From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1N1LGl-0002av-Uf for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:37:31 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1N1LGh-0002YC-78 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:37:31 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=58307 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1N1LGg-0002Xx-Up for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:37:27 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:56872) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1N1LGg-0002YE-FH for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:37:26 -0400 Message-ID: <4AE1BF5F.7060701@redhat.com> Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:36:15 +0200 From: Kevin Wolf MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH] new SDL keyboard shortcuts to start and stop VM References: <5d6222a80910210924j62505b7dtf298754ce65f1c99@mail.gmail.com> <20091021183503.GA27677@shareable.org> <20091022124036.5df991f3@doriath> <4AE07D06.4080205@codemonkey.ws> <20091022143833.51c48260@doriath> <4AE0A535.3000607@codemonkey.ws> <4AE15DFD.6050203@redhat.com> <4AE1974E.5010303@redhat.com> <4AE1B6A6.3060507@codemonkey.ws> In-Reply-To: <4AE1B6A6.3060507@codemonkey.ws> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Anthony Liguori Cc: Mulyadi Santosa , qemu-devel@nongnu.org Am 23.10.2009 15:59, schrieb Anthony Liguori: > Kevin Wolf wrote: >> Well, the whole point of a keyboard shortcut was for me to make things >> easier. > > This is something of a classic debate between providing power users > every possible knob and function verses overwhelming non-power users > with so many features/options that they cannot even get started. You mean the additional monitor commands would overwhelm the non-power users who can cope with the existing commands? This is a subjective thing, so I can't contradict, but I'm not sure if I come to the same conclusion. Do non-power users even use the monitor? > > My big problem with keyboard shortcuts is that they are a really awful > user interface for anything because they are not discoverable (without > consulting documentation) and they provide no obvious feedback as to > what state they are in. Right, with our interface they are not discoverable. I didn't know about Ctrl-Alt-U, for example. But if I can list them in the monitor and even more if I'm defining the shortcuts myself I'm pretty confident that I can remember them. > For instance, imagine creating a shortcut based on a monitor macro of > 'migrate "exec:dd of=snapshot.img"' and you tie it to ctrl-alt-e. > > What feedback do you get that the command has completed? What happens > if you try to run the command again while another is running? Does it > get queued, does it get dropped? I can imagine a user sitting there > hitting ctrl-alt-e repeatedly not realizing anything is happening. I > know I find myself doing this sometimes with ctrl-a when using -nographic. The user has created that ctrl-alt-e mapping himself, so he should know how to use the monitor. He even knows the syntax of migrate, so chances are that he also knows what it's doing. > Your answer may be, this is for a developer and they'll be aware of all > the short comings/gotchas but this ends up being a rather user-hostile > interface. People are never as aware of short comings/gotchas as we'd > like them to be. If there was no other way for a developer to do this, > I'd be more inclined to find a way to support this but it's just a > matter of writing a script or if you really need a short cut, you can do > it with standard gnome short cuts or write a very simple vnc client > based on gvncviewer (we're talking a dozen lines of added code) to do > this for you. No, sorry, before I start writing a VNC viewer I'd rather keep a local patch around. ;-) But I really don't feel like continuing this discussion as I don't see anyone who could be convinced to change his opinion. I have one opinion, you have a different one, maintainer wins. Let's move on to more productive things. Kevin