[Bf-funboard] On hotkeys

[Prashant Sohani]

One of the major ways in which a piece of software can generally increase
its productivity (in the sense of speed of working) for end users is by
supporting a large number of hotkeys.. and needless to say, Blender more
than realizes this fact. But exactly how powerful hotkeys can be, is
something I never fully realized until going over these calculations today:
Simply put, a standard keyboard has about over a 100 keys; this is not
counting the modifier keys: Ctrl, Alt, Shift and Super('windows'). So for
every other key, these 4 modifiers can create a total of 16 combinations.
Thus we have a total of 1600 'command keys', if you will.

The implication? Just 2 command presses away( such as those that any Emacs
user would be familiar with, like Ctrl-C Ctrl-S to save the current
buffer), we have a staggering 1600^2 = 25.6 lakh commands possible! I doubt
if even all the distinct commands used in all the programs I've used so far
till date add up to 25 lakh.

So.. really, if only someone could think of a highly systematic way of
organizing as many options as possible under these hotkey assignments..
for instance, I might be able to press Ctrl-Super-P to pull up the Power
management settings, then in just one go, press Shift-Alt-B to switch to
'Balanced' power plan, save and quit..

Not sure how to go about doing this currently, though...

Of course, programs such as Emacs have done a lot in this direction, but
it's still not 25.6 lakh, probably :D

I wonder how far Blender can push this..