Hotkeys for subscript & superscript

If you haven't noticed I use the effort you put into criticising the OP into making sure my instructions are clear, comprehensive and (usually) tested.

Given several choices are available, to assume the one that you choose is the *only one* is extremely foolish.

To add vagueness, inconsistency, lack of documentation and untested assumptions to a User Interface, that had already been polished in the original OS to a high degree, is extremely foolish of Apple.

To make light switch type operations like bigger/smaller, on off use distinctly different sets of keyboard shortcuts (one uses 3 keys the other 4) is self evidently in that category.

They have done the same with increasing and decreasing point sizes of type.

For all the criticisms that you could make of QuarkXpress, it had a remarkably consistent, systematic and predictable set of keyboard shortcuts. That alone made it a productivity dynamo.

Look and learn Apple (you too Adobe).

PeterBreis0807 wrote:
If you haven't noticed I use the effort you put into criticising the OP into making sure my instructions are clear, comprehensive and (usually) tested.

Given several choices are available, to assume the one that you choose is the *only one* is extremely foolish.

Once again, you dont read what was posted, you dream.

I didn't wrote that a shortcut is the only one available.
In my first message, after testing, I posted the ones given by Apple.

And, when it appears that maybe the OP didn't took care of the specificity of the + character I added that it is required to press the shift key when using the main keyboard.
Must I add that if we press the shift key, the shortcut fails with the numeric keypad, and this is a perfectly logical behavior.

As I often read in several forums. Most often, the culprit is not the machine or the program, it's the being between the keyboard and the rest of the system.

Choosing + and - to rule superscript & subscript seems perfectly logical.
As far as I know, we are all supposed to be able to get the + an - characters.
On key required to get -, two keys required to get + from the main keyboard (which is easy to remember as + requires plus)

For the Increase & decrease character size the choice of > & < is perfectly logical too.
One more time, we are supposed to know how we may reach the < and > characters.
In some countries both requires a single key,
in other countries < requires one key, > requires two keys (which is easy to remember as it means greater).

If you want to fight against Apple GUI, it would be most useful to fight against true flaws like shortcuts using the tilde ~ which may be used on an American or a Spanish keyboard where there is such a key but can't be on
Belgian, Danish, French, French Canadian, German, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish keyboard where there is no such a key (and it's not the unique one).

To add vagueness, inconsistency, lack of documentation and untested assumptions to a User Interface, that had already been polished in the original OS to a high degree, is extremely foolish of Apple.

Once again, the problem is only that you refuse to read correctly the shortcuts given in the menus. Most of the shortcuts are consistent among Apple products so, I never felt the need to use two or one key as a problem.
When I need a lowercase a I press one key, when I need an uppercase A I need two keys.
When I need a 5 on the main keyboard, I must press two keys but I would not be surprised to read that for you a single key is sufficient.

For all the criticisms that you could make of QuarkXpress,

The only one which I made was about the price difference between USA and Europe. _As far as I remember, I never wrote one word here about this product's behavior_ . Once again, you are dreaming!

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 13 octobre 2008 14:48:37)

Whatever you do, be aware that there is a difference between the key code, the character code and the glyph code.

Use the international standard character set to match the meaning and use the intelligent composition model to match the mark.

If you this the wrong way around, you will be writing unsearchable softcopy. For instance, in scanning the international standard character set you will find partial repertoires of small capitals, superscripts and subscripts.

You should not use these partial repertoires to match the mark, not because they are partial repertoires but because they have no standard universal synonyms in searching. If you use the intelligent composition model to match the mark, you can keep you source character specifications as simple as simple can be. This increases the chances that your audience will have success in searching your softcopy.

/hh

Have a look e.g. at this reference.

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2008-m07/0021.html

Hello Henrik

Where is the link between your message and the keyboard shortcuts ?

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 13 octobre 2008 14:50:28)

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

The only one which I made was about the price difference between USA and Europe. _As far as I remember, I never wrote one word here about this product's behavior_ . Once again, you are dreaming!

I am not referring to you personally, it is "you" as in all people including myself. A subtlety in English.

As for the rest you keep rationalising confusing behavior. That is revealed by people's inability to follow it.

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

KOENIG Yvan wrote:

The only one which I made was about the price difference between USA and Europe. _As far as I remember, I never wrote one word here about this product's behavior_ . Once again, you are dreaming!

I am not referring to you personally, it is "you" as in all people including myself. A subtlety in English.

When a message is addressed to Yvan KOENIG, I understand that "you" means "Yvan KOENIG" except when it is clearly staed (what you did for Adobe).

As for the rest you keep rationalising confusing behavior.

I'm rationalising nothing. I describe what was designed and what you refuse to admit.

Have you ever thought that someone may use an English program on a machine with a French keyboard ? I do that daily because thre are a lot of programs which aren't localised.
Is it so difficult to understand that + is the character + and - is the character -.

Other example

apple - option - 1 is supposed to activate the display of icons in a Finder Window.

On a French keyboard, this requires apple - option - 1 on the numeric keypad but apple - option - shift - 1 on the main keyboard because on this main keyboard digits require the shift key.

This may be surprising for users accustomed to keyboard layouts where the main keyboard send digits with a single key, but it's normal for others _which are more numerous_ !

Which alternative are you offering?
display two sequences in the menus,
disable the shortcuts with digits from the main keyboard,
disable shortcuts with digits from the numerical keyboards,
require the use of shift when using a key from the numeric keypad
don't allow shortcuts linked to keys "engraved" with several chars?

All these soluces are perfectly foolish.
The only logical one is the one which was adopted: when a key is "engraved" with two symbols, the shortcut describes the one which we want to display.

