Representation of keyboard shortcuts
We need to decide how keyboard shortcuts should be displayed to the user. We should also add this to the HIG and keep it consistent across apps, to avoid confusing users. The main questions are:
- Which keys should be represented by a symbol, rather than their name?
[Modifiers]
Super: ⌘ (⊞ Windows logo, just kidding)
Shift: ⇧
Alt: ⎇ (or Apple's option key: ⌥)
Control: ^ (or Ctrl or ⎈ (yes, that's the Unicode symbol for control))
[Non-Modifiers]
Tab: ↹
Arrows: ←↓→↑
Enter: ↵
- What separator should be used?
'', '+', ' ', ' + ', '-', (or maybe '·'?)
- How should the modifier keys be ordered?
Gtk currently provides a function for converting shortcuts to a readable form, but the output isn't really clean, e.g. 'Shift+Super+Right'
some suggestions:
⌘W
⌘ W
⌘+W
⌘ + W
⌘·W
^C
Control+C
Ctrl+C
Ctrl·C
⌘→
⌘·→
Blueprint information
- Status:
- Complete
- Approver:
- None
- Priority:
- Undefined
- Drafter:
- None
- Direction:
- Needs approval
- Assignee:
- None
- Definition:
- Discussion
- Series goal:
- None
- Implementation:
- Implemented
- Milestone target:
- None
- Started by
- Fabian Thoma
- Completed by
- Fabian Thoma
Related branches
Related bugs
Sprints
Whiteboard
I think using ' · ' as separator is not a bad idea, it's less obtrusive than ' + ' and still separates the keys more clearly than ' '. Screenshot: http://
" · " seems good to me.
IMHO we can't use symbols for keys that don't have those symbols printed on the keyboard - like alt or ctrl. Super and arrows should be represented as symbols. (But people mostly recognize Super as Windows logo :/ ) When it comes to shift, tab, enter... It's hard decision. Do they have symbols+names on all keyboards? (On my laptop's keyboard shift is labeled as "shift ↑", not "Shift ⇧". Is this possibly a problem? Which level of knowledge should we expect?) - grzesiek1e5