Message: 1 Date: Mon, 06 May 2013 22:20:13 -0500 From: Steve Mills <smi...@makemusic.com> To: Cocoa dev <cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com> Subject: Re: Showing numpad key equivs in menu items Message-ID: <79380da0-718d-4d1f-980b-03ea7e7de...@makemusic.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
On May 6, 2013, at 16:58:10, gweston <gwes...@mac.com> wrote:
In light of the great opportunity for user confusion - because a little rectangle around the number is hardly a "clear" indicator - and the reality that many users do not have a number pad, I think the solution I'd recommend is to rethink the choice of key equivalents so as to obviate the problem.
So a rounded rect around a number is not a clear indictor that it's a different character? People have been able to clearly see the difference between í, ì, and i for hundreds of years, so that's a pretty lame excuse. I've never been confused seeing these numpad glyphs in good ol' Carbon menus.
That said, if you insist on going down this path, it might work to include NSNumericPadKeyMask in the key equivalent mask for the item.
This only affects the key used to trigger it, not the appearance of the glyph in the menu item.
But seriously: Think about how much you want to annoy notebook users first.
OK, we'll annoy them by taking away key equivs they've been used to using in our app for the past umpteen years. Why is it that people on these lists prefer giving their opinions instead of technical knowledge? Because we're trying to be helpful and sometimes the best answer to "How do I fight the OS?" is "Maybe you should revisit the perceived need to do so." You *were* asking for help, right? You're absolutely correct that a user would note that there's a difference between a 1 and a 1 in a roundrect showing as the menu equivalent. No argument there at all. The confusion lies in sussing out what the implications of that different glyph are. To extend your example, it's not so much about distinguishing diacritical marks as knowing how they affect pronunciation. I've been a Mac user since 1985, and routinely use and write for several different platforms. I can't say it would occur to me that putting a number in a roundrect means "use the numeric keypad." I *may* have seen it once or twice in the last few decades, but it's not a common idiom. You're relying on a learned behavior that's difficult or impossible to invoke for an increasing chunk of your potential market. Is that really something you want to vehemently defend instead of thinking maybe it's *less* problematic to ask existing users - who may already be unable to use the keystroke anyway, regardless of how many years your program has been offering the option - to learn something different? Or maybe you just prefer to insult those who can't use your program to its fullest effect and those who want to help you change that fact. _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
