[R-SIG-Mac] Two UI suggestions: 1. key bindings for help-page navigation buttons; 2: increase font-size of function status bar

[Simon Urbanek]

On Aug 15, 2015, at 1:27 PM, David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote:

> 
> On Aug 15, 2015, at 6:22 AM, Tim Bates wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> A couple of minor suggestions for the mac GUI.
>> 
>> First, Help window back-forward buttons.
>> 
>> Often when the user has opened help, they want to navigate back a page.
>> Currently the back ( "<“  ) and forward ( “>”) buttons in the help window lack key bindings. So one has to use the mouse to navigate forward and back.
> 
> On my machine OSX 10.7.5 with SL-vers of R 3.2.1, R.app GUI 1.66 (6956), the cmd-right-arrow and the cmd left arrow give forward and back behavior in the help page display. I see little value in assigning this also or instead of the current behavior. I discovered this by trial and error so it might be worth documenting in the OSX-FAQ document, although it seemed pretty intuitive and was the first thing I tried after seeing this request. (It's how Firefox is configured.)
> 


Yes, <Cmd><Left> and <Cmd><Right> is the default behavior in all browsers, including Safari. Since we simply use WebKit, we get that default, so it's consistent. Also not that it works in the absence of any buttons.

The <Cmd><[>/<]> in interesting - I have never used it and wasn't aware of it, since IMHO the more intuitive way above works. Given that we don't explicitly define any key equivalent, we could add those to the buttons if people are interested.

The GUI has been designed so long ago, that all our helper windows share the same main menu, so we don't actually have menu items for individual navigation, so there is no good place where to put the information about the available key bindings.


>> 
>> Request: Could these keys be bound to "⌘-{" and "⌘-}" respectively? That would match how Safari handles this app (and many others that have followed it for history navigation).
>> 
>> Second, The function help bar (bottom of the "R console” window) is very helpful, but perhaps in too small a font size.
>> 
>> The font used is also smaller than Apple chooses to use for the comparable Finder folder-trail and selection status bars.
>> 
>> Could the font size/bar height be upped a couple of points (or perhaps linked to the display font size?
>> 


It was deliberately chosen to be so small, as to fit two lines of help. However, you're right that the hardware has evolved since this was done in a  way where the effective size becomes increasingly smaller, so it may make sense to increase the size of the status bar along with the font size.

Cheers,
Simon



>> best, tim
>> 
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> 
> David Winsemius
> Alameda, CA, USA
> 
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