Manage UDC

jacky · Post by **jacky** » 16 Jan 2008 11:49

Little annoyance I find : when the focus is on Pattern and you hit "(Ctrl+)Ins" to create a new one, then (and only then, I'm guessing cause the focus was already there) the Pattern field is not selected.

So if focus was anywhere else, I just have to type in my new pattern, but if focus was on Pattern already, I must select it to replace it - pretty annoying if you ask me.

Ok, also I for one would love new columns added on that window, with the option used for each command. Because right now if, say, I add lots of rename commands and I want to check they're all as expected on say "S/R no preview" I must click them all one by one... again, a little annoying, and more time consuming also.

Yeah so since I'm here I'll keep talking

and speaking of Rename UDCs, I would love it if the Pattern field could then (on Rename) have an MRU list, using whatever is appropriate (RegExp MRU, S/R MRU, etc)

And it's been already suggested, but having on the ctxt menu of items, here as well as on CKS, an option to Copy the Command ID would be nice, script-wise. Even better (for me) would be a way to select a bunch of them and copy them all at once, but I guess a Copy Append would be enough.

jacky · Post by **jacky** » 21 Jan 2008 16:44

Bumping this, since I have a few things to add

(BTW it should probably have been posted in Whishes... sorry about that.)

First of all, I just read the latest BETA history, very exciting news!! I have no time right now, but I can't wait to play with this!

Looks awesome, Don!

So, about Manage UDC, I wanted to add this couple of little things :

- Yes, the button to assign a KS is nice, but what's really missing IMO is a way to press the key and have it selected, instead of having to go through that long list - who's not really alpha-sorted, and while I understand the idea there, it makes it hard to find the key you're looking for at times, when all you see is a bunch of Ctrl, Alt and Shift's

- When using the menu UDC (through menu User or a KS-triggered popup) it'd be nice if, on Statusbar, we'd get the pattern/location/etc ideally with variables (eg. <curbase>, etc) replaced.

Post by **TheQwerty** » 21 Jan 2008 16:57

jacky wrote:- Yes, the button to assign a KS is nice, but what's really missing IMO is a way to press the key and have it selected, instead of having to go through that long list - who's not really alpha-sorted, and while I understand the idea there, it makes it hard to find the key you're looking for at times, when all you see is a bunch of Ctrl, Alt and Shift's

I completely agree with this, but I go even further. I don't understand why we want two interfaces for this. Wouldn't it be better if that button opened the existing CKS dialog and set the focus to the selected UDC?

Post by **admin** » 21 Jan 2008 17:06

TheQwerty wrote:
jacky wrote:- Yes, the button to assign a KS is nice, but what's really missing IMO is a way to press the key and have it selected, instead of having to go through that long list - who's not really alpha-sorted, and while I understand the idea there, it makes it hard to find the key you're looking for at times, when all you see is a bunch of Ctrl, Alt and Shift's
I completely agree with this, but I go even further. I don't understand why we want two interfaces for this. Wouldn't it be better if that button opened the existing CKS dialog and set the focus to the selected UDC?

Not possible because in the moment you create a new UDC it does not "exist" yet in the way the CKS dialog needs it. I also would find CKS here slightly inappropriate/overkill anyway.

Post by **TheQwerty** » 21 Jan 2008 17:46

admin wrote:Not possible because in the moment you create a new UDC it does not "exist" yet in the way the CKS dialog needs it.

That's a shame.

admin wrote:I also would find CKS here slightly inappropriate/overkill anyway.

I don't quite understand why. The point of the CKS dialog is assigning keyboard shortcuts to available functions, how is that overkill for assigning a keyboard shortcut to a UDC?

Post by **admin** » 21 Jan 2008 17:49

TheQwerty wrote:
admin wrote:I also would find CKS here slightly inappropriate/overkill anyway.
I don't quite understand why. The point of the CKS dialog is assigning keyboard shortcuts to available functions, how is that overkill for assigning a keyboard shortcut to a UDC?

Because you see all other functions although you need only one.

Post by **TheQwerty** » 21 Jan 2008 18:09

admin wrote:
TheQwerty wrote:
admin wrote:I also would find CKS here slightly inappropriate/overkill anyway.
I don't quite understand why. The point of the CKS dialog is assigning keyboard shortcuts to available functions, how is that overkill for assigning a keyboard shortcut to a UDC?
Because you see all other functions although you need only one.

I guess I just disagree with you on how simple it should be there.

I personally find the way it is now so simple it's useless.
The CKS dialog is nearly perfect for the task, so I always end up closing the UDC manager and opening it instead.

Post by **admin** » 21 Jan 2008 18:11

TheQwerty wrote:I personally find the way it is now so simple it's useless.

Jacky had a good idea to improve it... not good enough?

Post by **j_c_hallgren** » 21 Jan 2008 18:22

I'll reply to this part for now:

jacky wrote:- Yes, the button to assign a KS is nice, but what's really missing IMO is a way to press the key and have it selected, instead of having to go through that long list - who's not really alpha-sorted, and while I understand the idea there, it makes it hard to find the key you're looking for at times, when all you see is a bunch of Ctrl, Alt and Shift's

The "Free Key Shortcut" list IS sorted, but the order is not easy to spot...too bad there's not a way to put some sort of a very thin horizontal line between the various groupings, such as all the max of eight variants of each letter, or similar.

