On Mon, 5 Jan 2009 13:40:59 +0100 "Lukasz Jastrzebski" luke.jastrzebski@gmail.com wrote:
I think the ctrl + 1 (2, 3...) shortcut not so good way. And I don't see any reason not to make inserting objects (or text in objects) more intuitive, usable, ergonomic. Not only this is an unpleasant two-fingered combination, but also you have to be careful both with typing and clicking at one time.
Depends on how big your hands are. My span (Keyboard player) makes up to CTRL+6 comfortable, but 7, 8, 9 and 0 are painful. Espacially after certain other key sequences that leave the thumb away from home position.
It's good to see this being discussed in a more international context, I also found great problems with AWERTY keyboards in Poitiers recently, I don't know how the Belgiums and French suffer such torture with some frequent key combos.
How about using F-keys (if any)? or num block?
These can be awkward from a programming POV and have reserved functions in some OS setups. For reasons you elaborate on yourself I think it's best to use the minimal laptop keyboard as as a model.
In the end, the best solution may be a user configurable key bindings file, with fallback to defaults.
On the whole I have grown used to Pd GUI and like it.
As an aside, a slightly OT observation (that we can't really do anything about) is the large number of students who have a problem finding the tilde key. One guy who has a German MacBook needed to ask on forums for a long time before someone told him the magic key combo to get tilde (crazy Apple thoughtlessness).