[Pharo-project] Global shortcut keys in Pharo
I find myself wanting global keyboard shortcuts for such things as invoking an external browser, switching focus between windows, opening new tool windows, executing various World menu options, executing my own scripts, etc. After working for years in corporations doing Windows-based development in Microsoft Visual Studio, I find the necessity of constantly reaching for the mouse in Pharo to be cumbersome and unproductive. I was able to add some shortcut keys to invoke commands that I prepared by sending messages like this: World respondToCommand: $l bySending: #startExternalWebBrowser to: TFCommands. However, this only works when no window has the keyboard focus. I followed the keystroke handling path in the debugger and I think I can probably find a place to hook in some special handling for my globally-accessible keystrokes. My questions are: 1. Has somebody already done this? 2. Is there a "standard" or "best practice" way of accomplishing this? Regards, TF
Hi Tony. Yes, I agree with you. There have been several works arround this. I remember Guillermo Polito or Sean working on KeyMapping, KeyBindings or something like that. Check in the archive...there are hundreds of emailsa about that: http://forum.world.st/Keyboard-Shortcuts-Keymapping-now-loads-in-Pharo-core-... cheers mariano On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Tony Fleig <tony.fleig@gmail.com> wrote:
I find myself wanting global keyboard shortcuts for such things as invoking an external browser, switching focus between windows, opening new tool windows, executing various World menu options, executing my own scripts, etc.
After working for years in corporations doing Windows-based development in Microsoft Visual Studio, I find the necessity of constantly reaching for the mouse in Pharo to be cumbersome and unproductive.
I was able to add some shortcut keys to invoke commands that I prepared by sending messages like this:
World respondToCommand: $l bySending: #startExternalWebBrowser to: TFCommands.
However, this only works when no window has the keyboard focus.
I followed the keystroke handling path in the debugger and I think I can probably find a place to hook in some special handling for my globally-accessible keystrokes.
My questions are:
1. Has somebody already done this?
2. Is there a "standard" or "best practice" way of accomplishing this?
Regards, TF
Hi, Yes, AFAIK, Guille is working in something like that :) Cheers, Esteban El 05/12/2010, a las 10:41a.m., Mariano Martinez Peck escribió:
Hi Tony. Yes, I agree with you. There have been several works arround this. I remember Guillermo Polito or Sean working on KeyMapping, KeyBindings or something like that.
Check in the archive...there are hundreds of emailsa about that:
http://forum.world.st/Keyboard-Shortcuts-Keymapping-now-loads-in-Pharo-core-...
cheers
mariano
On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Tony Fleig <tony.fleig@gmail.com> wrote: I find myself wanting global keyboard shortcuts for such things as invoking an external browser, switching focus between windows, opening new tool windows, executing various World menu options, executing my own scripts, etc.
After working for years in corporations doing Windows-based development in Microsoft Visual Studio, I find the necessity of constantly reaching for the mouse in Pharo to be cumbersome and unproductive.
I was able to add some shortcut keys to invoke commands that I prepared by sending messages like this:
World respondToCommand: $l bySending: #startExternalWebBrowser to: TFCommands.
However, this only works when no window has the keyboard focus.
I followed the keystroke handling path in the debugger and I think I can probably find a place to hook in some special handling for my globally-accessible keystrokes.
My questions are:
1. Has somebody already done this?
2. Is there a "standard" or "best practice" way of accomplishing this?
Regards, TF
Mariano Martinez Peck wrote:
I remember... Sean working on KeyMapping, KeyBindings or something like that.
Yes, I ported KeyMapping to Pharo because it seemed like the model people liked best. IIRC KeyBindings probably wouldn't be too hard to port. Both are on SqueakSource, but if I didn't have write access, check my SqS projects page for updated versions. Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Global-shortcut-keys-in-Pharo-tp3072091p3073313.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Sean, what is the URL of your SqS projects page? TF On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 6:59 AM, Sean P. DeNigris <sean@clipperadams.com> wrote:
Mariano Martinez Peck wrote:
I remember... Sean working on KeyMapping, KeyBindings or something like that.
Yes, I ported KeyMapping to Pharo because it seemed like the model people liked best. Â IIRC KeyBindings probably wouldn't be too hard to port. Â Both are on SqueakSource, but if I didn't have write access, check my SqS projects page for updated versions.
Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Global-shortcut-keys-in-Pharo-tp3072091p3073313.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Yes Yes Yes!!! I'll push on that! :D Let's join forces, it's better than be alone in the dark :). On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 9:48 PM, Tony Fleig <tony.fleig@gmail.com> wrote:
Sean, what is the URL of your SqS projects page?