Add to that the fact than most users wish that shortcuts remain unmodified during the localisation process. A request which is also mine because non English users are forced to switch between localized tools and non localised ones.

Given that, the choice made by Apple:
when a key is engraved char1 & char2,
apple - char1 means the sequence which allow the user to get the char1 character
apple - char2 means the sequence which allow the user to get the char2 character
appears as perfectly logical and be sure that if they change it, I will not be the only one to shout!

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 13 octobre 2008 15:51:00)

Have you ever thought that someone may use an English program on a machine with a French keyboard ? I do that daily because thre are a lot of programs which aren't localised.

True, the English don't see that.

Add to that the fact than most users wish that shortcuts remain unmodified during the localisation process. A request which is also mine because non English users are forced to switch between localized tools and non localised ones.

If you ask me (and you probably aren't -:)), the answer is to look beyond the concept of the computer as a tele-typewriter with terminal videotext. This concept was changed when terminal videotext turned into a graphic user interface, but it was not changed from the ground up.

Shortcut commands came about because the keyboard combinations are faster than selecting commands in a graphic user interface menu. What we are working towards is a different way to input commands into a graphic user interface, and one that can be more conveniently contextualised.

/hh

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:

Have you ever thought that someone may use an English program on a machine with a French keyboard ? I do that daily because thre are a lot of programs which aren't localised.

True, the English don't see that.

And it seems that they don't know that we have to press shift to get digits on our keyboards 😉

For the other part of your response, I will not enter a domain where I am perfectly ignorant.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 13 octobre 2008 16:29:42)

Well I can give you QuarkXpress' "soluce" :

They cleverly used *positional arrays* along the right hand side, using the 2 most right hand keys as the down & up of the various shortcuts for point size, leading, baseline shift, tracking etc.

These were further modified by combinations with *opt &/or shift* to form extensions of those options.

All shortcuts for type styles or formats were always *cmd-shift + shortcut key*

Most type styles had mnemonic keyboard shortcuts and it was easy to guess the ones you didn't know. They were very regular, always *cmd-shift + ( )* .

Custom styles were applied with the *number keypad* which could be done one handed. As needed style shortcuts could be further modified by adding cmd, opt, ctrl & shift to the number. You could have an extremely nested and organised set of personal style shortcuts.

*cmd + single letter shortcuts* were reserved for basic commands.

That is how I did not have to burrow through endless manuals to find them and could lay up a 4 page A3 newspaper, in 8 minutes.

Alternatively you can do what Unix 3D programs do which is a *contextual menu in a star array* . You right mouse click on the target object which shows a star of menu choices which you drag out to and release.

Of course you could do what Apple has done in OSX which is a dog's breakfast of half implemented and inconsistent methods, which runs from the Finder right through all of their applications.

With the exception of forward delete which they finally implemented as standard in OSX, a decade after Windows had it.

PeterBreis0807 wrote:
Most type styles had mnemonic keyboard shortcuts and it was easy to guess the ones you didn't know. They were very regular, always *cmd-shift + ( )* .

It may be OK for you.

Here, on a French keyboard,

cmd - (shift & +) is the same than cmd & + from the numerical keypad
cmd - (shift & -) is the same than cmd & _
So the 1st one will behave correctly from the keypad but the second will not.
I must add that from my own point of view your description of these shortcuts is perfectly opaque.

The described coherent GUI is not so coherent that it appears from your single point of view.

I assumes that it's because it's clear, neat and coherent that there is an entire book dedicated to this subject:
http://www.eyrolles.com/Audiovisuel/Livre/9782744015717/livreraccourcis_clavier_quark_xpress5.php?societe=devasso

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 13 octobre 2008 18:03:18)

It is easier to just see them. Most people I coached picked it up in minutes.

A book exists on the subject like there are books on all subjects down to the +Dummies Book of Arse Scratching+

I take it that that too is a big seller?

One thing is for sure it packs a wider range of features into a simpler set, that you can actually remember, than anything else I've seen.

I passed your description of Xpress shortcuts to an inDesign dedicated forum.

They are LOL.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 13 octobre 2008 19:34:50)

Ah! The poke and prod crowd.

They mostly consist of fiddlers who never got the hang of systematic production design.

The InDesign crowd talk about a "consistent" set of Adobe keyboard shortcuts which are not consistent, even within a single version, change from version to version and are so forgettable as to be laughable.

Did you also get them to wax lyrical about the advantages of their endless palettes which also change from version to version and smother the user interface?

I also use InDesign so can compare. Many InDesign users are ex-PageMaker users or never grasped QXP when and if they ever used it.

If you were talking to Sandee Cohen, remind her of all the wrong keyboard shortcuts she had in her InDesign CS2 book. She refused to even concede they existed when I pointed them out to her. So much for knowing them.

She wisely dropped all mention of them in her InDesign CS3 book. Once stung twice shy.

Sure, a group in which I'm the only one which never used a professional DTP program.
All others worked with Xpress for yeras and dropped it when they discovered inDesign 😉

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 13 octobre 2008 20:31:12)

Don't force me to be defensive about Quark Xpress, but it was very fast and had extremely good keyboard shortcuts.

I'd be 100% for InDesign based on its features but I can not say the same for a good part of its inconsistent and clumsy GUI or its keyboard shortcuts.

Ask your expert friends how they type keyboard shortcuts for preset styles and use the mouse at the same time. Will they even get what you are talking about? They've gone from being mediocre QXP users to half baked InDesign users.

I see no reason why we must throw out the baby with the bath water. Improvements should be on all fronts, not a few steps forward and a few back.