I am reading this with my left hand placed how I seem to do it without thinking. (I am sure this goes back more than ten years to my ProE days) My ring finger is on the tilde just a small distance from the Esc and my thumb is on the space bar. If I was editing a series of text boxes I wouldn't have to give moments thought if the space called repeated use of the text tool and the Esc completed the editing with retention of the text present at the time.
I am grateful to know that the space bar toggles between modify and the prior function. That is handy but I haven't made it part of muscle memory yet. In AutoCAD or ProE or both I can't recall exactly, the space would repeat the last action. That was addictive. The space function in Dia is close to that, but takes a little more thought on my part because of past habits. It is vary nice to have the opportunity to comb through these ergonomic subtleties. Mike On 9/28/07, Sameer Sahasrabuddhe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 9/28/07, Lars Clausen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I have no problem with having F2 be one way to enter text edit mode. My > > worry about "second click" is that it will be problematic to > > double-click for properties without accidentally entering text mode all > > the time, or vice-versa. > > Yeah ... one can just have an entry in the context menu for "Edit > Text" and leave it at that ... it depends on whether a gesture > involving a mouse click is painfully important for users who already > expect such an interaction. > > > Hmm... Gnome HIG says that Alt-Enter should be > > the default shortcut for Properties. F2 is supposed to be Rename which > > works fine in some cases, when the text is a name, but a pure text > > object doesn't have a name as such. "Enter" or "Space" could also both > > reasonably be used for entering text mode, since they don't conflict > > with anything else. If "Alt-Enter" is Properties, then "Enter" would be > > fairly logical for editing. "Enter" text and such... I think I'd rather > > have that listed in the menu than F2. > > The thing to consider here is that F2 is close to the left hand, which > leaves the right hand still on the mouse. That is why I had hijacked > Michael's post where he says heavy users of CAD tools are used to > finding their left hand on the keyboard. I had said that in a previous > iteration of this discussion too ... having the shortcut on the left > hand is at least useful to some subset of users ... Enter doesn't have > that plus point on its side. > > Also, quoting the Gnome HIG: > > Rename F2 Switch the selected item's label into edit mode, > allowing user to type in a new name. > > All I am saying is that the "action" here is very very close to > editing the text in a text object. Replace "label" and "name" with > "text", and you have the same description. I am not an expert in HCI, > but "affordance" has more to do with the appearance of things than > their meaning in a user interface. In that sense, when you have a > window with a few objects floating in it, each with some text > associated with it, those objects afford a certain interface. The > objects could be files in a browser window, or the text objects in a > diagram, but in either case, their appearance affords the notion of > "editable when clicked". Like I said already, I am no HCI expert, and > someone with a background in usability could say more on this. > > Anyway, at the end of the day, it boils down to what is comfortable to > the users. We can always experiment in the pre versions until > something comfortable emerges. > > Sameer. > -- > Research Scholar, Department of CSE, IIT Bombay > http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~sameerds/ > _______________________________________________ > Dia-list mailing list > Dia-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/dia-list > FAQ at http://live.gnome.org/Dia/Faq > Main page at http://live.gnome.org/Dia > > -- Michael Ross ================================= Cycling in Central North Carolina Schwinn Voyageur 11.8 Linear LWB, Greenspeed GTO, BikeE CT, AT
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