[#IDEABKL-4335] 5.x -> 6.0: Degraded usability in the keymap configuration dialog

IDEA: Backlog

5.x -> 6.0: Degraded usability in the keymap configuration dialog

Created: 05 Oct 06 19:31 Updated: 22 Nov 06 19:29

Component/s:

IDE Configuration

Affects Version/s:

None

Fix Version/s:

None

Original Estimate:

Unknown

Remaining Estimate:

Unknown

Time Spent:

Unknown

Build:

5,766

Description

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In IDEA 6 the list of actions in the Keymap configuration page has worse usability compared to IDEA 5, because the the shorcuts are not shown in the same list as the actions. This means, that the user will have to select EVERY action ONE BY ONE for example in the following situations:

The user wants to change all those shortcuts, which are impossible to use on his keyboard (such as Ctrl+[ and Ctrl+] on a Finnish keyboard layout) or which conflict with global hotkeys of another program running in the background (such as foobar2000).

The user uses the keymap dialog for trying to learn new shortcuts. This means finding all actions which have a shortcut and whose shortcut the user does not yet remember.

The user wants to go through all actions without a shortcut, and decide if it would be useful to add shortcuts to some of them.

SOLUTION

Show the actions and their shortcuts side-by-side in the same table, just as it was done in IDEA 5.

It would also help, if there were a search filter for finding actions by shortcut. The user could then check, if some shortcut is already in use and to which action it is mapped.

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Anna Kozlova - 05 Oct 06 19:44

There is already such filter. (to the left from the text one)
With such filter all tasks you described can be performed. Thanks.

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Esko Luontola - 05 Oct 06 21:04

No, NONE those tasks I described can be performed with the Shortcut Filter.

It is not possible to find shortcuts which can not be typed with the user's keyboard layout, because they can not be typed to the shortcut filter itself. If they /could/ be typed to the shortcut filter, the user would not be looking for them in the first place!

It is not possible to find find shortcuts which conflict with the global hotkeys of programs running in the background, without first shutting down all those programs. For example, if I have Ctrl+Shift+V mapped to foobar2000's Stop command as a global hotkey, I can not type Ctrl+Shift+V to IDEA's Search Filter (mapped to "Paste..."), because foobar2000 will grab the keypress and prevent IDEA from recieving it.

The shortcut filter can not be used to learn new shortcuts, because the user does not know the shortcuts when he has not yet learned them.

Using the shortcut filter, it is not possible to find actions without a shortcut.

So this solution is still required:

Show the actions and their shortcuts side-by-side in the same table, just as it was done in IDEA 5.