alpha version 1.7

Post by **nikos** » 2007 May 08, 08:10

thank you for your votes, now the results are in and the message is clear: you want keyboard customization most of all, and here it is!
www.zabkat.com/dbmon.zip (1.1MB)

this is an early alpha only for testing so if you are not too comfortable with debug assertions don't try it

there is a readme file with instructions and another file describing the changes

please let me know of any problems you encounter (but ignore the starting debug assertion, that's not a problem)

thanks

wasker · Post by **wasker** » 2007 May 08, 11:28

Nikos, could you also include a "release" version of kenny into Alpha distribution, please?

Post by **nikos** » 2007 May 08, 11:36

that wouldn't be of any interest for testing purposes at this stage. Chicken can wait for the beta versions, shouldn't be too long now

wasker · Post by **wasker** » 2007 May 08, 12:02

nikos wrote:that wouldn't be of any interest for testing purposes at this stage. Chicken can wait for the beta versions, shouldn't be too long now

Yeah, I understand the reason. But I could replace current release with alpha and start using it, running debug kenny only when I hit some problems...

ScottWall · Post by **ScottWall** » 2007 May 08, 13:05

The customize keyboard dialog looks effective.
Of course, my first attempt to customize a shortcut key failed miserably. It seems that any combination of CTRL, SHIFT, ALT and the Backspace key resets the shortcut to 'None'.

I am also getting the following assert when I open some menus (Customize Keyboard, About, ...):

Program: D:\...kenny.exe
File: D:\umeca74\MyDocuments\cpp\newkenny\helpers.cpp
Line: 2633

Expression: GetSystemMetrics(76)==0

Otherwise, well done! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Post by **nikos** » 2007 May 08, 13:10

Code: Select all

Expression: GetSystemMetrics(76)==0

that's interesting, don't you get another one straight after that with slightly modified text? Does the About dialog appear centered? Are you on a multimonitor system?

that system control i'm using to read the keystrokes does not allow certain keys including backspace, delete, enter and escape. Sorry for any inconvenience caused

wasker · Post by **wasker** » 2007 May 08, 13:42

Multimon doesn't work. And I have the same assert failure: "GetSystemMetrics(76)==0".

If it will help, I have laptop as a primary and monitor as secondary device. They're located as SECONDARY -> PRIMARY (ie., secondary has negative X coordinates). Plus, SECONDARY is 1280x1024 and PRIMARY is 1024x768.

Hope this helps.

wasker · Post by **wasker** » 2007 May 08, 13:44

But at least now it saves main window size properly. In 1.6.5 it was saving proper height/width only in one-monitor configuration.

wasker · Post by **wasker** » 2007 May 08, 13:51

Keyboard configuration rocks. Two things missing: 1) I want to have at least Backspace and Enter in hotkey editor; 2) the huge miss is inability to tell the current binding of a hotkey.

Post by **nikos** » 2007 May 08, 14:10

damn monitors :x

to see the current keyboard assignments (which will help you track down any key used) use Customize | Keyboard use

wasker · Post by **wasker** » 2007 May 08, 14:25

nikos wrote:to see the current keyboard assignments (which will help you track down any key used) use Customize | Keyboard use

No, this is certainly bad idea from usability point of view. Besides, we're 1) dealing with modal dialogs; 2) there's no search in Keyboard Use list.

Cosmo · Post by **Cosmo** » 2007 May 08, 14:30

KB customization:

If I open the customize dialog, the buttons (asign, remove and reset all) do at first not show their respective hotkeys (alt-a, alt-r, alt-s). I have to press the alt-key once to see them; then they remain (as expected) after releasing the alt-key.

But even after that alt-a for assign is not usable, because by hitting this hotkey, the content of the new shortcut key-field changes to alt-a. On the one site, this is expected, on the other site it means, that there must be a fixed hotkey for assigning, which does not get entered in the new-field. At now, you can assign only by hitting the tab key (to move to the assign-button) or with the mouse, and that is not comfortable (if you want to do the customizing with the keyboard).

Another finding: if you have entered a hotkey (I prefer this word, because I associate "shortcut" with links), that is already in use, there pops up a message box, telling you, that the hotkey is already in use; so far so good. But this popup-box is exactly above the new-field, so cannot see, what you have entered there, without at first moving the pop up dialog out of the way. It would be better, to repeat the entered hotkey in this message box.
And another observation: The said message box tells the number of the function, that has this hotkey currently in use. I doubt, that even Nikos has all of them in head, and everey time looking into the docu (which you cannot call in this situation with the open boxes via help-menu or F1) is not really funny. So it should replaced with the name of the function.

Cosmo · Post by **Cosmo** » 2007 May 08, 14:45

I aggree with Wasker.

wasker wrote:
nikos wrote:to see the current keyboard assignments (which will help you track down any key used) use Customize | Keyboard use
No, this is certainly bad idea from usability point of view. Besides, we're 1) dealing with modal dialogs; 2) there's no search in Keyboard Use list.

Further more, trying to export the assignment list, is really not comfortable. You cannot mark all with a simple ctrl-a keystroke, you have to place the cursor at the top, scroll all the way down, hold the shift-key and click at the end, before you can copy it into the clipboard.

A first glimpse at the result shows me, that it is a tab-separated table, but not consequently: between the code-numbers and the description there is only a space instead of a tab; that makes further handling unneccary complicated. So please (at least) replace it with a tab-sign and: place 2 successive tabs in the upper part (mostly preset with the description "free"), so that the columns match.

kf · Post by kf » 2007 May 08, 14:45

Another program, MyInfo, is currently adding custimizable shortcuts to their newest version. Check out his screenshot: http://www.milenix.com/blog/myinfo-4-pr ... shortcuts/ it appears to be a nice and clean way of doing things...

Kevin

wasker · Post by **wasker** » 2007 May 08, 14:45

Cosmo wrote:And another observation: The said message box tells the number of the function, that has this hotkey currently in use. I doubt, that even Nikos has all of them in head, and everey time looking into the docu (which you cannot call in this situation with the open boxes via help-menu or F1) is not really funny. So it should replaced with the name of the function.

And it definitely should not be the message box! Please, the label in the same dialog box, as Visual Studio does.