Comment 12 for bug 187531

Hi Matt, I'm not sure I completely understand your comment above but here are my interpretations and answers:

1/ you think the problem is with the behaviour of the Alt key on OS X and that the FAQ does not make it discoverable enough.
Unfortunately, this ball is not ours to play with. Apple has been changing the key map with every other version of X11, which makes it nearly impossible to predict in advance wether alt will actually behave as alt or not (yes this is a pain). We could be shipping our own keymap, also fixing the Ctrl-Command key behavior (i.e. make command work as control so that you can use Inkscape as any OS X app) but since the default option is also to ignore this and follow system keymap, this would probably be a mess. If you are on Leopard, just deselect all options in the Input tab of X11 prefs and put this:
<code>
! This one switches both alt keys to be alt:
keycode 66 = Alt_L
keycode 69 = Alt_R
clear mod1
add mod1 = Alt_L Alt_R
! switch meta and control
clear mod2
clear control
add mod2 = Control_L Control_R
add control = Meta_L Meta_R
</code>
in a file named .Xmodmap in your home directory.This will make Alt behave as intended and use Command instead of control (to copy, paste, ...). It may also work on Tiger and earlier, but as explained, it's difficult to be positive about it.

2/ the Alt key is fine but you think that the tooltip at the bottom of the window does not make Alt's behavior discoverable enough.
The help text in this portion of the UI can be very long for some tools, even in their default state. It's therefore impossible to fit the description of the behavior of all "modes" of the tool (all combinations of modifiers) at once. As a result, to know what the modes are, you have to press the modifiers and read the text that changed accordingly. Granted, this supposes that you know that the modifiers will have some effect and that such modes actually exists but I think:
   . you'll find this in any Inkscape tutorial. The different modes of action of all tools are what makes Inkscape special, powerful and pleasant to use.
   . you'll probably "accidentally" notice that the text changes when you press a modifier trying to copy/paste/whatever, and this should give you a tip about how you're supposed to use this part of the UI: systematically press the modifiers one after the other in each tool to discover their function.

I am a big fan of this kind of UI: it seems simple and plain and you can use it right away (the default behavior of each tool is straightforward), but digging around a bit pays and uncovers powerful functions. This is how OS X functions by the way: there are plenty of hidden gems when you press Command or Option while performing otherwise simple actions (and most of the time you don't even have a visual clue about it beforehand, as you have in Inkscape!).

If that still does not convince you, do you have a suggestion on how to make these behaviors more discoverable?