inconsistent keyboard shortcuts / ux / tree-of-operations

[CeDeROM]

Hello world :-)

I found inconsistent keyboard shortcuts really annoying and distracting:

1. Different programs use different keystrokes for similar operations. Would be really nice if the keys are consistent between all KiCAD applications.

2. Too much keystrokes are required to perform operations. In perfect world (and most other EDA) I would only use one, maybe at most two, keystrokes to perform an operation. Something like Blender vs. 3D Studio, where you "R"otate among "Z"axis "90"degrees "\n" (3..5 keystrokes) makes work of 20 mouse clicks navigating over the menus. Another example here is amazing tree-like organization of shortcuts and menus in Eagle (maybe that changed in recent versions no clue) - "P"lace "W"ire, "P"lace "C"omponent, "D"elete "W"ire, "D"elete "C"omponent, etc, only two keystrokes required to accomplish a task.

3. Keyboard shortcuts are inconsistent. For instance in PCBNew hotkeys for Increase / Decrease are such a Poetry! Who cares what are the shortcuts, I want to focus on my design not my keyboard:
* "n" decreases grid size, shift+"n" increases grid size.
* "w" increases track width, ctrl/cmd+"w" decreases track width.
* "'" increase via size, "\" decrease via size.

Implementing something like "Tree-Of-Operations"^TM would make work smooth, optimized, consistent, and lots of keyboard shortcuts would be organized around "Decision-Based-Workflow"^TM rather than keys amount that are available on the keyboard :-)

Best regards :-)
Tomek

Application: kicad
Version: (5.1.2-1)-1, release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.54.0 LibreSSL/2.6.5 zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.24.1
Platform: Mac OS X (Darwin 18.5.0 x86_64), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (UTF-8,STL containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.69.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.54.0
    Compiler: Clang 9.0.0 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=ON
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

Disclaimer: not a dev

Point 1: This is a known issue and on the roadmap for v6 (It requires switching to the modern toolset for eeschema for this to be feasible)

I am not sure what you mean with 2. Most kicad keystrokes are single letter hotkeys. Your rotate example is quite excessive as one does not require the same degrees of freedom as for example blender. In an eda tool having 90 degree steps is enough (the 90 is configurable in the preferences menu) And a rotation in kicad is simply pressing r while your mouse is on top of the thing you want to rotate. (Similarly with placing a component. Use hotkey a to get the tool for selecting what you want to place. The wire uses w and starts the wire already at your current location, ...)

And 3 is well only an extension to 1.

[CeDeROM (cederom)]

Thank you Rene! Point 2 exactly the same thing as explained in bug #1616154 :-)
Have a nice day! :-)
Tomek