Ph.D. Candidates and Note Anarchy

[Mark Burgess]

>On Dec 11, 2004, at 2:41 PM, Mark Burgess wrote:
>
>>I agree, and something that bugs me about the new OO is the 
>>keyboard shortcuts for these activities. Move Right used to be 
>>simple: cmd-r; now it's a complex two-handed chord: cmd-ctrl-arrow. 
>>Now, I can appreciate using cmd-r for Show Ruler -- it's sort of a 
>>standard -- but otoh I never use that command and could easily live 
>>without the shortcut.
>
>What about Tab and Shift-Tab?  I find those easier than either.

Yes, those work for left and right -- I do tend to leave tab set to 
Indent Line even when I'm working with multi-column documents -- but 
that still leaves Up and Down.

The more I think about it the more I wonder about the motivation 
behind using the control key so liberally. In the olden days Mac apps 
*never* used ctrl -- developers would only ever use cmd, cmd-shift, 
or cmd-option, leaving ctrl wide open for the user (even if the app 
didn't allow customized kb shortcuts, there was always QuicKeys). Now 
it seems like ctrl is a preferred modifier for some developers.

I suppose there are two main types of keyboard shortcut people: (a) 
the typist sort, who wants to be able to keep their hands as close to 
the home-row position as possible, and (b) the production artist 
sort, who (when they're not typing) keeps one hand on the mouse and 
the other on the keyboard. For the typist, two-handed shortcuts 
probably aren't that big a deal. I'm certainly no typist, and find 
that I work best and most smoothly if I can issue commands with my 
left hand while my right hand is on the mouse. If a shortcut is going 
to require me to take my hand off the mouse, I usually won't take the 
trouble to use it -- I'll just pull down a menu instead. It's 
inefficient but breaks the continuity of the workflow less than the 
alternative.

Incidentally, the palette-heavy nature of so many modern apps screws 
up the balance, leaving the left hand with nothing to do. I guess 
developers these days think that people will either be keyboarding or 
mousing, not doing both simultaneously.

-- 
Mark