GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 769509
no tab navigation for dialogs (prevents switch-back , hide dock)
Last modified: 2018-05-24 16:43:25 UTC
please remove the tab navigation in dock dialogs, because tab should be reserved to hide/show the dock only. example 1-if i pick a color (gimp color dialog) then i can switch back to fullscreen without dock, clicking tab 2-if i pick a tool preset and click tab, gimp highlights the next tag field instead to hide the dock i think tab navigation inside dock dialogs is superfluous
I think this would break many expectations - if there are text and number entries and other UI elements, then people expect to be able to switch between them using the Tab key. I think the inverse might be true, actually - the use of the Tab key to hide and show dialogs is the unexpected, and, to many users, unknown function.
Maybe the show/hide dock feature needs another shortcut key? A question i want to ask is, why the tab key is that important to navigate dock dialogs? i use always the mouse to point where i want…its clumsy to click tab in repetition just for laziness instead to use a one-click mouse gesture, imo. i use to hide/show the dock because of practical reasons, i want only my work on screen, and configure tools when i need them. I know what i do, and the interaction between tools is often, but not always needed. Especially when you work on details on bigger pictures. lots of people rely on two monitors: one for the tools and another for the painting/picture to process.
Actually I can definitely see both point of view. 1/ When I have a form-like UI (so for instance options or preferences with text fields), I definitely expect to be able to use Tab to navigate through the UI entries. This said, we don't have many of these in GIMP. 2/ I agree that the Tab key is the unexpected for the beginner in GIMP (who doesn't know common advanced shortcuts) and it can even startle the beginner who have the feeling that one "lost" the docks. I perfectly remember a time, long ago, when I was just a once-every-fullmoon user and often had the "lost the docks" issue. This said, GIMP is for advanced users (our vision briefing rather say the words "intense use": http://gui.gimp.org/index.php/Vision_briefing). And I think none of the intense user ignore the Tab key to hide the docks. I would even dare to say that every intense user makes a very important daily usage of the tab shortcut (to hide docks, not to navigate through GUI widgets). So for these, the expectation could be reversed. And for this reason, I can totally see where Jo is coming from. Conclusion: so yes, I agree that for a GUI expert who is so used to navigate though a GUI with tab, this can be strange and unexpected if it works only as a dock hiding/showing shortcut; but for a GIMP expert, that would be the opposite. Also really GIMP UI is not very adapted to tab navigation IMO, and people who uses tab navigation frequently are not very numerous (I'm one of them but I must admit I rarely see others!).
Actually I remembered there exists a similar (more generic) bug report: bug 729765. Not sure if this one should be considered as a duplicate. The tab could also be special-treated. But bug 729765 goes further as well.
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/942.