ZTree.com  | ZEN  | About...  

 Index   Back

[Discuss] User Assignable Keyboard Mapping   [Discuss]

By: John Gruener     Orlando, Florida  
Date: May 19,2001 at 11:44
In Response to: [Discuss] Movement Keys (Darren DeFalco)

> Ahh... this leads me back to the idea that I
> mentioned way at the beginning. I hesitate to
> present this now, as its a post-1.50 wish, but
> here goes:
>
> One solution to running out of keys to map new
> functions to would be to allow fully
> user-customizeable keyboard mapping in ZTree. With
> this, we could map any function to any keystroke
> we desired. There would probably be more available
> functions than there'd be available keystrokes, so
> you could pick and choose amongst your favorites
> -- and we'd never again have to have a heated
> thread debating which key is most appropriate for
> which function. It would also be a handy tie-in to
> ZTree's macro support, since the custom keyboard
> layout could be implemented as one mega-macro
> which defines the whole keyboard.

This idea has been discussed on numerous occasions. As in those occasions, I again want to express that I don't think this is a good idea for ZTree.

The biggest problem would be support. As it is now, when troubleshooting a problem, we have to ask how certain Configuration Options are set. Sometimes Kim has to request a copy of the configuration file. Think of the nightmare in trying to help someone who explains a complex key sequence, only to find out after much effort that one of the keys had be reassigned. Then multiply that scenario many times.

Also, you could no longer walk up to someone else's computer and use their ZTree, because the keys would not work the same. It's difficult enough now when everyone sets different configuration options from your favorite ones.

Even ordinary discussion on the forum would get more difficult if everyone started to assign their own keys.

Then there's the documentation and help file. This would have to be totally redone to be useful. It could no longer describe things by the key assignments, but would instead have to describe everything by function name, independent of the key assignments.

All this would raise the difficulty of support to an unnecessarily high level, IMHO.

There has been discussion about some limited user assignment, which I would support. For example, we could let the user assign the "Y" set, ("Your" set). So far, none of the "Y" variations are assigned, nor were they in XTree, so they would all be available for this.

- John

1,024 views      
Thread locked
 

Messages in this Thread

 
96,637 Postings in 12,231 Threads, 350 registered users, 65 users online (0 registered, 65 guests)
Index | Admin contact |   Forum Time: Mar 28, 2024 - 2:05 pm UTC  |  Hits:62,369,485  (21,882 Today )
RSS Feed