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Good GUI apps have shittons of keyboard shortcuts to achieve the same result. The ideal is that the qualified operator keeps their hands on the keyboard for any
by kmeisthax 2y ago
Good GUI apps have shittons of keyboard shortcuts to achieve the same result. The ideal is that the qualified operator keeps their hands on the keyboard for anything that isn't an actual pointing operation. For example, in a video editing app, you can rough-cut with a handful of keys[0] for setting in and out points, jogging through the source material, and inserting into the current active timeline. The keyboard isn't a mere text input device, it's a large-ish macro pad with a huge number of redefineable keys, and it will always be faster to press a button with a known location versus opening a menu and clicking an option by name.
Related: I really liked Blender's text-searchable menus and I wish every GUI app had searchable menus. It's faster than hunting through a static hierarchy. In fact, one of the few criticisms I have of the 4.x era Blender UI is just that it's mildly harder to invoke search.
[0] Which is how linear video edit consoles worked before modern NLEs, mind.
- geocar 2y ago> every GUI app had searchable menus They do on mac: shift+⌘+? opens a "search menu" menu.
- sgt 2y agoThe amount of alternative navigation and accessibility in macOS is actually astounding.
- kmeisthax 2y agoOH MY GOD. I never knew about that.
- no_wizard 2y agoThis doesn’t always show everything. It’s up to developers to make sure some shortcuts can show up in this documentation beyond system ones Luckily most do, but I’ve encountered situations where they haven’t and it only shows compatible system shortcuts
- c-hendricks 2y ago> I wish every GUI app had searchable menus On macOS and KDE (Wayland), they do! Agreed it's really handy.
- ranger_danger 2y agoWhat exactly makes an app a "KDE app"? Obviously a game with a custom UI is not going to have the same searchable menu, right?
- c-hendricks 2y agoI don't think I mentioned "KDE app" or games? KDE's Global Menu works with apps built with other toolkits than QT, and games are typically not considered apps. It would be cool if games did something similar though, I would love to be able to go into a games options and type "subtitles" to quickly find the option.
- ranger_danger 2y ago> KDE's Global Menu works with apps built with other toolkits than QT Their own wiki page says it does not: https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Wayland_Known_Significant_Issues https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Wayland_Known_Significant_I... "Global Menu is not supported for non-Qt apps" But either way, I still disagree with your comment that "all GUI apps on macOS and KDE (Wayland) have searchable menus", because this requires a menu system that is exported via a specific DBus protocol (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75215820/how-to-implement-global-menu-support-in-c-on-linux https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75215820/how-to-implemen...), meaning it requires support from the application itself (possibly via some toolkit it uses), which IMO is demonstrably not "all apps".