Re: Controls & Key Equivalents

On Dec 3, 2010, at 9:57 AM, Francis Devereux wrote:

> On 2 Dec 2010, at 17:35, Hamish Allan wrote:
> 
>> On 2 December 2010 15:48, Eric Gorr <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> So, the question still remains how to appropriately let the user know there is a key equivalent when that checkbox might be in the middle of the dialog and there may also be 10 or more of them, each with their own key equivalent.
>> 
>> I think the approach Apple usually takes is to identify commonly-used
>> functionality and give it its own menu item.
>> 
>> For instance, in Interface Builder, Shift-Cmd-I brings up the
>> inspector window, but there are also individual shortcuts Cmd-1
>> through Cmd-4 to choose between the different inspector tabs.
> 
> +1.  A menu item also makes the keyboard shortcut easily discoverable (because the shortcut is shown on the menu item).

Unfortunately, this functionality will not be limited to just commonly-used functionality, but could be found with every checkbox, for example, in every dialog throughout the application. As such, placing each one in a menu item is not practical.

Again, "don't do this" is not an option.