233440 - Change Download Manager Keybinding to something else

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, defect)

Description

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

The download manager keybinding (Ctrl+E) is in between Ctrl+W (close window) and
Ctrl+R (reload page) and it is very easy to hit. we should move it somewhere
else on the keyboard that reflects its likelyhood of invocation.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

What will Ctrl+E do instead?  Search? :)

Comment 2

[shadytrees]

Is this mysteriously granted now? Ctrl-E has changed to Ctrl-Y on Mozilla/5.0
(Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040411 Firefox/0.8.0+.

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

Ben checked this in 2004-04-09 22:04, possibly accidentally while making other
changes to browser.dtd.  The checkin comment was "provide a convenient way for
adding smart keywords for web page searches by adding a context menu to form
fields with HTTP-GET form actions."

Ctrl+Y is still Redo (and only Redo) when focus is in a textbox, which is good.

Comment 4

[James Slaughter]

Sigh... Ctrl-Y is pretty much equidistant from both control keys and is
something of a stretch to reach. I'm more likely to press something else now
that I need to span six inches between fingers than I was beforehand (actually,
I never managed to miss Ctrl-E).

Is the new key customisable, or should I open a new bug?

Comment 5

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

James, currently we don't have real customization of keybindings (other than 
hacking browser.jar)

Would filing a new bug be to pick a different key?  If you have a better 
keybinding that isn't taken and doesn't raise dataloss issues as Ctrl-E did, 
please speak up :)

Comment 6

[:deanis74]

Did we have actual complaints about people hitting the wrong key when trying to
hit Ctrl+E?  As mentioned in comment 4, Ctrl+Y is pretty much a two-hand
shortcut now.

Comment 7

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

If you're gonna start changing keyboard shortcuts, you may as well put the
Download Viewer on Ctrl+D (D for Downloads, you see) and move Add Bookmark to
Ctrl-K (the K suggests booKmarK, which is more pertinent than aDD).

Comment 8

[Craig]

(In reply to comment #7)
> If you're gonna start changing keyboard shortcuts, you may as well put the
> Download Viewer on Ctrl+D (D for Downloads, you see) and move Add Bookmark to
> Ctrl-K (the K suggests booKmarK, which is more pertinent than aDD).

Ctrl-D is sort of the standard, being that it has always been the add bookmark
keystroke for Netscape and IE (and probably Opera).

Comment 9

[James Slaughter]

I'm unable to suggest a reasonable key, due to my lack of familiarity with all
the platforms Mozilla supports. Does Firefox use F2 for anything? It seems
nicely between 'Help' (this doesn't work?) and 'Find' so it's fairly harmless :)

If I were to report a new bug, it would have been to make the key customisable.
I'm not going to do that now because doing it piecemeal seems a bit of a hack,
but doing it ubiquitously is unlikely to be worth the effort, even though I'd
have suggested doing it without a UI at first.

If nobody has a better suggestion for the key and there's a conviction that
Ctrl-E is likely to bother people, I'm willing to drop the issue. Guess I'll get
used to it eventually. Within a few years, we'll all have tiny keyboards to
match our laptops and cellular phones, so I won't have to stretch as far :)

Comment 10

[Chris]

Was the idea that Ctrl+E is a bad shortcut even ever seconded by anyone? Myself,
I much prefer Ctrl+E over Ctrl+Y but the whole user population of Firefox should
not be inconvenienced by any single person either myself or Ben. Whatever the
outcome we need a way to override this kind of thing in the profile. The idea
that data loss is the reason just doesn't seem to justify changing the program.
If anyone accidently closes a tab or window by any means that's hardly something
catastrophic. 

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

dataloss is considered a very bad thing in most quarters.  There is an extension
that allows you to remap keybindings in the browser, which you can use to set up
whatever keybindings you wish.

I agree with Ben's reasoning here, and ultimately, his decisions are final, as
he is the project lead and has absolute authority to make any changes he deems
necessary.  That is how this project was set up and will continue to function.

Comment 12

[Chris]

I must have missed this extension please provide a link.

As for the change being final that's as it is and I have no delusions about
anything changing simply because I wish it so. I would only like it considered
that if the goal is for Firefox to become useful to as many people as is
possible that changes should not be made without considering the principle of
least surprise.

I was very surprised that after upgrading from 0.8 the Downloads window appeared
to have stopped working. This was of course very temporary as just going to the
menu cleared up the problem. This particular change seems like a bad idea on at
least two points: 1) the previously mentioned issue of key placement and 2) the
overloading of a keyboard shortcut. Redo may not be as popular or well-known as
say Copy or Paste but having two completely different actions happen based on
the context for the same key bindings seems like trouble just waiting to happen.

This is definitely a minor issue and I've already modified my copy to put it
back to Ctrl+E but in the context of the 0.9 release there are a number of
things users have been complaining about. Mostly the new default theme, the
extension manager failing to install themes and extensions that never finish
installing. I only hope that the opinions of the users are thoughtfully
considered heading towards the 1.0 release.

Ok, I think I'm done harping on this now. :-)