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NOW:
User coming from Windows or GNOME and its derivatives Cinnamon and Unity gets different set of basic shortcut keys used for searching and window management than more popular systems use.

WHY IT'S BAD:
User most likely excepts something that is widely adapted to also exist here. KDE uses IBM CUA, so user most likely excepts KDE to follow industry standards elsewhere. Not having those standards might confuse user into thinking KDE does not have the functionality or it is broken, promptly pushing user to more familiar platforms.

HOW TO FIX IT:
Adopt those standards as default keybindings. List of things to have as normal would at very minimum have...
- Windows-key to search & launch
- Win+arrow keys to tile windows on left, right, maximize (up) and reset geometry (down)
- Win+mouse1/mouse2 to move/resize windows accordingly
- Win+d to display desktop
- Win+m to minimize

POSITIVE RESULTS:
Users have easier time to adapt into KDE.

WHEN:
Lauch of Plasma Next would be ideal time to implement these changes to cement industry standard keybindings for years to come.

KDE has defined a lot of default short-cuts that comply with CUA: http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usabil ... _Shortcuts. What do you miss in particular?

What you call 'Windows'-key is actually known as Meta, Command, Hyper, or Super key (and labeled with fruits for Macintosh). Most likely this key is not part of the 1980th IBM standard. I'm not sure if KWin/Plasma Next can mimic Microsoft Windows' behavior, but you have always the option to set keybindings on your preference.

Heiko Tietze wrote:KDE has defined a lot of default short-cuts that comply with CUA: http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usabil ... _Shortcuts. What do you miss in particular?

What you call 'Windows'-key is actually known as Meta, Command, Hyper, or Super key (and labeled with fruits for Macintosh). Most likely this key is not part of the 1980th IBM standard.

That was my point. KDE uses CUA, so I don't see a reason why it wouldn't also use rest of modern de facto industry standards. Why leave KDE in 80's?

I'm not sure if KWin/Plasma Next can mimic Microsoft Windows' behavior, but you have always the option to set keybindings on your preference.

I'm well aware that there are technical obstacles buried somewhere in kdelibs, meaning users wanting to mimic that behavior need to bind Win-key to F13 or some other imaginary key. That however produces system wide breakdown in programs which are set to use the Windows-key as some shortcut or combination. It also makes it impossible to use Win-key as modifier, so what you are suggesting is not really doable, smart or safe.

The de-facto standard actually used to be the "Alt" key for move/resize....

The "technical obstacle" is in Qt which fires actions on keypress, not keyrelease. Thus it's not trivially possible to determine whether the Meta Key was used as part of a shortcut or to trigger some other action.
Combining that with Meta+L/RMB (more/resize) would multiply that conflict.

Any solution to this would require to modify the QAction code (assumingly not in the cards) or "dirty hacks" like http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=154569

luebking wrote:Any solution to this would require to modify the QAction code (assumingly not in the cards) or "dirty hacks" like http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=154569

How dare you call my baby a dirty hack!

Joke aside, Martin said that he wanted something similar to be supported in the future: http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2 ... ment-64748

Other than that and using Alt+mouse buttons instead of Super for move/resize window, I think the purposed default shortcuts sound good.

Hans wrote:Other than that and using Alt+mouse buttons instead of Super for move/resize window, I think the purposed default shortcuts sound good.

The other reason for changing that to Win instead of Alt is that it conflicts with object manipulation inside some applications. Making Win the go-to Plasma manipulation modifier key would solve that. This is one recent example of that happening:
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2014 ... 00546.html

Keep in mind that practically zero of the most popular applications are developed with KDE in mind, so sticking to that good ol' Alt for window manipulation purposes would arguably be harmful when rest of the world uses Win.

I recently went to KDE now that Fedora 20 has 4.13.3 in official repos. I installed ksuperkey and set it to open Krunner. I definitely think now more than ever that this kind of behavior should be default on KDE. It makes everything faster and more comfortable, plain and simple (I just started using it for locking screen etc). Setting it to open Krunner would enable plethora of options at user fingertips unlike making it open menu and even more importantly would make Krunner more discoverable. That way new users could easily unleash its power from day 1.

I usually rebind my shortcuts in all desktops as well to use the Superkey to manipulate with the window manager/desktop and leave Alt for other stuff.

Although I have to admit that I still use Alt+mouse for manipulating with windows and Ctrl+F? to navigate desktops as well as Ctrl+Shift+F? to move a window to a specific desktop, partially due to a habit.

That being said, I’m still in favour of standardising the key bindings, if they make sense and don’t cause additional confusion.


BTW, for historic context, AFAIR the Superkey was used to open up the Kicker/KickOff menu (at least in KDE 3), to mimic the Windows’ Start menu.

There’s a useful discussion also in the comments of this blog:
http://agateau.com/2014/experimenting-w ... shortcuts/