BTW, since I'm not a typical shortcut user, so some of this threads discussion doesn't really affect me as much.

Update:

TheQwerty wrote:The CKS dialog is nearly perfect for the task, so I always end up closing the UDC manager and opening it instead.

Could the assign key button in UDC do this instead? If it can't be opened as sub-function, then as next function instead...just a thought.

Post by **TheQwerty** » 21 Jan 2008 18:48

admin wrote:
TheQwerty wrote:I personally find the way it is now so simple it's useless.
Jacky had a good idea to improve it... not good enough?

It will obviously help. I'm just not sure it will be enough to make it better than the CKS dialog, but it doesn't sound like that's the intent.

My thoughts were just that the CKS dialog is nearly perfect and I don't really see the need to have two interfaces that act differently to accomplish the same thing. While it seems the intent is just to have a quick and simple way of adding a KS from the UDC manager, so I have a differing opinion of what it should ultimately be.

As long as you don't remove the UDC from the CKS dialog, I don't mind what you do with the UDC manager.

jacky · Post by **jacky** » 21 Jan 2008 18:56

j_c_hallgren wrote:The "Free Key Shortcut" list IS sorted

Yeah I know, but as I said, while I understand the intent, it gets hard to easily spot the KS you're looking for...

TheQwerty wrote:I'm just not sure it will be enough to make it better than the CKS dialog, but it doesn't sound like that's the intent.

It won't make it better than CKS, but as you said this isn't the aim here. If you want to manage your shortcuts, then there's nothing better than the CKS window, it's been done that way.

On UDC, what we need is only a way to easily and quickly assign a KS without the need to go to CKS once we're done here.

Post by **admin** » 21 Jan 2008 19:47

TheQwerty wrote:... the CKS dialog is nearly perfect ...

Okay, I think you pointed that "nearly" to me now three times. What's up?

Post by **TheQwerty** » 21 Jan 2008 20:12

admin wrote:
TheQwerty wrote:... the CKS dialog is nearly perfect ...
Okay, I think you pointed that "nearly" to me now three times. What's up?

That certainly was not premeditated, just didn't want to say it was perfect and then when I have a wish for it get, "Ah ah ah, you said it was perfect!"

But since you asked...
There's the known issue that we need some way to more easily find functions and commands, and we'll get that in time.

It would be nice to combine something like is being discussed here into the CKS, so that while entering a new KS it would filter a list and show you what was available using the keys you were pushing. EDIT: But in the regular dialog, not another dialog.

I'd also like to see a new cheat sheet (though with the first item implemented this isn't as needed) that just prints out all of the commands, even those that do not have KS.

And as I said, I'm sure there will be other thoughts in the future so it's a safeguard. Besides if you had some crazy and awesome thought and re-implemented the dialog, you wouldn't want me to compliment it by saying the previous version was perfect, would you?

EDIT: Actually I forgot that the third item is now possible if you select include command ids. That was a great surprise the other day!

Post by **admin** » 21 Jan 2008 20:41

TheQwerty wrote:
admin wrote:
TheQwerty wrote:... the CKS dialog is nearly perfect ...
Okay, I think you pointed that "nearly" to me now three times. What's up?
That certainly was not premeditated, just didn't want to say it was perfect and then when I have a wish for it get, "Ah ah ah, you said it was perfect!"

But since you asked...
There's the known issue that we need some way to more easily find functions and commands, and we'll get that in time.

It would be nice to combine something like is being discussed here into the CKS, so that while entering a new KS it would filter a list and show you what was available using the keys you were pushing. EDIT: But in the regular dialog, not another dialog.

I'd also like to see a new cheat sheet (though with the first item implemented this isn't as needed) that just prints out all of the commands, even those that do not have KS.

And as I said, I'm sure there will be other thoughts in the future so it's a safeguard. Besides if you had some crazy and awesome thought and re-implemented the dialog, you wouldn't want me to compliment it by saying the previous version was perfect, would you?

EDIT: Actually I forgot that the third item is now possible if you select include command ids. That was a great surprise the other day!

Why, why, why... did I have to ask??? (Being already overkilled...)

Conc. your EDIT: Yeah! I think I forgot to mention this. Yes, with IncludeCommandIDs = 1 ALL commands are printed to the cheat sheet.

Post by **j_c_hallgren** » 21 Jan 2008 20:59

admin wrote:Conc. your EDIT: Yeah! I think I forgot to mention this. Yes, with IncludeCommandIDs = 1 ALL commands are printed to the cheat sheet.

Ok...so they are printed, which satisfies one of my requests/comments in the other thread, but this one is still not, which makes CKS a bit less than perfect, IMHO...so from that thread:

j_c_hallgren wrote:Why aren't the command ID nbrs listed as a third column in the list, right after the shortcut? Why should I have to select that particular entry if all I want to do is find the ID nbr? Or am I missing something obvious here (which may be true)?