Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!kepler.Berkeley.EDU!me128-aw
From: me128-aw@kepler.Berkeley.EDU (me128 student)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Hot-Key programs
Message-ID: <27067@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 8 Dec 88 08:57:45 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 45

I've been accumulating a few too many hot-key programs lately, and a
thought occured to me:

Why isn't there any effort to standardize hot-key codes?

POP-CLI uses a shift-Amiga-Functionkey sequence, while grabbit uses
cntrl-alt-alpha sequences.  For the life of me, I can't seem to remember
what these and other programs want as input.  Why isn't there some
standardization?  Better yet, standardization and remappable hot key
combinations?

The right amiga is used for menus.  The left is for intuition
stuff.  Amiga-alt combinations are for mouse buttons.  HotKey programs,
however, don't maintain any consistency from program to program.

Well, my idea is; how about a system device of some sort responsible
for arbitrating Hotkey programs?  When you write a hotkey program, all 
you have to do is open the hotkey.library which sets up a message port.  
In addition to making hotkey programs simpler, it would avoid having long
chains of input handlers all looking for stuff.  A program could then
have a hotkey interface with minimal effect on system performance.
(hint...GOMF!?)

In the system devs: directory, there would be a hotkey-config file, which
maps for each key combination a task-name and message-id number which will
be sent to the task.  Then the user could use a program to edit the 
hotkey file to suit his own purposes.  Thus, the user could insure that
all of his/her hotkey programs would have a sensible, unique, consistent
interface.  Personally, I think a cntrl-FunctionKey combination would make
the most sense, since it would be easy to make a keyboard template.

Anyway, these ideas are kinda rough, as I'm making them up as I type.
I do think, however, that it would be really nice if we could avoid the
hotkey jungle of the MS-DROSS world some way.  I really don't think that
cntrl-alt-backspace-shift-F7 is very intuitive.
Any thoughts?

While we're on the subject of hotkey programs, how about a POPWorkbench
program which toggles opening and closing the workbench screen?  This
should be simple to write, but I've never written an input handler
before.  Also, I use Lattice C, and all my programs tend to be at least
15k even if they do really simple things.
 
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-Vincent H. Lee