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Kestrel's new shortcuts, why and what

Tuesday, 4. September 2007, 08:52:41

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Yippee, Kestrel's finally out. As buggy alpha for now, remember! You are best of testing this in a seperate installation, installing in a new directory does that trick. If you decide to upgrade, you really want to have a backup of mail (and bookmarks, wand, cookies etc if these are important for you).

Among many else, this release aims to become more usable out of the box. That means no surprising non-obvious shortcuts where you need to read the documentation to figure out how to get your normal browser back after pressing the wrong key by accident. Yes, this did happen. Quite a lot. Our Elektrans testers made it very clear that power users will dearly miss some of the one-key shortcuts like 1/2 for tab switching and z/x for navigation. So we've also thought of a way to ship with those power shortcuts in a forward-compatible manner (shipping with an extra 'classic' keyboard setup will bring problems for us later). You can find the new switch to turn these shortcuts on under 'Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Shortcuts'.

Now, what changes did we make, and why? There's a complete official list of changes available (edit: updated the link to point to the beta 2 version). And here's a list of reasons:

  • Several keyboard shortcuts have been changed or added for better cross-browser compatability.
  • All single letter and single number keyboard shortcuts have been removed. These one-key shortcuts are powerful, but also caused serious problems for many users. For most of them alternatives are available. They can also be switched on separately in the Preferences.
  • All Shift+letter and Shift+number keyboard shortcuts have been changed or removed for the same reasons.
  • All Alt+letter keyboard shortcuts have been changed or removed. These keyboard shortcuts are not compatible with many Opera localizations, because Alt+letter is used to access the main menu. Exceptions: Alt+P and the new Alt+D, both available for historical reasons. Preferred alternatives are available for the actions they perform.
  • All Ctrl+Alt+letter keyboard shortcuts have been changed or removed. Windows user interface guidelines reserve these shortcuts for system wide use and as alternative input method for some keyboards.
  • Keyboard shortcuts for seldomly used features have been removed, including two series of shortcuts that didn't show in the normal user interface: Ctrl+Shift+number shortcuts for 'manage' pages and Site Navigation keyboard shortcuts (think <link rel=home ...>)
  • Duplicated keyboard shortcuts that served no purpose anymore have been removed, those that were needed for compliance to operating systems guidelines have been made specific for those operating systems.

5 things I would like to see in OperaNew toys for tweakers

Comments

Jere 4. September 2007, 11:57

Yeah, thanks heaps. Now when was the last time "Paste and go" was changed? What a joke. I thought juggling with the shortcuts to take Opera into a "cross-browser compatible" direction was going to do it once for all.

"That means no surprising non-obvious shortcuts where you need to read the documentation to figure out how to get your normal browser back after pressing the wrong key by accident"

...save for old users.

So Ctrl+E now focuses the search field, alright. This change has obvious recursive implications; composing an e-mail had to find itself a new shortcut. Why the hell can't Shift+F8 just keep working though? You've disassociated it from its function for no reason and it now lies unused. Fun. Lesson one in usability research: If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Not to mention break it.

I'm likewise expecting a defense speech from whoever thought Ctrl+Alt+SHIFT+Z is more usable than Ctrl+Alt+Z. What the f*ck guys! Whichever browser that is supposed to mimic, there is no reason whatsoever to remove the old shortcut!

Friedrich 4. September 2007, 12:30

Rijk, your Blog is completely broken on my Opera 9.22/OSX - it's hundreds of screens high and I can't seem to find any content. I've had to switch to user mode to be able to post this.

dantesoft 4. September 2007, 12:51

Another round of new shortcuts. Oh well, Ctrl+Backspace is all the navigational key I need; Ctrl+F7 is reinstallable with "Enable scroll bars | Disable scroll bars".

But I can't find how to setup a toggle the address bar, in cases when a new tab doesn't show it or shows it collapsed e.g. via javascript:window.open('http://snapshot.opera.com/950a1-keyboard.html','', 'location=0')

YinYanger 4. September 2007, 13:28

dantesoft:
click on the collapsed address bar, or CTRL+F8 :wink:

Rijk 4. September 2007, 13:34

@Jere: You are welcome. This time it is indeed 'once and for all'. You are right that we should have done it right away when we started changing things, but after this reshuffle there's nothing left that gets in the way of compatability with operating systems and other browsers.

