Oooh! So much to respond to, & so little space & time.
Let me begin with:
Posted by: zridling
You two would have been very frustrated in the DOS days of the 1980s,
I disagree. I am an old Un*x hacker & DOS user. In those days (1980's) DOS didn't use hotkeys. You had to remember a whole list of commands that weren't very nmenonic at times. I found the best way to work was to memorize the cmd names & then look up the options I needed at the time I needed them. You COULD equate this to memorizing a list of hotkeys in today's environment. But its kind of tenuous if you ask me.
Posted by: Scott
I think it's a matter of discipline and interest. I can't be bothered to memorize 7,500 different hotkey combinations.
I agree in a way with this. Memorizing was never my strong point. Just ask my 5 kids & wife when it comes to their names. And I've been married for 23 years! But when you use the keys almost daily, you get to know those 7,500 keys from familiarity, not memorization. If I might paraphrase here. Necessity is the mother of memorization, not interest. You could hate what your doing but still have to memorize those 7,500 keys to do your job.
Posted by: nudone
i agree with pointlessness of trying to remember hotkey combos that aren't used often enough so that you can actually remember them - the secret is to just keep them simple and obvious.
i really despise hotkeys utils that expect you to memorise a combination of keys like 'ctrl+alt+X' or 'ctrl+shift+X' or was it 'alt+shift+X', oh sorry, no it was 'ctrl+alt+shift+X' to perform a task.
just make hotkeys like 'winkey+X' - use a letter key that matches the action that is going to be done, i.e.
'winkey+x' to open explorer (or xplorer2)
'winkey+w' to open your browser (the w stands for www)
'winkey+n' for notepad (or whatever you use)
etc, etc.
the point of using the 'winkey' is that is highly unlikely to conflict with other programs that have their own set of hotkey shortcuts. plus it's easier to remember instead of trying to figure out if it was a 'ctrl' or an 'alt' key combo you were meant to be doing.
i'm sure that all sounds very patronising but that's as complicated as it needs to be. i'm also sure everyone on this forum has heard of mnemonics and that is simply how a good hotkey should work. if it isn't obvious and immediate then there is no point to it.
maybe hotkeys are something that have to be forced onto you before you start to use them regularly. like Zaine i had to learn shortcut keys to make the programs i use workable and efficient. when i first started using photoshop there were things that could only be done with key modifiers and key combinations - ties your fingers in knots sometimes.
I pretty much agree with nudone here for the reasons stated above. I'm from the old days when mice were scarce & keyboards ruled the day. I type 85wpm as well & don't like having to take my hands from the keyboard to move that detestable thing called a mouse. Unfortunately, most GUI programs (which 98% of all programs are) insist on your using a mouse. Even if they do allow hotkeys, they never allow you to solely use the keyboard. There are always at least a half dozen or more functions that MUST be done with a mouse, & usually they're functions you use all the time.
Where I disagree with nudone is the use of the winkey. I usually have half a dozen programs running on my PC, & almost all of them use the winkey and/or other hotkey combinations. Many times their hotkeys conflict with 1 another because they're trying to be nmenonic. Windows also reserves certain hotkey combinations for itself. Thus makeing it impossible for a nmenonic key combination to be assigned. This is why I tend to not like hotkeys in general. Since even if I COULD remember 7,500 hotkey combinations (which I obviously can't), half of them would probably be useless due to multiple program overlap.
I think "Cheat Sheeter" is a fabulous idea because it allows me to remember a small core set of hotkeys that will allow me to do ~80% of my work, & it will allow me to look up the rest of the 7,500 quickly & easily by useing the GUI to my advantage instead of it being a disadvantage to us keyboarders.
Regards
Dragonrider
