Month: August 2007

In complex widgets there are often so many possible actions and so little keys. In GtkTreeView this certainly holds for the arrow keys. Since its inception, the arrow keys have been used to move the focus cursor (the dotted rectangle). For GtkTreeView configurations with editable and/or activatable cells (think entries, checkboxes) the left/right keys will allow you to navigate between them. When there is a horizontal scrollbar, the horizonal arrow keys also do scrolling. This makes sense for a lot of people. There is another camp, which claims that left/right should expand/collapse nodes. This is the standard on a lot of operation systems and it does kind of make sense. However in GtkTreeView shift+left/right has been allocated for expanding and collapsing nodes. I've been blocking the idea of making left and right expand and collapse nodes for a very long time, since we really need the arrow keys for moving that focus rectangle. At the beginning of the 2.12 cycle I kind of gave in, since ctrl+left/right was also bound to moving the focus cursor. This basically accompanies ctrl+up/down that moves the focus cursor up/down without changing the selection. And thus left and right now expand and collapse nodes. And guess what, other people now find these new key bindings awkward ;) As examples where this is awkward gconf-editor and tag editors are noted. Now note that both of these are lists, where the usually cited example by the “left and right should expand/collapse” camp are things like nautilus, or any application with a tree and no editable or activable cells. So, as a solution I am currently thinking of the following, to cover both completely different situations and use cases:

• Left and right moves the focus cursor in lists.
• Left and right expands and collapses a node if it is a parent. If a node is not a parent and has editable and/or activable cells, move the focus cursor (this will cover testtreefocus even).

When no action is to be done, left and right could scroll as usual. Does any UI person has other suggestions or opinions? Some background information: #105895 – Please add common keybindings for the TreeView #465516 – Impossible to switch cells with the left and right keys

With 4days3hours7mins idle time on IRC I returned last Monday from a Campingflight to Lowlands paradise 2007. Having been there for the fifth time in a row, this year I also enjoyed myself very much despite the crappy line-up. We'd love to see much more punk and metal bands, which seem to be on the decline at this festival. Anyway, we made loads of fun on the festival terrain and did see some of the bands: Heideroosjes, Madcaddies, Editors (partly, I think it was kinda boring because I don't remember what they played), Kasabian (partly, and from the outside while chatting), Eagles of Death Metal, The Killers (partly, because it was boring), Brand New (these guys have an identity crisis or something, seriously, such crap), Games in Concert (partly, this was quite cool: a big Dutch orchestra playing music from video games), The Rifles, Turbonegro, The View, Interpol (this concert, was really, really good; superb sound and lightshow), Kaiser Chiefs (a big contrast, boring music, bad vocals, annoying light show), Balkanbeatz/Russendisko (this is awesome party music), Funeral for a Friend (partly, really as bad as the name), The Answer, Nine Inch Nails (partly, not my kind of music, but the sound blowed people out of the tent), Motörhead (sat outside and enjoyed), Arcade Fire (partly, scarily happy people), Tool (which was just way too awesome). So that's it, I guess we should go again next year if they manage to get a better line-up ;) Oh oh oh, and before I went to GUADEC and vacation and Lowlands this year I finally saw Me First and the Gimme Gimmes! Awesome band, really. (more blog entries later since I am a bit behind).