[SVN] Discoverability. Single global shortcut?

[thomas Aylott]

>> A global shortcut would respect scope and only show you the things  
>> that apply to what you're doing.
>
> Ah, I see now. Yes that would be a nice feature, but surely that  
> should be a built in feature of TextMate's, i.e. a combo like ctrl- 
> esc that would pop-up a menu of all commands that work in the  
> current scope. Allan, I'm guessing this would not be too hard to  
> implement, since you already have to know this list of commands for  
> key events, right? That gear button is so lonely there, I'm sure it  
> would welcome some company :)
>

I agree. That would be really awesome. Then the font size would be  
smaller and we'd have those cute little icons!
I think Allan is probably going to do another one of those 'Go to  
Symbol…' or 'Go to File…' find-as-you-type panels for bundle items.
That would probably be ideal, i'm not sure. (if it has the icons, i'm  
sold ;)
I've tried a bunch of 3rd party utilities to do stuff like tear off  
sub menus as floating panels (NeXT style), but none of them are any  
good.

> Mind you, this in most cases will still be a long list, for  
> instance it will always include all commands for all version  
> control systems, all Text bundle commands that I very rarely use,  
> math etc.
> Maybe some customization of this pop-up would be nice, e.g. "omit  
> things from this bundle" and so on. Or maybe it could still be  
> split up in bundles, except only the relevant commands show up.
>

Well, I was thinking that specific things like version control stuff  
would keep their own separate way of activating, to keep it nicely  
segregated. But, you're right, that does open up the need to specify  
what would stay out of the global list.

One idea: have each set of bundle items as a separate menu lined up  
horizontally. I've thought for a long time that Mac OS X should  
expand menus sideways once they run out of vertical space.
Then you could use the side arrow keys to select the group you want.  
That would visually and mentally group things nicely.
I'm not sure how it could be done, but it would be a really usable UI.

> I just think establishing a key equivalent in all commands for this  
> purpose is quite an overkill. Imagine having to change it because  
> it overlaps with a keycombo you use in your system for other  
> purposes. Or simply because ctrl-shift-esc is an immensely hard  
> combination of keys to press in some layouts. It's not enough to  
> edit the keybindings file anymore.

Yeah, it should be an application level preference, not a bundle item  
level preference.

Another way to do it would be to allow the user to define shortcuts  
without having to have a whole 'nother version of each item in your  
home library. And maybe select and modify more than one bundle item  
at once.

Hmmm... Much to think about

thomas Aylott