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Comment by lproven

8 days ago

100% true.

The sad thing is that Windows has a great keyboard UI and it's superbly accessible for people with visual and motor disabilities.

Who have reduced earning opportunities because they are disabled, so FOSS should be great for them, but it isn't, because the nerds don't know CUA and don't know the keyboard UI. They spend their time mastering a couple of ancient apps like Vi and Emacs and ignore the fiery furnace of UI R&D that followed for the next 20Y after those early efforts.

Learn Windows' keyboard UI and you can drive the whole OS and all its apps with the speed of a genius Vim user with 20 years' practice. It makes Emacs look like a wet paper pad and a burned stick compared to a Moleskine notebook and a top quality fountain pen.

Xfce comes close and implements maybe 75% of the UI but once you are in an app all bets are off.

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lproven

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karthink  8 days ago

> Learn Windows' keyboard UI and you can drive the whole OS and all its apps with the speed of a genius Vim user

Do you have a reference for this? I've often needed to control Windows using only a keyboard and failed to do so. I'm aware of most shortcuts in this list[1] but these are for a few very specific things. (As an aside, I also remember controlling the mouse with the numpad using the Mouse Keys accessibility setting but this is worse than both keyboard shortcuts and the mouse.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts

  • lproven  7 days ago

    It's called CUA.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

    There are dozens of them out there.

    Random example:

    https://www.system-overload.org/windows-shortcuts.html

    General guide...

    Activate menu bar with Alt. Alt + the underlined letter opens that menu or submenu.

    Alt+Space opens the control menu for that window. In MDI apps, alt+hyphen opens the document's window control menu.

    Then...

    Alt+space, x = maXimise Alt+space, n = miNimise Alt+space, s = reSize followed by cursor key to select which edge, then cursors to change.

    Hotkeys are Ctrl+letter and do that action now.

    Ctrl+... p = print s = save o = open f = find c = copy x = cut (looks like scissors) v = paste (looks like an arrow: paste _V_ HERE )

    Shift modifies or reverses many commands, and selects while moving.

    In dialogs and forms, Tab moves forwards; Shift+Tab backwards

    Ctrl+PgDown = next tab Ctrl+PgUp = previous tab Ctrl+Enter = save and close form

    Ctrl+left/right = move by word instead of character Shift+home/end = select to start/end of line

    Esc = cancel

    Ctrl+Esc = open start menu

    Then tab, and you're tabbing through the taskbar, which is a sort of dialog box.

    Ctrl+Shift+Esc = open task manager

    Maybe this should be on a wiki somewhere so it can be documented collaboratively...

  • mschuster91  8 days ago

    > Do you have a reference for this?

    Look for underlined single letters in menus. With apps that use the "classic" style menus instead of ribbons or plain Electron crap, the single letters are the key.

    • karthink  8 days ago

      I'm curious to know if this is what lproven meant in their comment above. Alt + a-z to access menu items is available in every OS and all "native" apps, but you can't "drive the OS and all apps" this way.

      For example, I would like to set options that are a few menus/button clicks deep in the Windows control panel (either the "classic" or new variant) using keyboard shortcuts/navigation. Or navigate the Windows registry editor. I'm not aware of a way to do this.

      1 reply →

hulitu  8 days ago

> The sad thing is that Windows has a great keyboard UI

Windows also has a great help system, online. /s

  • mschuster91  7 days ago

    Windows actually had a decent built-in manual system with CHM, tooltips and whatnot. Even games could and did use it, like EarthSiege 2.

    Back in the days when application developers stuck to the Windows-provided widgets instead of doing their own UI, it was wonderful. Symbols were consistent across applications, as were color schemes (IIRC, if you wrote your CSS correctly, Internet Explorer would pass these on to websites!) and behavior.

    I miss these days.