[Bf-taskforce25] Keyboard Shortcuts Proposal

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Setting apart personal preferences or conventions, I really would  
prefer to see a proposal for how to use keys optimally. Learning you  
only do once... and for learning situations you can make a special easy  
and limited map anyway.

As starting points for an optimal keymap you can really assume:

- 3 button mouse with scrollwheel
- access to 12 function keys
- but avoid special character hotkeys (anticipate multi language  
keyboards)

For consistancy, mouse usage rationales van be split in three (yes from  
Raskin!):
- actions (buttons, handlers, manipulators, pickers, menus etc)
- view manipulations
- selections

(Contextual menus can be on any mousekey or hotkey, in Blender context  
is not depending on mouse positions, so it doesn't require mouse input  
by definition)

It's a weak point in other 3d programs that the 3d widgets are in the  
way for selection; forcing you to turn them on/off in cases. It's also  
planned to explore custom widgets in Blender more, like direct mouse  
inputs for rigging handles, lamps, operator redos, etc.

Putting all selections and all tools (transforms, lasso, knife cut,  
loopselect, borders, etc etc) in LMB is possible, but is that really  
optimal? I think it's worth some really good thinking here.

-Ton-

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands

On 22 Jun, 2009, at 11:48, William Reynish wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> After recent discussions about changing a few keyboard keys around, we
> agreed to wait and make a more thorough proposal, analyzing the
> keyboard layout as a whole instead of changing this individually.
>
> Here's such a proposal:
>
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Blender2.5/ 
> UIKeyboardLayouts
>
> I realize this is a sensitive topic, and there are of course multiple
> ways you could improve the layout, but it's become clear to me that
> some cleanup is needed.
>
> I've assumed here that we'll get a radial menu system similar to what
> Matt Ebb proposed a few years ago, because this has an impact on how
> we think about keys with multiple options.
>
> Of course I'd be happy to hear comments or suggestions.
>
> Cheers
>
> -William
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