Tab through Quick Drop results

[David_Staab]

If my fingers have to leave the home row while using Quick Drop, a lot of the speed benefit of that feature is lost. When coding in LVOOP, I find that I often have to manually select the instance of a dynamic dispatch VI from a list of identically named instances. Right now, I have to use the mouse or the arrow keys to navigate the results list. Why not tab and shift-tab through them instead, allowing my hands to stay in place so I can use the appropriate keystroke (CTRL+I or CTRL+P, etc.) after selecting the method I want?

[Darren]

It's rare when somebody suggests something good about Quick Drop that I haven't implemented yet.  😉

[Darren]

Although Tab/Shift-Tab are generally reserved for key navigating LabVIEW dialogs.  What do you think about Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab to navigate the Quick Drop list instead?

[David_Staab]

I think that you have a separate feature from others in LV, and your feature takes focus when it's being used: you can define whatever you like that makes sense inside your window. If you start popping up lots of LV dialogs from QD, then it might make sense to reserve that key combo. Otherwise, use your sandbox as you see fit.

The fewer buttons I have to press in a combination, the better. Likewise, the fewer combinations that exist while using LV, the better. It's already really hard to remember the complex lexicon required to fully utilize Quick Drop.* Tab/Shift-Tab are used in lots of other applications to navigate lists, panes, tiled windows, etc. They're generally used to navigate "stuff", and I think that delineating between kinds of stuff is unnecessarily complex when there's only one kind being interacted with at a time.

Another (minor) supporting argument for Tab/Shift-Tab: the action of "type some characters, then hit tab one or more times to get to what I want" feels closer to MS Intellitype. It's something my brain is already accustomed to.

* An aside: Why are CTRL+I and CTRL+P different keystrokes? Why not make one keystroke for "replace", and it could either replace the selected wire or the selected VI? I almost always have to pause to think about which one to use based on my selection, and that slows me down.

[Darin.K]

> What do you think about Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab to navigate the Quick Drop list instead?

Personally, those are fairly hardwired to cycling through LV (or other programs) windows in forward or reverse order. I'd be hesitant to overload those, not that I have have ever used it from the QD window (I guess it would put the selected object on the cursor and may or may not return you to the original).

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Darren: You're in a text entry mode in QuickDrop. You're already capturing as they type, which means that Tab is legitimately under your control -- in a string control, Tab frequently types a Tab character, but sometimes it moves focus to the next string. Similarly, in a grid, tab moves you through elements. QuickDrop is an analgogous situation, and I don't think you'd be violating anything if you took it over within the context.

[Darren]

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@David Staab wrote:

An aside: Why are CTRL+I and CTRL+P different keystrokes? Why not make one keystroke for "replace", and it could either replace the selected wire or the selected VI? I almost always have to pause to think about which one to use based on my selection, and that slows me down.

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Ctrl-I is analogous to right-clicking a Wire and choosing 'Insert'.  Ctrl-P is analogous to right-clicking a node and choosing 'Replace'.  Since I right-clicked on things and chose those different options for almost a decade before Quick Drop, I guess I haven't had a problem applying the same dichotomy to Quick Drop insert/replace.

[David_Staab]

But when I right-click a wire, the only option is to "Insert". "Replace" isn't listed in that use case, and vice versa. So what my user brain does is say "right-click on the thing I want to affect, then select the affect this thing action".

The problem with QD shortcuts is that all of them are available all the time (by merit of always being able to stroke the keys in any way possible), so my brain is forced to juggle all these possibilities that may or may not be valid.

At the risk of drawing on a long-standing internet holy war, I'll make this analogy: It's like the difference between a PC gaming UI and a console (Xbox, PS3) UI: consoles have fewer buttons, so the UI designer has to use context to decide what a button does at any given time. That has the result of being easier for the user to use when they're in control of the context, because they only have to know how to move their finger to one of four(ish) buttons instead of 30(ish). (When the context changes without the user's control, this scheme becomes frustrating, but that's not a threat in the QD use case.)

And I contend again that If QD is going to make me faster, it must necessarily be easy to use without thought.

[Darren]

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@David Staab wrote:

And I contend again that If QD is going to make me faster, it must necessarily be easy to use without thought.

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I 100% agree with this statement.  But in my case, I don't even think about Ctrl-I vs. Ctrl-P...my reflexes treat Insert and Replace as distinctly different operations. 

Nevertheless, I admit (begrudgingly) that not everybody thinks like I do. 😉  With minimal effort, I can post a custom QDKS on the Quick Drop Enthusiasts community soon that combines the operation of Ctrl-I and Ctrl-P into one shortcut...if the selection list contains wires, it'll do an Insert...if it contains nodes, it'll do a Replace.  We can see how much traffic that custom shortcut gets.

And yes, traffic on custom shortcuts does influence which ones make it into the product.  Ctrl-B, I, and P were on the community webpage after the 2009 release, and they got enough downloads that I was able to make them part of the product in 2010.

[Darren]

I have posted a Replace or Insert shortcut on the Quick Drop Enthusiasts community group.  This shortcut simply combines the functionality of Quick Drop Insert and Quick Drop Replace into a single shortcut.

[Darren]

Added in LabVIEW 2012.