Bug 439419

Summary:	Yast ncurses Software Management in 11.0 - Why no keyboard shortcuts anymore?
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE 11.1	Reporter:	David Rankin <drankinatty>
Component:	YaST2	Assignee:	Katarina Machalkova <kmachalkova>
Status:	RESOLVED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Jiri Srain <jsrain>
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P5 - None
Version:	Alpha 0
Target Milestone:	Alpha 2
Hardware:	Other
OS:	openSUSE 11.0
Whiteboard:
Found By:	---	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description David Rankin 2008-10-28 07:44:36 UTC

Text mode yast in 11.0 is missing all of the shortcut keys for search, etc... I thought it must have been an oversight and would be fixed, but after 4 months, they are still not there. Specifically if you go into software management, you _can_ select Alt+F for "Filter", but then all of the shortcut keys are missing for "Patterns", "Languages", "RPM Groups", "Repositories", "Search" (most importantly), and "Installation Summary". Is this a bug or did somebody mean to strip the shortcuts out?

	Also, the "search" layout is more cumbersome now. Once you select search, you then have to use Alt+P to get to the search phrase text box and then after you enter the search, you have to type Alt+S to actually start the search, the normal return key does nothing. In 10.3, the input focus went to the search box automatically, and then a simple return executed the search.

	These are just a few examples of shortcuts missing in ncurses sw-management in 11.0, not an exclusive list. A majority of the shortcuts keys are just not there. No letter highlight and no functionality either. Example: After Alt-F for filters, Alt-S does nothing. You now have to arrow down and highlight "search". 

	Similar shortcut capability is missing when you select repositories as the filter and then try and update all never versions in the repository. In 10.3 to update all packages, it was simply:

	Alt-F, Alt-P, Alt-T, Alt-P, Alt-U 

	and all packages were selected for update. A Simple 5 keystrokes. The to review and install, it was simply:

	Alt-F, Alt-I

	and you were done... Now with 11.0 it is almost impossible to do the same thing. Please take a look at the issues and see if we can find a way to make the shortcut keys work again in 11.0. It was a really, really good thing to be able to shortcut the time it took to do the various updgrades and package selections by shortcut keys.

	Let me know if you need any screenshots or other additional information. Thanks

Comment 1 Katarina Machalkova 2008-10-29 11:29:03 UTC

All of the above (kbd shortcuts - unique across all dialogs, accessibility of search function etc.) are no longer an issue in openSUSE 11.1 yast-ncurses-pkg 2.17.4 should contain all the fixes. See also this blogpost of mine: http://hedgehogpainter.livejournal.com/670.html 

Unfortunately, it was too late to fix for 11.0 and usability issues usually do not qualify for online update. Moreover, in this particular case adding keyboard shortcuts would break existing translations.

Comment 2 David Rankin 2008-10-29 13:41:11 UTC

Guys,

    I'm not sure I understand. I mean how hard can it be to put the keyboard shortcuts back in? We have already had a number of yast/zypper updates, one in the past week, what is the issue here? From my understanding YUI doesn't make it that difficult to add or change shortcut keys. Why leave something broken for the millions using, or yet to install, 11.0?

    Lastly, this bug should not be closed as "RESOLVED", it wasn't and you know it. If we are going to get meaningful data from bugzilla, the resolution data has to be accurate and valid. I'm re-closing (regrettably) the bug with the accurate closing status of "WONTFIX". Of course I am hopeful that you will find it in yourselves to re-open the bug and fix it, but the decision is yours.

Comment 3 Katarina Machalkova 2008-10-29 14:55:56 UTC

>     I'm not sure I understand. I mean how hard can it be to put the keyboard
> shortcuts back in? We have already had a number of yast/zypper updates, one in
> the past week, what is the issue here? From my understanding YUI doesn't make
> it that difficult to add or change shortcut keys

It is trivial to add keyboard shortcuts as such. But it means that user interface strings would be modified and it would invalidate existing translations. English language users would not notice, but all the others would suddenly have UI with mixed english and their-language strings. So at the end, not only ncurses package manager, but also YaST translations files would need to be updated.

>     Lastly, this bug should not be closed as "RESOLVED", it wasn't and you know
> it. 

It is resolved in openSUSE 11.1, as you can see in Product information below, 'fixed in milestone' is set to alpha2.

It would be incredibly useful for me if I got feedback concerning ncurses packagemanager much like this one in 11.0 beta phase. so I could push the changes into goldmaster release. Now there is hardly anything I can do ... except for asking our maintenance coordination if we can make fixes of the most burning issues an optional update. But due to drawbacks mentioned above, it is uncertain whether we'll get the green light.