Well, compatability with IE and FF, and Windows and Mac that is. There are more browsers (Safari has some and Konqueror has many weird shortcuts) and both Gnome and KDE also have their special issues.

If you have problems with specific changes, please speak up. Ranting about change in general is just ranting. I agree that using Ctrl+E for focus the search field is a real problem for old users, because of the implications. I wouldn't mind seeing that reversed in Kestrel final. Shift+F8 isn't that interesting in itself though, as I'd rather see F7/F8/F9 be gone as well, and Shift+F8 is just a corallary of those. I'd favor using F6 to focus the main parts of the browser. Ctrl+Shift+F would be a nicer way to focus the search field. It's a pity that every browser has a different shortcut for that right now.

Ctrl+Alt+Z uses Ctrl+Alt+key, which we don't want to abuse anymore. Read my blog post. That limits our options a lot. I've heard it suggested that we use Ctrl+Shift+T instead to reopen closed tab (Firefox has that), and forget about having a default shortcut for 'duplicate tab'. That would be a possibility. Also note that (somewhat by accident) Ctrl+Z already works to reopen closed tabs, unless you happen to be in a edit field.

The other obvious problem is Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H (instead of Ctrl+H). But it can be argued that it shouldn't be too easy to let the browser go away without a trace.

NFGman 4. September 2007, 13:36

I installed into my existing Opera directory, so I didn't have to suffer without my trusty shortcut keys (Z, X, A and Q are the ones I live by, even if the A behaviour was totally broken in 9...)

Change is hard, it's pretty much guaranteed to piss everyone off... I don't envy you guys sometimes.

YinYanger 4. September 2007, 13:52

What about the I shortcut on M2? It changes between list, message and list+message

dantesoft 4. September 2007, 13:52

@YinYanger: As mentioned, Ctrl+F8 no longer works. And reaching for the mouse and clicking on a bar 5 pixels tall when my hands are firmly on the keyboard is a no-no.

Rijk 4. September 2007, 13:57

@dantesoft: do you use it often? For such javascript popups then I assume? It is still keyboard accessible, View>Toolbars>Address bar. Not very easy, not very hard.

@NFGMan: there is a checkbox to enable these single-key-shortcuts even for those using the default shortcuts in Kestrel, see the shortcuts prefs.

Zajec 4. September 2007, 14:44

F6 focus addressbar in Firefox, IE, Konqueror and probably other browsers too. It's quite a standard. In Opera it's F8 ─ that should be changed IMO.

YinYanger 4. September 2007, 14:44

I saw in Opera Watch that now there is a "Sync with MyOpera" feature!!!
I also saw the video at CyberNet News. Can't we use the Wand on the log in dialog? Would be great!

@dantesoft: Maybe a custom buttom would work for you???? See http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons#toolbar

dantesoft 4. September 2007, 15:26

ALT+V, T, A would work just fine.. I'm used to this kind of workarounds for shortcut-stealing apps like Google Reader.

I managed to restore Ctrl+F8 in the end
Set alignment, "document toolbar", 6 | Set alignment, "document toolbar", 0
Aaah, the good old days.

@Zajec: I think Ctrl+L(ocation) is the new standard (Fx, Safari, Opera and a bunch of file managers)

FataL 4. September 2007, 16:09

I'm very disappointed with such big changes in keyboard shortcuts without providing old keyboard setups for long standing Opera users that accustomed to old shortcuts.
There are more than 70! shortcuts have changed! Should I reassign most of them by hands?
Why not include a separate keyboard profile with old shortcuts, so old users can easily switch to old keyboard behaviour?
Like that:

scancinos 4. September 2007, 16:12

Why can't we have different preloaded Keyboard Configuration Files? One for each of the other browsers? So if you come from one of those, just change your settings and be done?

The old shortcuts are too hardwired on my brain to have to learn them all over again. I changed my conf back to use Ctrl+N to open a new tab. THAT hardwired. I understand that interbrowser compatibility is important for people to make the jump to this ship, but I don't think that should be acomplished by screwing the faithful.

