GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 68850
Need to add <SHIFT> <INS>
Last modified: 2020-12-04 18:19:09 UTC
Need to add <shift> <ins> for paste at "GNOME 2.0 Human Interface Guidelines (draft)--> User Input --> Table 7". shift ins for paste has been used long time ago, as i still remember at turbo pascal for dos. SO far i only saw only gnumeric can use shift ins for paste. Although its not appear at "edit" "Paste crtl v", but shift ins can be used at almost all windows s/w. I'm not sure about KDE, and mac. another issue: I vote for CTRL-H for replace
If you add Shift+Ins as an alternative shortcut for Paste, you will likely also want to add Ctrl+Ins for Copy, and Shift+Del for Cut. These three shortcuts should go together. (http://et.nmsu.edu/~etti/fall96/computer/dos/minwin31.html turned out to be a helpful resource regarding Windows shortcuts)
Microsoft hasn't been pushing these shortcuts for a while. I think we're better off not cluttering our set of "legacy" shortcuts by adding these. CTRL-C, CTRL-V, etc are pretty standard across platforms these days, and we have enough funny conflicts with *nix applications as it is. Calum? What's your take on this?
another info: xterm in RH 7.2 can use shift ins for paste too, i dont know it's RH specific hack OR it's really like this. can someody check other distro? if it conflicted with other unix, ctrl keys, surely they wont implement. another opinion: shift ins and ctrl ins is old, but there are still people who are using it. mostly ppl use win31 is considered as 'expert' in windows field. chance for then to convert to gnome is higher than new user who are ctrl-v ctrl-c ease of use opinion: if we are selecting using mouse, surely ctrl v,c is better cos it need only 1 hand, and another hand is for mouse. but for fully keyboard operation for example, wordprocessor, the shift ins and ctrl ins is much faster than ctrl [c,v]. my hand is like twisted to push ctrl-c,v really suggestion: implement [shift/ctrl] ins , shif del if there is no conflict.
I am left-handed, and my right hand is generally a far better choice to use for copy/paste than my left hand --- considering my left hand is on the mouse. Using ^C/^V requires either moving my right hand across the keyboard or taking my left hand off the mouse, both of which require more time than hitting shift/control insert or shift-delete. Also, I'm not aware of any programs that conflict with these keybindings. On the contrary, most programs use them as copy/cut/paste themselves, so Gnome would be the odd one out here. I really don't see anything wrong with using those keybindings.
To quote from the Windows (98 and 2000) styleguide: "The system supports shortcut assignments available in earlier versions of Microsoft Windows (Alt+Backspace, Shift+Insert, Ctrl+Insert, Shift+Delete). You should consider supporting them (though not documenting them) to support the transition of users." Given that they've been deprecated in Windows in this way since Win98, I don't personally see a lot of point of going out of our way to implement them in GNOME. Presumably an expert user could change the keybindings from Ctrl+X/V to Shift-Ins/Del themselves using the standard gtk dynamic menu keybindings feature if they so desired, or perhaps it could also be done using gtk's new keyboard theming mechanism?
The Ctrl/Shift Ins/Del combo's are the default under OS/2 as well. To support them would be very convenient. Frankly I've always found it strange that the default UNIX shortcut for aborting a program suddenly means "copy".
Created attachment 6793 [details] Shift+ins Research report using Malaysian Linux user as sample.
These shortcuts have a broad background from multiple operating systems, and even if they have been marked deprecated by Microsoft, there still seems to be people using them. Also, since they do not seem to be in conflict with any other shortcuts at this time, a decision of not supporting them would seem quite strange.
We don't mind having shift-ins as an option, but don't think its important enough to require. So if GTK would like to support it, that's fine, but application developers shouldn't be required to support it explicitly. Thus the HIG will be silent on the issue. File a bug against GTK if you'd like this option.
Created attachment 9154 [details] [review] CUA keybindings for some widgets
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