[BRLTTY] We could change the banner

Stéphane Doyon s.doyon at videotron.ca
Wed Dec 31 18:04:35 EST 2014


On Tue, 30 Dec 2014, Dave Mielke wrote:

> My suggested wording, which would be added as key table notes and which would
> show up at the top of the key binding listing, is:
>
>   There are two Nav keys - one at each side of the top.

This of course is a tad confusing when the "key" is in fact two keys, on 
the newer models: called nav rocker and mode button. I'd assume the recent 
layout and have a note that mentions that on older models, the nav rocker 
and mode button are combined into a wheel that goes up/down and can also 
be pressed. If you'd rather stick with the current approach, which I could 
understand given the current bindings implementation structure, I'd 
suggest wording like "There are two Nav controls" rather than "keys".

>   * Each has three actions: Up, Down, and Press.
>   * On some models, a Nav key is a wheel which can be both rolled and pressed.
>   * On others, it's an up/down rocker along with a pressable button.

Suggest: with a *separate* pressable button.

>   On older models, the Selector keys are known as GDF (General Display Function) keys.

For added context, you might say that the front edge extremity buttons 
are called Selector, and that in the older model documentation they were 
called GDF.

It may not be obvious that the Advance buttons are the square buttons on 
the front edge. Also the front edge rockers seem to go unmentioned. Ah no 
they are mentioned but at line 110. Ideally the header of the file would 
acknowledge and name all the keys... I don't suppose we could copy the 
official description, which is too long anyway, so we might just say that 
the front edge has the Selector keys at each end, and then working towards 
the middle, the rockers, then the Advance keys, and in the middle, the 
left and right shift keys.

It's also a lot of mental arithmetic to figure out that line up/down can 
be done with either the nav or (100 lines later) the rocker keys. Sorting 
the entries would definitely help. The rockers also seem to be missing 
some of the combos that the top nav keys have, but frankly this model
just has too many keys and it's exhausting to map the whole thing.

Back when the help files were hand written, I had a single line for each 
of those bi-directional or toggle commands, like windows up / down: key X 
/ key Y, toggle something on/off: key A / key B. It cuts down the number 
of entries by a lot, but then some might find it less clear, not to 
mention it'd be challenging to implement.

I agree it may not be obvious to figure out how to get to the help screen 
for each model. We might want to specify this more prominently on the web 
site. For one thing, I can't seem to Google for this information.


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