FataL 4. September 2007, 16:37

An example of keyboard shortcuts dialog from Macromedia Fireworks 8:
Something similar you can find in CorelDraw (for users from Adobe Illustrator), Adobe Illustrator (for users from Freehand), Corel WordPerfect (for users from Microsoft Word), Quark (for users from Pagemaker), Pagemaker (for users from Ventura Publisher), etc. I remember at least Quark also includes shortcuts for old versions. All of them care about old standing users and about switching users as well.

YinYanger 4. September 2007, 19:01

What about sync'ing Contacts, Notes and Wand?

porneL 4. September 2007, 19:35

Congratulations!

I was really close to bashing you for changing shortcuts yet again, but considering usability, logic & memorability, x-OS and x-browser compatibility, it's not that bad after all.

I'll be grumpy and whiny for a while because of loss of some exotic-but-potentially-useful or illogical-but-convenient shortcuts, but I'll cope eventually :smile:

XenoFur 4. September 2007, 23:22

"All single letter and single number keyboard shortcuts have been removed."

--

Q: "So, what's so special about this browser now that i should use it?"

A: "Uh, nothing anymore, it's just the same as FF now. <<;"

Great way of destroying the main selling point used in getting others to use opera. (`-`)-b

NFGman 5. September 2007, 00:25

Being standards-compliant is a pain for everyone. Often the standards take the good shortcuts (like Windows' official guidelines saying all your CTRL-SHIFT-* are belong to Windows), or you need to make things annoying for Opera users to accomodate new users of IE or Firefox.

I totally agree that having a choice for users - Opera, IE or FF standardized shortcuts - would have been close to ideal. A simple 3-choice question when installing would make it easy for everyone.

AyushJ 5. September 2007, 01:55

I agree with XenoFur. :down:

@cavalez: Just use the old keyboard setup. Copy the old to new profile\keyboard folder then select it in Preferences>Advanced>Shortcuts OR set the path to old keyboard setup in opera:config.

zombie 5. September 2007, 02:17

Ctrl+F5 to reload all tabs is gone. Is there a new shortcut?

AyushJ 5. September 2007, 02:48

@zombie- No. Create one if you want.

haavard 5. September 2007, 07:37

So what you are saying, XenoFur, is that the only reason you were using Opera was because it had unique keyboard shortcuts? :wink:

Anyway, you can always download "classic" keyboard setups from this site.

Rijk 5. September 2007, 11:00

I'll add a "Nine Two" keyboard setup as well too my this blog, for one-click install. There might be a few subtle differences between using the standard one that shipped with 9.23. But that can currently be obscured by some bugs in Kestrel, like 'enter' not working properly after using spatial navigation to select links and some form widgets.

XenoFur, now you have to tell these users about ticking a checkbox in prefs to get the one-key power. Yes, more complex, but unavoidable. And it is just as much work for the user to tick a checkbox as to select a different setup file. Shipping with one-key shortcuts enabled by default will not be an option for us.

Scandinos, FataL: there is some stiff opposition to having to manage multiple setup files (both from developer and QA viewpoint). Your Fireworks screenshot looks like bloat to me... What does Fireworks do when new versions of Freehand or Photoshop come out with new shortcuts? What when new versions of Fireworks add a shortcut for a new function, does that get added to the Photoshop setup as well - assuming it fits in there, maybe needing a different shortcut there? Apart from the problem of people having trouble helping and teaching each other in the forums and newsgroups when half the users use different shortcuts...

@cavalez: yes, the Boss key is by far the worst thing in the new setup, I fully agree.

@Pornel: thanks. I think everyone will benefit if we can significantly increase the number of Opera users. Not turning people off when they first try Opera is important for that, and Kestrel is an important new step in that direction.

XenoFur 5. September 2007, 12:32

by the same reasoning you should then also disable mouse gestures by default and hide them in some preference sub-menu. :wink:

haavard 5. September 2007, 12:41

In what way, XenoFur?

_Grey_ 5. September 2007, 13:37

XenoFur is right on this one. If you just leave it at that, people will *never* notice some of the most useful shortcuts.

