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I am amazed at how poorly modern keyboards support our highly visual modern user interfaces. Wouldn't the following keyboard buttons be generally REALLY useful:

I am amazed at how poorly modern keyboards support our highly visual modern user interfaces. Wouldn't the following keyboard buttons be generally REALLY useful: - Open - Close/Exit - Save - Copy - Paste - Menu (to list available context options) - Help (to show context help) - Maximize/Restore (toggle mode) - Info And the potentially very useful directional arrows keys are almost completely useless except when editing text (although game developers use them meaningfully) The keyboard is also littered with buttons whose function are designed specifically for text editing, not necesarily a bad thing, but when was the last time anybody actually reviewed the efficiency of the modern keyboard to discover if it is doing a good job or not!?!?!

tcarnell 15y ago
If keyboards had these button by default, this would actually allow the user interfaces to be cleaned up and have a lot of these 'non-metaphorical' UI componentes removed - "closing a window", what is this a metaphor of? When I close a real window, it doesn't vanish, it just stops air getting inside!
lusr 15y ago
I always wondered this too. But I have a keyboard with these buttons (really just the Fn keys and an "alternative Fn" function lock key that sends the appropriate shortcuts to Windows) and I never use them. As a touch typist I find it too much of a distraction to move my fingers off the home row and end up sticking with the shortcuts. I'm not sure where else you could really put them without the same problem occurring. Maybe its time to cut our alphabet down to 19 letters and replace the bottom row of alphas with these functions.
- tcarnell 15y ago
  I have also used keyboards that have extra buttons for things like this, but somehow I have felt reluctant to make the effort to use them because they are not standard and most other keyboards dont have them, which would frustrate me more! Who is in charge of keyboard standards? If there isn't anybody, could we start a new keyboard layout organization!?!?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
dubya 15y ago
All of those you listed have have standard shortcuts except menu, help, and maximize. Moving them to special keys would be a backwards step, because my fingers wouldn't know where they were, and they would different from keyboard to keyboard. Duplicating the functions on extra keys would be mostly harmless, but using command-letter would still be much faster. Reading more carefully, maybe you are talking specifically about full-size keyboards, because the only buttons specifically for text editing are delete (arguable), tab, shift (also a generic modifier), and caps-lock.

tcarnell 15y ago

If keyboards had these button by default, this would actually allow the user interfaces to be cleaned up and have a lot of these 'non-metaphorical' UI componentes removed - "closing a window", what is this a metaphor of? When I close a real window, it doesn't vanish, it just stops air getting inside!

lusr 15y ago

I always wondered this too. But I have a keyboard with these buttons (really just the Fn keys and an "alternative Fn" function lock key that sends the appropriate shortcuts to Windows) and I never use them. As a touch typist I find it too much of a distraction to move my fingers off the home row and end up sticking with the shortcuts. I'm not sure where else you could really put them without the same problem occurring. Maybe its time to cut our alphabet down to 19 letters and replace the bottom row of alphas with these functions.

tcarnell 15y ago
I have also used keyboards that have extra buttons for things like this, but somehow I have felt reluctant to make the effort to use them because they are not standard and most other keyboards dont have them, which would frustrate me more! Who is in charge of keyboard standards? If there isn't anybody, could we start a new keyboard layout organization!?!?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

dubya 15y ago

All of those you listed have have standard shortcuts except menu, help, and maximize. Moving them to special keys would be a backwards step, because my fingers wouldn't know where they were, and they would different from keyboard to keyboard. Duplicating the functions on extra keys would be mostly harmless, but using command-letter would still be much faster. Reading more carefully, maybe you are talking specifically about full-size keyboards, because the only buttons specifically for text editing are delete (arguable), tab, shift (also a generic modifier), and caps-lock.