Subject: Re: Syles and Shortcut Keys
From: Virgil Arrington Jr. (virgilarrington@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 02 2001 - 13:12:34 CST
Alan responded to my suggestion:
> > > 3. Fine tune styles. You've got a real good start here but some
> > > features,
> > > such as hot-key assignment don't seem to be working.
>
>On a point of principal i endevour to have many keybindings for abiword,
>there should be sensible default whenever possible.
>So while you may not be allowed to assign hotkeys i hope that abiword will
>provide sensible defaults for enough features that you wont need to.
. . . and so on.
Actually, much of what you have written here is way above me, so let me try
to explain more clearly what I mean. Right now, in the Modify Styles dialog
box, there is an option to assign the style to a "Shortcut Key" When I
click on it, nothing happens. That was the point of my suggestion - simply
make it work.
For the way I work, having shortcut keys for styles is important. I despise
using a mouse, especially when processing words. I have a manageable number
of styles that I commonly use. With other programs, I have assigned
shortcut keystrokes combining the Ctrl+Alt + number keys. So, my single
spaced paragraph style is Ctrl+Alt+1, double spaced is Ctrl+Alt+2, and so
on. As intended, some of my styles, such as for headings, do a lot of
formatting - bold, centered, keep with next paragraph, extra line spacing
before and after, etc. Being able to apply all of this formatting with a
single Ctrl-Alt+5 is a very quick and gratifying way to work. This takes
the place of applying a series of eight to ten formatting default
keystrokes. I certainly hope that someday - preferrably very soon - I'll be
able to to this with Abi.
Your comments about the different ways other platforms deal with command
keys concerns me. You seem to suggest - and hopefully I misunderstand you -
that permitting a Ctrl-Alt combination for Windows users may not be possible
because Mac users don't have those keys available. If that is the case, I
have to question the wisdom of the cross-platform approach. I'd hate to see
my capabilities with Windows hampered because of a need to remain compatible
with a platform or operating system I will never use. That would make Abi
limited to the lowest common denominator. Please say it ain't so.
Virgil
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Fri Nov 02 2001 - 07:12:37 CST