You should do the same for shortcuts you do for mouse gestures: Show a dialog "You just used... Do you want to continue using...?".

Including a button "More info" or something, that redirects to a page with all those useful shortcuts.

FataL 5. September 2007, 15:05

If you just leave it at that, people will *never* notice some of the most useful shortcuts.

Very good said.
Many-many people uing Opera because of many well selected keyboard shortcuts. It's one of visit cards of this browser. If you hide it or make like others Opera will lose part of its attractiveness.

Your Fireworks screenshot looks like bloat to me...

This is has nothing to my point.

What does Fireworks do when new versions of Freehand or Photoshop come out with new shortcuts?

If they change main shortcuts than you have to change too. But only in one additional setup and you don't need to rearrane all shortcuts of your application because of this... and say your users that they need to remember bunch of new shortcuts every time someone else outside changes them.

What when new versions of Fireworks add a shortcut for a new function, does that get added to the Photoshop setup as well - assuming it fits in there, maybe needing a different shortcut there?

I remember the times when Microsoft includes bunch of keyboard setups in their DOS and first Windows versions because they wanted to attract some users from Word Perfect, XY Write and many others text processors.
I just opened CorelDraw X3 and see 3 workspaces: Adobe Illustrator, MS Office and default X3.
Let's go to the current version of Adobe InDesign CS3, it has also 3 predefined keyboard setups: default, QuarkXpress 4 and PageMaker 7.
Corel WordPerfect first start screen:

They care about newcoming users and old staing as well.

Rijk 5. September 2007, 15:08

That first-time-mouse-gesture-dialog is awful usability. Everyone I've seen using Opera for the first time (in real live, they weren't power users, just normal intelligent persons wanting to browse the web) just clicked 'no' without reading it when they accidentally triggered it. I'm quite sure most mouse-gesture users either read/heard about it and decided to try it, or found it when exploring all nooks and crannies of Opera.

So introducing another dialog with a weird techno-babble question for people who accidentally press 'i' or '2' or 'shift+z' while outside an text-area? I'm afraid that doesn't strike me as a very good idea.

FataL 5. September 2007, 16:17

After Opera changed some main shortcuts in version 9 and my friends started asking me why Opera now open windows instead of tabs after new installation, I advise them this "basic" scheme of installation:
1. install Opera 8.x
2. go to preferences > advanced > shortcuts
3. click on keyboard setup and duplicate it
4. select duplicated setup
5. click Ok to close preferences dialog
6. exit Opera
7. install Opera 9 over your old installation

It works much better than trying to convince that [Ctrl]+[T] does better than [Ctrl]+[N] and [Ctrl]+[D] does better than [Ctrl]+[T].

If there is official Opera 8 keyboard setup on almost abandoned setups section of Opera site I would easily provide a link. Or even better as I said before include setup to Opera installation. Right now power of multiple keyboard setups in unappreciated and underused.

FataL 5. September 2007, 16:49

There is a simply way. Install opera in a new folder and copy standard keyboard setup to Kestrels profile.

Finding and copying ini files is harder for some users than installing and clicking options. :wink:

haavard 5. September 2007, 16:51

Originally posted by _Grey_:

If you just leave it at that, people will *never* notice some of the most useful shortcuts.


I don't see this as a problem at all. If someone is advanced enough to use shortcuts, he will be used to shortcuts from other browsers. If he is even more advanced, he can edit his own shortcuts.

FataL 5. September 2007, 17:01

Haavard, someone can be just too lazy to readd or change 70 shortcuts. Ok, I'm lazy to change even most useful 10 shortcuts on my two PCs at home and PC and Mac at work.
It's Ok for me to go to Rijk's blog, find old (not old -- advanced!) keyboard setup and install it (I need to do it 4 times). For most people it's not a good option.

Feyz 5. September 2007, 17:58

New shortcuts are harder than shortcuts in photoshop or similar complex program. It's not fun anymore! You can't just throw them at us and say "learn them all over again"! I spend years discovering new shortcuts and it was incidental every time! Because of "moron users" you upset all of the old users! It's not right. At least you can add the old file in preferences!
Sorry for my bad bad English.

