I know (I use that), still doesn’t feels quite right to me. Guess it depends on what I expect… “Alt for windows actions”, “Ctrl for content related operations”… that do not always apply on Haiku/BeOS apps.
Edit: after switching those on Keymap… then on Terminal you have to do “Alt+C” (what I see on the real keyboard) to enter “^C” (for example), which feels wrong.
I would rather use Ctrl+C for that, and have Ctrl+Shift+c for copy (but only on terminal emulators).
Edit 2: I guess my gripe is… that switches keys on Keymap, but that doesn’t matches my physical keyboard. THAT I find annoying.
NOT using that switch means I hav to use ALT+{C,V} for copy/paste… and that’s not happening any time soon, I’ve really tried
Yesss, please, please, please!
I’ll upvote that in less than it takes to push alt-tab
Right. That’s the key idea.
In any case, for the people that use PC keyboards, wich are the most ones, Alt will keep being Alt, wich I think is already ok, as I don’t care that much if the function assigned to a key is called command, meta, super or whatever.
And also, Alt is one of the multitude of quirks that give Haiku a character of its own as an ALTernative system
To grasp people’s issues with keymaps/keyboards is a difficult subject (for me). It may be that using a PC keyboard with a German keymap doesn’t have issues, or that after using BeOS/Haiku for 25 years, key-combos have seeped into muscle memory…
E.g. ALT+C to copy has ALT on the key label and ALT on the menu item.
It’s still ALT+C in Terminal and CTRL+C to abort a running process.
When working outside Terminal, everything CTRL+something in Windows/Linux becomes ALT+something in Haiku. Including task switching.
For me it all seems very consistent.
Now, if only I could switch ALT<->CTRL in Windows at work…
That would mean terminal would accept alt-c to terminate processes and alt-shift-c to copy, it certainly isn’t a “just do it like linux and switch”
In many places we do indeed do it like macos, for task switching we deviate from everyone, not sure why. Maybe beos did it?
I don’t think this shortcut is very ergonomic, personally I’d prefer alt tab to be available, but not by switching ctrl and alt
That’s why I wrote “When working outside Terminal…”
And I do prefer to keep the same shortcuts in Terminal, i.e. keep ALT+C and not have to remember to add a SHIFT.
It’s the same as Windows, just with the ALT<->CTRL switch we do with every command.
I’m arguing that it isn’t really accurate. We do follow the mac layout pretty closely, why define us with something we do not follow?
I think the terminal is one of the main justifications for using alt/command to copy and paste, precisely because it does not conflict with ctrl. MacOS does this in the same way.
This is because Apple and Haiku are trying to solve the same problem. We all want the ‘command’ key (the one that triggers keyboard shortcuts) to be where the alt key is on PC keyboards.
Haiku solves this by assigning the ‘ALT’ keycode to the ‘command’ action, and this works well on PC keyboards. And we also change the labels in the menu to say ‘ALT’, since that’s what written on the key.
But Apple also solves this in their keyboards, by sending the ‘control’ keycode from that key instead of the ‘alt’ one.
And if you apply both solutions at the same time… you get back to the initial problem
So, we need to change our setting when we detect an Apple keyboard is connected. Right now there is no code to do this, and you have to do it manually from keymap preferences (using the preset button, or if that’s not enough, drag and dropping keys around to make them do what you need).
The short version: Haiku was designed to follow BeOS, which in turn is designed for former Mac users equipped with PC keyboards.
Maybe my ‘problem’ is that I was never exposed to anything Mac, always Haiku/Linux/Windows. And there, as i said, Haiku has similar(same?) shortcuts for everything, just using ALT instead of CTRL. The exception is the Terminal, where Windows/Linux have to be inconsistent and add a SHIFT for copy/paste and Haiku stays true with ALT+C/V.
@humdinger In the Haiku terminal I also have to use Ctrl-C to stop a command and Ctrl+o, Ctrl+X in the Nano editor. To be honest, the Haiku way, using the Alt key would not be my choice. In most other systems CTRL ist the main key for such options (BSD, Linux, Windows). For some cases the Shift-key has to be added, okay. I would choose Ctrl instead of Alt because it is more usual in most systems.
Yeah, that’s exactly the thing. Haiku’s Terminal can leave all CTRL-shortcuts to the CLI apps, preserving the ALT-shortcuts for the systemwide services like clipboard actions and commands for the Terminal app itself.
BeOS/Haiku uses ALT as command key for over 25 years and with reason, see the above. When developing your own desktop OS, following a sub-optimal solution just because most other OS do it, isn’t a convincing argument. Why bother at all?
I have many CLI apps use both ALT and CTRL shortcuts. I would prefer if Terminal had nearly zero shortcuts and passed everything to the underlying text-mode application.
(I actually run a modified Terminal with all shortcuts removed or moved to shift+alt+key)
The Ctrl key’s primary function is sending control signals, so Haiku’s mapping in Terminal is correct. The super key (“Win key” on PC keyboards and “Command key” on Apple keyboards) are for sending commands. The “alt key” is for selecting an alternative function. The shift key is for shifting (inverting) a command, like Undo or its inverted command Redo.
I’m pretty sure BeOS used the layout they did because it was designed for Apple layout keyboards. Applying an Apple layout to a PC layout keyboard is wrong since the alt and super keys are swapped. Haiku’s usage of the alt key as a command key is wrong.
BeOS is originally deesigned with Apple ADB keyboards, and when they moved to PC, they made it so the keys remain physically at the same location as on ADB keyboards. So that you can preserve your muscle memory when switching from one to the other, and also because the CTRL key is hard to reach and thus, not a good choice for triggering shortcuts, which get used a lot in our UI.
This decision is as valid as any other, and if you are dissatisfied with the labelling of the keys, you can modify your keyboard to fix that. But, neither Haiku nor Be (at that time) did manufacture keyboards, and we have to do with what’s available.
