163724 - Back and Forward shortcuts are too complicate and unusual

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(Camino Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Dan Roca]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020820
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020820

The shortcut for back and forward commands is no longer command-<left arrow> and
command-<right arrow>.  It is now Command-[ and Command-], which is rather
annoying. Every other browser out there uses the arrows. (Mozilla and IE use
both, but Omniweb, Opera, and iCab only use the arrow keys.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Navigate a couple pages.
2.Press command-<left arrow>

Actual Results:  
Nothing happens.

Expected Results:  
Chimera should go back one page.

Comment 1

[john]

The arrow keys are used for navigation in text fields.

Comment 2

[Dan Roca]

I would suggest using a different method for navigation in text fields, seeing
as people generally don't do that by using the command-<arrow keys>, but most
everyone uses the command-<left arrow> for back.

Chimera is a web-browser, not a text editor.

Besides, the way that Mozilla works (which I don't like, but it's better than
what Chimera does now) is that if you are entering text, command-<left arrow>
will bring your cursor to the beginning of a line in text, but if you are not
entering text, it's equivalent to hitting the back button.

Comment 3

[Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau (gone)]

> Chimera is a web-browser, not a text editor.

And Chimera is an app with Aqua UI. And the Aqua UI guidelines say that
cmd-left/right are for text fields.

R INV

Comment 4

[Dan Roca]

The apple guidelines were not written with a web browser in mind. There are
sometimes when the guidelines should not be followed. Take a look at iChat. It's
brushed metal, but brushed metal is only supposed to be used for applications
that interface with hardware, or mirror what other hardware does. (IE: iTunes is
like a CD player, Calculator is like a calculator (in Jaguar))  Apple doesn't
even follow its own standards sometimes, because they are not the end-all for
how an app is supposed to work.

The guidelines also say that the up arrow should be used to move up in a text
field. Does that mean that when you're not in a text field that the up arrow
should not scroll up? No, the up arrow has different uses depending on what
you're doing in the browser.

Take a look at every single browser out there. They all use command-<left arrow>
for a shortcut for back. It's an unspoken standard which browsers have been
doing for years.

So you can follow Apple's standards, You can follow the web standard, Or you can
do a compromise like Mozilla did. But I challenge you to find a web browser that
does not use that shortcut for back.

Comment 5

[Dan Roca]

How can this bug be marked resolved invalid?  I know this might sound stupid,
but this shortcut is essential to my use of the browser.. I love Chimera, but I
can't use it if it doesn't have this shortcut.

Comment 6

[Greg K.]

Sorry, Dan, this is done and isn't going back. See bug 157251. We hope you keep
using Chimera, but will understand if you can't.

Comment 7

[gulfie]

The current keys are command-[ and command-].   

I find using command-[ and command-] to be less than optimal. Getting both the
command and the ][ keys requires ether two hands on the keyboard or some sort of
 vulcan death grip and looking at the keyboard. 

One of the problems with being human interface compliant is that you ether are
or you are not.  I do not like it, I might even try to get the interface
standard changed, but I personally would follow it if at all possible.  Being
standards compliant can hurt a lot.  I would argue for it in this case.  Not to
mention it would be a nice arguing/marketing/legal point against the rest of the
browsers that are not compliant.

That being said, how can we fix it?  Were any alternatives considered?  I would
like command-, and command-.  (for < and >) which look like arrows themselves. 
They also have the advantage of being easily found on a keyboard without looking. 

This would conflict with the current command-. which is to stop loading the web
page.  I would argue it is better to boot the stop web page load to some other
command char.  

It might also be a good idea to drag command-{ and command-} to command-< and
command-> as well.  (previous tab / next tab).

Comment 8

[Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau (gone)]

> This would conflict with the current command-. which is to stop loading the web
page.  I would argue it is better to boot the stop web page load to some other
command char.

Comma and period aren't a bad idea, but command-period has *always* (at least
all the time I've been using Macs, which is now over ten years) been "Abort /
Cancel / STOP". While I haven't read through the guidelines from Apple yet, I'm
quite sure that command-period has been defined to do that command.

If I were familiar with the US keyboard layout (which differs from mine - the
German one - especially in special character aspects), I would try and find
other solutions.

This bug should not be reopened unless a solution can be found for back and
forward (and, if possible, for prev tab and next tab as well) which will NOT
violate guidelines but yet will be easier to handle than command-that certain
bracket and command-that certain other bracket.

Comment 9

[Dan Roca]

I don't like the comma and period solution. It's just as bad as [ and ]. The
good thing about the arrow keys is that they are far away from everything else,
there's no chance of hitting a wrong key.

How about keeping the [ and ] (as these are used in the finder as well) and
putting in the <home> and <end> keys - No command - or if that is a problem, do
command-<home> and command-<end>

My other suggestion would be to keep [ and ] but also include ctrl-<left arrow>
ctrl-<right arrow>

Comment 10

[Dan Roca]

from http://www.StocksRaiderS.com/chimera/  here's a workaround. Execute this in
terminal, and it'll fix the bug. Course, you shouldn't be required to have to
hack your browser, this is the solution until either the Chimera developers
smarten up a bit, or apple changes their guidelines.

Here it is:

defaults write org.mozilla.navigator NSUserKeyEquivalents '{"Back" = "@\UF702";
"Forward" = "@\UF703";"Previous Tab" = "@\$\UF702"; "Next Tab" = "@\$\UF703";}'

Comment 11

[Greg K.]

*** Bug 169042 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Dan Roca]

Well.. I hate to say I told ya so..  but.. well.. actually I do like to say that. But Apple's official web browser (Safari) supports Cmd-Left Arrow and Cmd-Right Arrow as well as the Cmd-[ and Cmd-] keys..   I hope that this proves that the assessment of Apple's HIG was an incorrect interpretation.

Comment 13

[Chris Casciano]

WFM Chimera Build 2003012707

Unless I'm in a text field CMD-left arrow & CMD-right arrow travel through
history... exactly the behavior I'd expect

Comment 14

[Dan Roca]

Yeah.. you are correct. I don't know when they actually fixed that in Chimera, I
did the hack and the developers never said they actually fixed it, and I've been
tracking the bug ever since I reported it. It's now a lot better. It acts like
Safari, which is decent.

Comment 15

[Dan Roca]

Actually..  can we close this bug? The original bug, which I reported was to
modify Chimera so that it acted like Mozilla and Safari. It now acts like those
Apps, so there is no need to keep this bug open. If the developers are unhappy
with the way that it works, they should write their own bug. But as the author
of this bug, the bug's current title is not something that I approve of.

Comment 16

[Chris Casciano]

-> WFM based on reporters comment

Comment 17

[Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau (gone)]

v