FataL 5. September 2007, 18:32

Cavalez, how you can't understand that your solution will not accepted by most users. Not all Opera users are advanced, not all of them are fans, not all have time and wish to change shortcuts, none of them want to learn new shortcuts. Those people need one-two clicks official option to bring back their beloved shortcuts. Old habits die hard!

tinhoy 5. September 2007, 19:33

I'll try to cope with the change. Hell, did it with the Ctrl-T New Tab thing, which was used a lot. Now I don't have to actively think about which shortcut to use when in different browsers. That said, 70+ shortcuts at once is rough.

BTW, how long are single-key shortcuts to be supported? Will it be indefinitely via the 'Enable single-key' option? It'll be great if that's the case, since removing single-key shortcuts also affects speed much more than reassigning multi-key shortcuts.

operafan2006 6. September 2007, 04:14

With due respect to everyone involved, I can't agree with the logic of changing shortcuts dramatically!

If user conveneince is given the top priority over so call cross-browser thing (when many already finds opera complicated), then current 9.23 short cuts are much better. Even more improvements were possible to make it shorter like real shortcuts. I don't see the point of pressing three or more keys to make a shortcut. sorry, I miss that point entirely.

Pesala 6. September 2007, 06:55

Who wants to use Control H to open the history panel? Stop messing about and save yourselves a lot of unnecessary hassle. Existing users don't want it, and new users should be willing to adapt.

If anyone wants to adopt Firefox shortcuts or any other imaginary standard, they can customise the keyboard to suit themselves or download setup files.

Add new shortcuts for any new features if necessary, and remove the odd one like Control Q that causes problems for new users, otherwise just leave it as it is and spend development time for things that matter.

_Grey_ 6. September 2007, 17:50

Originally posted by "haavard":

Originally posted by "Grey":

If you just leave it at that, people will *never* notice some of the most useful shortcuts.


I don't see this as a problem at all. If someone is advanced enough to use shortcuts, he will be used to shortcuts from other browsers. If he is even more advanced, he can edit his own shortcuts.


You're assuming you can copy each and every shortcut IE/FF users might depend on...

But still, you (being Opera software) don't have "find as you type" search, do you? Yeah you do, it's "." and "," and even more advanced than FF's implementation... only nobody will be able to use it. Not that this wasn't the case anyways, but it sure confused me no end that it took me so long to find out about this. (Of course you might want to copy this feature 1:1 from FF instead.)

@Rijk, regarding usability: I think if there was a picture in the dialog that would give you a clue :wink: I just think the approach "it's useful, yeah, but it's only for cool people" ("cool" being "advanced") is completely wrong. If the user doesn't like it? Fine. Give him a nice place to SHUT IT OFF. But maybe, only maybe, he'll like it, and if he likes it, he'll love it.
I don't have the liveliest of memories, but I thought the KDE screen for system mouse gestures was incredibly easy to understand (though you'd have to dig deep to find it :wink: ).


For my friends, it probably won't be much of a change. I'll just have to tell them to mark a checkbox. But I think there's lots of people who wouldn't mind having their daily tasks sped-up, even among the average "I found this new thing the internet" users...
But, well, whatever. Maybe I'm not seeing everything ("the big picture"), you might as well have points that I don't see.


So, even if you don't change anything, please, PLEASE do something about "undo close tab". It's incredibly useful, I've used it ever since I heard of it and it saves my day cause I need to regularly re-open pages while writing stuff in a textarea. The old shortcut (being 3-key-shortcut) took some time to get used to, but it's 100 times (ok maybe 2-3 times) better than the 4-key one.
Would it be so hard for you to break the "guidelines" for the most useful functionality? I mean I've rarely seen any "I just discovered this new thing the internet"-type using any alt+crtl+ shortcut besides "alt+crtl+del". And everybody else is "advanced" enough to cope with the issues, as Opera is probably far from the only application violating the "guidelines", especially when Opera allows editing the shortcuts unlike many other programs.

illiad 6. September 2007, 20:28

ok.... more ways to alienate new opera users, only just getting used to the shortcuts... I have seen some give it up for less...

so is there any problems, from just using the old 923 keyboard file?? that is a far simpler solution...

