent in Dia). Again, I'm not wedded to that value; it was just a selection that wasn't already in use. The reason for a keybinding is related to difficulties in reliably landing a double-click on an object. At some zoom levels, when two elements are very near I just can't target the object I want consistantly. After struggling with a *single* click to get the correct element selected, I'd prefer the keybinding to bring up the dialog. Again, feel free to ignore this RFE... I just thought that I wouldn't be alone in finding the enhancement useful, and it was so simple a patch to submit.
> As for Ctrl+R, that's straight from the Gnome HIG (albiet for File->Properties What? If anything even by your own rationale the HIG recommends Alt+Return http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/menus-standard.html What's more the document properties and metadata are quite a different thing from the formatting/style properties of an Object. It is kind of odd that if you select an object hitting Space/Return/Ctrl/Shift and others have no effect. I'll need to take a look at Visio and other drawing apps see if I can make some suggestion about what behaviour users might be likely to expect.
OOPS!!! That's what I get for trying to rely on memory. Yes, you are absolutely correct; "Alt+Return" is File->Properties and "Ctrl+R" is to be used for Refresh or Reload. Again, I just remember (perhaps "misremember" is more accurate:() being a "Properties" shortcut. Again, I really don't care *what* keyboard combo will work. Anything will do, as long as it brings up the properties dialog. I even kind of like a bare "Return", but that sounds too likely to confuse people. By all means, please check with other diagraming tools. I truely appreciate all the work that you're putting into discussing this feature request, and I'd like to know what else I can do to help.
I think using just plain Return for object properties makes sense. However, we would need the text input to be changed to use a real input widget so that there is a separate input state, or else trying to make a newline in a text would bring up properties.
The best help you could give would be to get the text entry style fixed, but that's a task that would require a fair amount of Gtk knowledge and some digging around in the internals of Dia. Let me know if you feel up to the task. It's a feature slated for pre-1.0, but not 0.95.
Sorry. I don't have any Gtk knowledge worth mentioning, so I don't think I can help in that way.
Could be Shift-Return or Control-Return, any preferences? HIG mentions only Alt-Return.
No preference. Have a bad feeling this might end up conflicting with something though. The properties the HIG writers were probably think of is more like Metadata, title, subject, etc rather than objects specific "Custom Proporties" (to borrow a term from Visio for a moment to try and make the distinction clearer). Something feels wrong about this approach but I'm really not sure. I suppose it doesn't make sense because you need to use the mouse to select an object and if you are using the mouse you may as well double click rather than messing about with a shortcut. (I'd be very tempted to mark this as WONTFIX)
Patch is out of date. Unmarking as PATCH, marking as NEEDINFO as we wait for Alan's feelings of wrongness:)
alan: *ping* any news on this? can you comment lars' last comment? :-)
Alt-Enter now implemented as per HIG, along with Shift-Alt-Enter