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Telaneotoday at 6:04 PM3 repliesview on HN

Devil's advocate: showing the relevant keyboard shortcuts in the UI can be overwhelming (or at least one of many parts that all together become overwhelming) to new users, while not having them shown at all makes them undiscoverable.

I think this is a bad reason. Even MS Office has made this work. But I've seen people act on this type of argument. If nothing else, it should be possible to have a settings menu where you can define your own. Even if no shortcuts are set by default and they aren't shown anywhere else in the UI, it will still be possible for a power user to make the best use of the program.


Replies

toast0today at 6:27 PM

> showing the relevant keyboard shortcuts in the UI can be overwhelming

Underlining the accelerator key is subtle and shouldn't be overwelming. Keyboard navigation unaware users probably won't even notice.

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marcosdumaytoday at 6:07 PM

> showing the relevant keyboard shortcuts in the UI can be overwhelming

Every application did it for decades after the first Xerox guidelines up until Microsoft and Apple decided to retire the concept of usability some time around 2010.

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prmoustachetoday at 6:57 PM

> Devil's advocate: showing the relevant keyboard shortcuts in the UI can be overwhelming

That is not a requirement, having access to menus, a master help shortcut ir fuzzy search actions shorcut are other options.