579197 - alt/ctrl-space to toggle Tab Candy interface

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox Graveyard :: Panorama, defect)

Description

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

If you go to the view menu in Windows, there's a TabCandy item that works, and it says it's key combo is control+e, but hitting the key combo has no effect.

Comment 1

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

Raymond, I realize you're not developing on Windows (neither am I, but I have someone who's testing on it), but I figure you might know what's up anyway.

Comment 2

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

Ctrl+e is already mapped to search box on the top right.  See http://support.mozilla.com/en-us/kb/keyboard+shortcuts.

Aza: what other key combo shall we use?

Comment 3

[Aza Raskin [:aza]]

Both Control+K and Control+E are mapped to the search field. Control+K is the canonical command, so I'm not much worried about overriding that.

On the other hand, we've been discussing with the rest of the Firefox team the correct keyboard shortcuts. We decided on:

Option+Space for Mac
Alt+Space for Windows (although I don't know which modifier key is right for Windows as I don't have a keyboard in front of me)

Comment 4

[Aza Raskin [:aza]]

Alex and Alex, can you also weigh in here?

Comment 5

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

alt-space produces the system menu on Windows (in general alt covers OS level commands, and control covers app level commands).  So for keyboard only users who need to move a window around the screen, they currently use:

alt-space
m (move window)
arrow keys to relocate window

how about control-space on windows?  usually option/control mean the same thing between platforms and also tabcandy is all about "controlling your space" :)

Comment 6

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Attachment: System menu on windows

Screen shot of the system menu being invoked by alt-space, pretty important for accessibility (moving windows, minimizing windows, etc.)

Comment 7

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> how about control-space on windows?  usually option/control mean the same thing
> between platforms and also tabcandy is all about "controlling your space" :)
No they don't. In general, it's usually Command on Mac that equates with Ctrl on Windows. And Ctrl+Space on Mac appears to bring up the context menu.

Comment 8

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>No they don't.

sorry, meant command/control.  the fact that I've remapped keys on my keyboard to make it easier for me to switch from OS X back to windows on some machines but not others is also not helping me :)

Comment 9

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> >No they don't.
> 
> sorry, meant command/control.  the fact that I've remapped keys on my keyboard
> to make it easier for me to switch from OS X back to windows on some machines
> but not others is also not helping me :)
Heh, I'm lucky I can even tell the difference. I'm using a Microsoft keyboard, so for me, the Windows key is Command. :)

Comment 10

[Steffen Wilberg]

So it'll be Ctrl+Space on Windows?

And Opt+Space on Mac?
Or rather Cmd+Space, since Cmd is the modifier key for almost all other commands, and used in all places we use Ctrl on Windows for?

Comment 11

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> So it'll be Ctrl+Space on Windows?
> 
> And Opt+Space on Mac?
> Or rather Cmd+Space, since Cmd is the modifier key for almost all other
> commands, and used in all places we use Ctrl on Windows for?

Cmd+Space is the default key command for Mac-wide Spotlight search. I think that, other than being the default key command for Ubiquity, Opt+Space is the better bet for Mac.

Comment 12

[Aza Raskin [:aza]]

Keyboard shortcuts are the land of an bikesheds stretching as far as the eye can see.

To summarize what we've decided here:
For Mac: option+space
For Windows/Linux: control+space

For Mac, this makes the combo and easy thing to hit, but not so much for the Windows users, where the control key sits at the further edge of the pinky range.

Comment 13

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

Commit:
http://hg.mozilla.org/users/edward.lee_engineering.uiuc.edu/tabcandy-central/rev/7930e73a2b35

Since ALT must be used in conjunction with another modifier in the modifiers attribute on the "key" tag because Alt+Letter combinations are reserved for entering special characters in text, I had to  remove the "key" tag and used some JS to handle that.
 
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL/Attribute/modifiers

Comment 14

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

Is it still possible to show the key combo in the menu item? It's missing now (at least on Mac).

Comment 15

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

(In reply to comment #14)
> Is it still possible to show the key combo in the menu item? It's missing now
> (at least on Mac).

The key combo which is displayed in the menu item is based on the values in the "key" tag.  However, the "key" tag doesn't accept the "alt" as the modifiers mentioned in comment 13, no key tag is defined.

 Furthermore, using "key" tag with keycode="VK_SPACE" and modifiers="control" on Windows, the key combo doesn't show up in the menu item as well.

@Mardak: do you have any insights?

Comment 16

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

When you tested ctrl-space on Windows, did you still have the <key> tag?

I'm not sure what we can do to get alt-space to show up on mac, but at least for setting the key, you can use #ifdefs to get per-platform key bindings.

Comment 17

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

(In reply to comment #16)
> When you tested ctrl-space on Windows, did you still have the <key> tag?
> 
> I'm not sure what we can do to get alt-space to show up on mac, but at least
> for setting the key, you can use #ifdefs to get per-platform key bindings.
 
Yes, I tried that with the <key> tag on windows but the ctrl-space key combo didn't show up on the menu item

Comment 18

[Ian Gilman [:iangilman]]

That's unfortunate. It's certainly possible at the OS level. Maybe we need a bug in to the platform team?

Comment 19

[(no longer active)]

Mass moving all Tab Candy bugs from Mozilla Labs to Firefox::Tab Candy.  Filter the bugmail spam with "tabcandymassmove".

Comment 20

[Sean Dunn]

Mitcho had me test this on Win7, where the keyboard shortcut does not show up on the View menu, but it does work (ctrl-space). I'm opening a new bug for properly displaying the key combo, bug 597294.

Comment 21

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

for reference: this has been changed to key combination to ctrl/cmd+E by bug 592183