Nova Creator 9. September 2007, 17:31

Why can't I "Past and Go" in the Address field if I want to use a search hotkey, that worked till 9.23???

Copy an address than "Past and Go" works.
Copy a word from a website (e.g.) and write g and try to "Paste and Go" the copied word doesn't work anymore.
I don't get why that has been removed, it's not that it troubled anyone quiet the contrary...

Rijk 9. September 2007, 17:54

Nova Creator: That sounds like a bug.

Nova Creator 9. September 2007, 19:52

Oh, OK. I feared it was removed by purpose. :wink:

quaternion 11. September 2007, 20:10

Support on OS X for emacs-style key bindings has been lost in the 9.23 -> 9.5 transition.

Some users will miss these commands:

a ctrl= Go to line start
e ctrl= Go to line end
b ctrl= Previous character
f ctrl= Next character
d ctrl= Delete
h ctrl= Backspace
k ctrl= Delete to end of line
n ctrl= Next line
p ctrl= Previous line
etc.

Since all text components in Cocoa apps built with XCode (including Safari) support these commands, Opera 9.5 departs from Apple interface conventions (as well as Opera builds running in X11).

This OS X-specific bug appeared previously and I reported it in March 2006 as bug report 199417. The bug was then fixed in a version of Opera 9 and remained fixed in 9.23 for Mac. However, the bug has reappeared in 9.5 alpha, so I've filed another bug report (#284262).

Since ctrl is masquerading as command, this bug cannot be fixed by editing the preferences.

This bug has been discussed in the forums:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=119547
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=78417
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=95090

Cheers

PS: Two of my family members now have bionic hips -- they love them. I hope your replacement goes as well.

benjaminhawkeslewis 12. September 2007, 17:03

How do you re-add "Ctrl+Shift+number shortcuts for 'manage' pages and Site Navigation keyboard shortcuts (think <link rel=home ...>)"? When I tried to re-add these, I couldn't find the relevant commands (I looked under "Go").

IceArdor 17. September 2007, 07:18

For people complaining about the Ctrl+H boss key getting changed to ctrl+alt+shift+h, there are three options remaining. 1) Get a toolbar button. 2) Get a boss key widget (http://widgets.opera.com/widget/5370). 3) Assign your mouse a middle-click function to minimize all windows, provided your driver software allows configuring your mouse. I've got my mouse set to minimize all windows and show the desktop. And while it means I can't use it for certain Opera-specific tasks, it definately makes it easier to minimize everything than scrambling to find the keys on the keyboard. It's also nice to have it programmed to minimize everything when I leave my computer. I don't like to have my desktop be messy. My desk is messy enough already.

Pesala 17. September 2007, 21:22

Junyor, told me, that 9.23-keyboard-setup has been added, in Kestrel. I mean, that's the ideal solution.


Almost, but not quite.

The ideal solution would be to keep the 9.23 keyboard setup (as the default) and add a Firefox Setup (and an IE setup). Don't impose change on existing users, offer the option to new users to retain their favourite setups.

illiad 18. September 2007, 12:01

yes, one way to alienate *existing* users is to change all the setups!!!

- a newbie will not know, so it will mean nothing to them!!! - if this 'setup change' is 'just' for them, then it must be 'default selectable' at install, including setups for 'old users' ...

QuHno 25. September 2007, 04:43

<just_thinking>
How about a checkbox in the _install-upgrade_ dialog:

"[ ] Keep the 9.23 keyboard settings as default (efficient, but violating the MS|Mac|(...) GUI guidelines)"

and, for new users:

- a short (skipable) intro, flash or anything that would suit the purpose, introducing the best features like mouse gestures, (advanced) keyboard shortcuts etc.pp. and how to customize them

- or a first-start page showing a big link at a prominent place:

"Learn how to use the advanced features like (...) and how to customize them (video & text)."

in the native language of the user, of cause :wink:
</just_thinking>

illiad 25. September 2007, 09:26

well, most of us have tried 'convincing' operadevs, but....

recently it happens so much though, that faith is decreasing... :cry:

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