"View Online Manual" Shortcut
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Authored by Julian Eisel (Severin) on Jan 26 2015, 1:13 AM.

Details

Reviewers

Campbell Barton (campbellbarton)

Group Reviewers

User Interface

Summary

"View Online Manual" Shortcut

Currently the only way to access the online manual of a button is by right clicking it and using the "Online Manual" menu entry. This patch implements a proposal made in T37478 to give easy access to the online manual (the tooltip hint has been rejected).

Functionallity

To use the new function, all you need to do is hovering with the mouse over a button and press the corresponding shortcut (following T37478 I made it Alt+F1 but that can still be changed).
As usual, an ugly GIF:

Open Design Questions

There are a few design questions left on which I'd like to get some feedback:

Which shortcut should we use? (Currently: Alt+F1)
Do we want to have this at all?

Diff Detail

Event Timeline

Julian Eisel (Severin) updated this revision to Diff 3260.Jan 26 2015, 1:13 AM

Julian Eisel (Severin) retitled this revision from to "View Online Manual" Shortcut (and a hint in the tooltip).

Julian Eisel (Severin) updated this object.

Julian Eisel (Severin) added a reviewer: User Interface.

Julian Eisel (Severin) set the repository for this revision to rB Blender.

Julian Eisel (Severin) added a project: User Interface.

Julian Eisel (Severin) updated this object.

Having a key-shortcut to open help is useful, but displaying in _every_ tooltip seems overkill (and noise once you see it for the first time).

So prefer that this has a key-shortcut that shows in the menu, but not in the tooltip.

Also not sure on choice of keyshortcut.
Alt+F2 is run application on many Linux systems, Alt+F4 close window on Win32
So these are used by the OS... but Alt+F1 seems it maybe OK, we can always change if needed.

This revision now requires changes to proceed.Jan 28 2015, 5:25 PM

Sergey Sharybin (sergey) added a subscriber: Sergey Sharybin (sergey).Jan 28 2015, 5:26 PM

Sergey Sharybin (sergey) added inline comments.

source/blender/windowmanager/intern/wm_operators.c
4828	Picky: convention is to use capital letters for every word in the operator name.

I'm actually for the mention of the shortcut in the tooltips. Blender has too much hidden functionality already. And getting easy access to documentation is one of those things that shouldn't be hidden, because it's important for the newcomers (hiding stuff is for long time users).

What to show in a tooltip isnt so clear... but I dont think having in RMB menu is hidden, Insert keyframe and other common operations are there too.

We could show many different buttons (IKey insert keyframe, DKey for drivers, drivers, Ctrl+C for copy, Drag&Drop for color....)

Where to draw the line?
See the manual:
https://www.blender.org/manual/getting_started/basics/interface/buttons_and_controls.html#common-shortcuts

Yeah, I kinda agree with Campbell on this one - RMB is one of the first things that people try in software while looking for options. Having the shortcut placed next to the option within that menu would be more than fine I think.

I'm a huge proponent of discoverability, even at the expense of lost screen real estate, but I do feel that putting a shortcut in every single tool tip throughout the program is a bit overboard - especially when the option would be found really quickly with just default mouse buttons.

@Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) @Sean Olson (liquidape) Fair points.

Remove tooltip hint
Follow naming convention as mentioned by Sergey

Julian Eisel (Severin) retitled this revision from "View Online Manual" Shortcut (and a hint in the tooltip) to "View Online Manual" Shortcut.Feb 15 2015, 3:39 AM

Julian Eisel (Severin) updated this object.

Julian Eisel (Severin) edited edge metadata.

Julian Eisel (Severin) set the repository for this revision to rB Blender.

Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) requested changes to this revision.Feb 17 2015, 4:49 AM

Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) edited edge metadata.

Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) added inline comments.

source/blender/windowmanager/intern/wm_operators.c
4807–4812	We already have code in `ui_but_menu` to get a string from the button. This duplicates it. Would rather have a generic function in `interface_utils.c`, eg: `UI_but_online_manual_id(uiBut but)` - call from `ui_but_menu` `UI_but_online_manual_id_from_active(bContext C)` call from here. where `UI_but_online_manual_id_from_active` would just get the active button and call `UI_but_online_manual_id`
4837	Could just call this `WM_OT_doc_view_manual_ui_context` ? - maybe we want to make Alt+F1 Link to Sequencer docs when done in the sequencer... or other less specific cases.