Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Dialog Edit menu, display of shortcuts (was: Movable-Modal WDEF)
Message-ID: <10719@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 9 Mar 90 14:26:38 GMT
References: <39127@apple.Apple.COM> <1831@esquire.UUCP> <10672@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 45

In article <1831@esquire.UUCP> baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten)
writes:
>>By the way, Nisus also handles the issue of command-key equivalents in
>>dialog boxes with equal aplomb.  Instead of forcing you to wade
>>through a manual as Word does, Nisus displays the "cloverleaf-letter"
>>combinations right next to the buttons as soon as you press the
>>command key.

In article <10672@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>Ooh, I hate those.  Talk about some ugly buttons.  Yeah, the reminder
>is nice from a psychological perspective, but the appearance of the
>shortcuts themselves is nasty from an aesthetic perspective, at least
>to me.

I apologize for my egregious misreading.  I completely missed the
phrase "as soon as you press the command key" (in the original, it was
not at the end of a paragraph the way it is here).  My aesthetic
concerns do not apply at all to the actual system Steve described.

However, a whole bunch of new psychological criticisms apply.  If you
do it this way, then you lose the virtue of a shortcut reminder.
Basically, what you're saying is that if you already know about hidden
features of the program, like holding down the command key to display
shortcuts, then you can find out what the shortcuts are.  So, if you
already know about shortcuts, then you can find out about shortcuts.
This doesn't seem all that useful to experts *or* novices.

It also seems as if it could be distracting, if not frightening, to
have something change on the screen as soon as you get ready to do
something like Command-X to cut, which normally doesn't do anything
until you actually hit the X.  Non-gearheads are easily intimidated
when programs exhibit unexpected behavior, especially when just about
to perform a dangerous operation.

Finally, except for Command-Period, I don't believe that dialog
shortcuts should use just the Command key unless there are no overlaps
with the menu shortcuts, which seems unlikely.  If the Nisus shortcuts
are Command-Shift shortcuts, there's little chance of modally-created
confusion, but it's not clear how you display a Shift key to the user.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

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