Hotkeys -- standard sets for international keyboards? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2022, 07:00:01 am
content: Several of the standard hotkeys in PCBnew work well on US keyboard layouts, but are rather awkward on international keyboards. E.g. on a German keyboard, characters like \ and ~ don't have their own keys but are only available via an extra mode switch key (AltGr). Or hotkeys which have related functions, e.g. ~ and `, are on unrelated keys, so the intended mnemonic aids don't work.Of course I can modify the hotkey assignments in the preferences dialog. But before I roll my personal hotkey set (and become incompatible with the rest of the world), I was wondering whether there are any recommended or standard hotkey mappings for international keyboards? I had half-expected to find a set of recommended .hotkey files for download somewhere, but have come up empty. Thanks for any pointers you might have!(Rant: In an application intended for an international audience, it was not a brilliant idea to use all those special characters for hotkeys in the first place...)

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2022, 08:34:30 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on April 18, 2022, 07:00:01 amI'm with you all the way! Kudos for bringing this up. Especially the US-centric use of ~ gets my goat.Please repeat your post here:https://forum.kicad.info/

author: tycz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2022, 04:13:30 am
content: The US keyboard layout is the most common by far (in the entire world). If you are suggesting that the devs should limit the default keys to those that are guaranteed to be available on every keyboard without shifting, they'd have to disregard just about every not alpha key. They wouldn't even be able to use the number keys because the French have them shifted!

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2022, 06:18:46 am
content: Who said anything about "without shifting"? Please don't put words into my mouth.Letters, digits and commonly used punctuation marks (like period, comma, parentheses...) are fine with me. They are commonly used in all languages and hence conveniently accessible on international keyboards too.What I consider a bad design choice is the use of exotic punctuation marks like ~, `, {}, or \ for hotkeys. Since these are uncommon characters, many international keyboards do not make them available via shifting, but require another, rarely used mode key to access them. And most software designers seem to have reached the same conclusion: I don't see these used as hotkeys in other programs, including programs which offer a large number of keyboard shortcuts such as Altium.

author: tycz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2022, 06:51:15 am
content: Quote from: ebastler on April 20, 2022, 06:18:46 amIt's funny you gave Altium as your example. I used this software a decade ago and it the key for changing to the next copper layer while routing was * on the numeric keypad. I thought this an awkward position for such commonly used key so I remapped it to the ` key for a more ergonomic layout.