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Re: Keyboard keys, commands, shortcuts, "accelerators"



On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 07:10:48PM +0100, Christopher Allen wrote:
> On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 11:34:25AM -0500, Drew Scott Daniels wrote:
> > 
> > ctrl-ins and shift-ins have been around for a while... Perhaps longer than
> > ctrl-v? It probably varies from the dos/windows world to the unix world.
> 
> As far as can recall, DOS programs used shift-delete, control-insert and
> shift-insert long before Windows programs also began accepting C-x,
> C-c, and C-v, but the latter are actually much older, being derived
> from Macintosh's command-x, command-c, and command-v.  This was
> probably derived from the Lisa, but I don't know for sure.

ctrl-insert, shift-delete and so on are from CUA, the Common User
Access specification by IBM. Windows followed this when it was
partially written by IBM, and migrated to the Macintosh variant when
it was partially written by Apple.

There are so many "standards" for user interfaces, you can do anything
you like and you'll be compliant with some of them. I recommend
assigning keys randomly; that way users won't waste time guessing, but
instead will know that they have to read the documentation before
using the program.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing,
 `. `'                          | Imperial College,
   `-             -><-          | London, UK

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