954677 - Simplify keyboard navigation

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Instantbird Graveyard :: Conversation, enhancement)

Description

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 1245 at 2012-01-26 08:48:00 UTC ***

Now that bug 954666 (bio 1234) is fixed which provides a nice cleanup of the keyboard handling code and enables us to easily forward key combinations from the input box to the browser, we can think if we don't want to substantially simplify the keyboard combinations available in this window.


Now available:

Up/Down: linewise scrolling
PageUp/Down: pagewise scrolling
Home/End: Section jumps
Shift+PageUp/Down: duplicate for pagewise scrolling, cause of non-standard selection behaviour in the input box
Alt+PageUp/Down: Section jumps, always working
Ctrl+Home/End: Section jumps, breaks a standard way to move the caret in the input box (to start/end)

Too bad we have no data to back any of our claims in these bugs but I'd expect that people use the simple, unmodified, key combinations once they figured out that they do what they want them to do (in many (or maybe most?) cases, i.e. browser focused, input box focused and empty (+ we could have some cases of input box focused and text entered there at a (low?) cost if we'd really like to).

Forwarding the unmodified key events is both good and bad for people:

Good: they're simpler.
Bad: they don't work in all cases; they keep people from learning the modified versions (no need to try out key combinations since it mostly works).

I really think we're getting in our own way here.
We could as well leave them to be implemented in an add-on for people who know what keys they want for what behaviour.

As default, I wouldn't include any additional key combinations but the most simple and make sure they work in as many cases as possible.

Comment 1

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

Attachment: WIP: removedmodified keys, extended valid cases to scroll with PageUp/Down

*** Original post on bio 1245 as attmnt 1139 at 2012-01-26 10:02:00 UTC ***

Here's what I'm currently testing. No review requested yet since I'm not sure if it's as good as I hope.

Comment 2

[aleth [:aleth]]

*** Original post on bio 1245 at 2012-01-26 12:16:08 UTC ***

Just to summarize, you would like to

- remove Shift-PgUp/Dn and Alt-PgUp/Dn altogether (benefit: restoring the standard Sh-PgUp/Dn behaviour in the editbox)

- add PgUp/Dn forwarding to when there is no scrollbar in the editbox (drawback: breaks the standard PgUp/Dn behaviour in the editbox)

- remove the mapping of Ctrl-Home/End *in the browser* to section scroll.

Also, I wanted to note that contrary to comment #0, the present Ctrl-Home/End behaviour breaks nothing in the input box.

Comment 3

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 1245 at 2012-01-26 13:01:45 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #2)

> - remove the mapping of Ctrl-Home/End *in the browser* to section scroll.
> 
> Also, I wanted to note that contrary to comment #0, the present Ctrl-Home/End
> behaviour breaks nothing in the input box.

Thanks for proof-reading! You're right. I only removed the key binding from the browser. It's not forwarded from the input box at the moment.

Comment 4

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

On the behalf of Florian:
Closing bugs related to the Instantbird UI as WONTFIX, as the development of the standalone chat client Instantbird has stopped. Instantbird users are encouraged to migrate to Thunderbird. The user interface of instant messaging in Thunderbird will feel familiar, as the Thunderbird IM support started as a fork of Instantbird.