107895 - Command-key to hide/show sidebar [Mac]

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Sidebar, enhancement)

Description

[Anthony Graham]

The Sidebar is the first thing I hide when configuring a browser for the first
time (I do this a LOT).

It is handy, thought to be able to pop out the Sidebar when necessary.

I propose Command-Shift-T (Mac) and Control-Shift-T on other platforms.

Comment 1

[Chris Lyon]

What's wrong with the current hotkey (F9)?

Comment 2

[Anthony Graham]

Oops. Didn't know there was a current hot key (not represented in the menu).

At the same time, Function keys are harder to remember, and on my PowerBook
actually require a Fn key plus the F9 key.

If I have to learn Fn-F9, I will, but I suspect many won't discover it or
remember it.

Comment 3

[Chris Lyon]

If you look under the View menu, beside "Sidebar" it should say F9.
As for others remembering it, I use it all the time ;)

Comment 4

[Anthony Graham]

No F9 in menu on Mac OS X, not sure about OS 9. Perhaps this is the bug then?

Comment 5

[timeless]

i'd actually like aaronl to think about this for a few seconds.

Comment 6

[timeless]

=>aaronl

Comment 7

[Aaron Leventhal]

Brain dump:

Are there any cmd+letter keys still not used on Mac other than those that aren't
used on any platform? (Cmd+J, etc.) 

I don't think there are.  

Any key that's still free on all platforms, I would like to reserve for other
functionality.

BTW, Can you type Alt/Option+V B on Mac to bring down the _view menu and toggle
the side_bar? If so, then you at least have a two key combo.

If you can think of a 1 key combo for mac that works, I'm all ears. One option
is to look for free Cmd+shift+letter combos that don't need to be reserved for
something related to the unshifted version of that command. 

What about Cmd+shift+B for Side_Bar? Although - I admit we might want to reserve
that for a bookmark command of some kind.

Check the chart:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/mozkeylist.html

Comment 8

[Anthony Graham]

By default there are no menu accelerator keys on the Mac (Alt-V for view 
menu).

In Mac OS X, there is an accessibility option to enable something like this, 
but it would take a number of keystrokes to activate the view menu 
because you need to arrow over to the menu you want to pull down after 
jumping the cursor to the menu bar.

Ideally Mozilla menu keys would closely match IE keys (to allow easy 
migration :) which in this case is Command-T. Since Command-T brings 
up tabs in Mozilla, a close alternative would be Command-Shift-T.

Since F9 already does this, I suppose just putting the F9 key in the menu 
would also do. I agree that Command-Shift-B might be better for 
bookmarks.

Perhaps another option is to allow (via configuration file or UI) the user to 
map the keys his/herself?

Comment 9

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

for Mac [either 9.x or 10.x], iirc, we don't list F-keys in menus on purpose
because they are usually reserved for other functions. is that right, pink?

also, in terms of users remapping keys, there's bug 57805 --as well as some
documentation for manually changing some keybindings:
http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html#keys

when i wanted to use F9 to toggle the sidebar on mac, i think i turned off the
function keys [which admittedly is a bit harsh].

Comment 10

[Mike Pinkerton (not reading bugmail)]

they are generally reserved for user functions, but...*shrug*. smfr? care to
weigh in?

Comment 11

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

I think we want to avoid using all the F-keys. Few apps on Mac do that, and most 
that do come out of Redmond.... There is nothing memorable about F9==sidebar, 
which is why their use is discouraged.

Comment 12

[Aaron Leventhal]

I think some apps on the Mac, that want good keyboard accessibility, break the
rules because they have to. Is it not true that some Adobe apps, such as
Photoshop, use function and control key combos?

After all, there are only 26 letters. We need Cmd+A - Cmd+Z for other stuff.
Other than that, you have function keys, cmd+digit, cmd+shift+letter.

The problem with using Cmd+shift+letter, is that those need to be reserved to do
something "similar" to the unshifted command. For example, Cmd+shift+T should be
reserved for something related to tabbed browsing.
So, if you can find an available keystroke, go ahead and use it. But try not to
use up a prime keyboard real-estate for the rest of the platforms. Otherwise, it
will makes matters worse next time we need another key assignment.

Comment 13

[Aaron Leventhal]

-> brade. mac kbd issue

Comment 14

[Kathleen :Brade]

without a spec, I'm inclined to future

Comment 15

[Cecelia S]

What about a COMMAND+OPTION command? Can a CONTROL+ALT combo be used on other
operating systems? I see that COMMAND+OPTION+B is used to bookmark a group of
tabs. Also, to point out that F9 is now the default hot key for Exposé, so
leaving it as is isn't really a good option now.

Comment 16

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The bug assignee is inactive on Bugzilla, so the assignee is being reset.

Comment 17

[Masayuki Nakano [:masayuki] (he/him)(JST, +0900)]

Should be handled as a bug of Firefox rather than Gecko.