TF
On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 6:59 AM, Sean P. DeNigris <sean@clipperadams.com> wrote:
Mariano Martinez Peck wrote:
I remember... Sean working on KeyMapping, KeyBindings or something like that.
Yes, I ported KeyMapping to Pharo because it seemed like the model people liked best. IIRC KeyBindings probably wouldn't be too hard to port.
Both
are on SqueakSource, but if I didn't have write access, check my SqS projects page for updated versions.
Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Global-shortcut-keys-in-Pharo-tp3072091p3073313.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Downloading Keymapping from sqs... Gofer it squeaksource: 'Keymapping'; package: 'ConfigurationOfKeymapping'; load. (ConfigurationOfKeymapping project version: '1.0') load :) On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Guillermo Polito <guillermopolito@gmail.com>wrote:
Yes Yes Yes!!! I'll push on that! :D Let's join forces, it's better than be alone in the dark :).
On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 9:48 PM, Tony Fleig <tony.fleig@gmail.com> wrote:
Sean, what is the URL of your SqS projects page?
TF
On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 6:59 AM, Sean P. DeNigris <sean@clipperadams.com> wrote:
Mariano Martinez Peck wrote:
I remember... Sean working on KeyMapping, KeyBindings or something like that.
Yes, I ported KeyMapping to Pharo because it seemed like the model
people
liked best. IIRC KeyBindings probably wouldn't be too hard to port. Both are on SqueakSource, but if I didn't have write access, check my SqS projects page for updated versions.
Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Global-shortcut-keys-in-Pharo-tp3072091p3073313.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Ok, I've uploaded version 1.1 of the configuration with some little fixes. On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 4:07 PM, Guillermo Polito <guillermopolito@gmail.com>wrote:
Downloading Keymapping from sqs...
Gofer it squeaksource: 'Keymapping'; package: 'ConfigurationOfKeymapping'; load. (ConfigurationOfKeymapping project version: '1.0') load
:)
On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Guillermo Polito < guillermopolito@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes Yes Yes!!! I'll push on that! :D Let's join forces, it's better than be alone in the dark :).
On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 9:48 PM, Tony Fleig <tony.fleig@gmail.com> wrote:
Sean, what is the URL of your SqS projects page?
TF
On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 6:59 AM, Sean P. DeNigris <sean@clipperadams.com> wrote:
Mariano Martinez Peck wrote:
I remember... Sean working on KeyMapping, KeyBindings or something like that.
Yes, I ported KeyMapping to Pharo because it seemed like the model
people
liked best. IIRC KeyBindings probably wouldn't be too hard to port. Both are on SqueakSource, but if I didn't have write access, check my SqS projects page for updated versions.
Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Global-shortcut-keys-in-Pharo-tp3072091p3073313.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
tfleig wrote:
Sean, what is the URL of your SqS projects page?
MCHttpRepository location: 'http://www.squeaksource.com/SPDProjectUpdates' user: '' password: '' -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Global-shortcut-keys-in-Pharo-tp3072091p3075175.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
A follow-up: I scanned the email threads mentioned in this thread. I tried to use Keymapper and it seemed way too complicated for the simple things I wanted to do. It wasn't obvious at all to me how to proceed once I had the GUI displayed and I encountered numerous errors while exploring it. After perusing the code a little, it seemed much more invasive than what I had in mind -- extensions and overrides in numerous classes. It seems to be a general approach for solving keystroke mapping not only at the global level, but in application-specific cases as well. I have placed my own GlobalKeys package on SqueakSource (http://www.squeaksource.com/GlobalKeys) It is much smaller and less ambitious than Keymapper, it only works on Pharo, and it is much less capable, but at least in my environment it does what I need without a lot of complication. Maybe someone else will find it useful as well. One of the joys of Smalltalk: if you don't like the way something works, change it or write your own. Regards, TF On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 8:19 PM, Tony Fleig <tony.fleig@gmail.com> wrote:
I find myself wanting global keyboard shortcuts for such things as invoking an external browser, switching focus between windows, opening new tool windows, executing various World menu options, executing my own scripts, etc.
After working for years in corporations doing Windows-based development in Microsoft Visual Studio, I find the necessity of constantly reaching for the mouse in Pharo to be cumbersome and unproductive.
I was able to add some shortcut keys to invoke commands that I prepared by sending messages like this:
  World respondToCommand: $l bySending: #startExternalWebBrowser to: TFCommands.
However, this only works when no window has the keyboard focus.
I followed the keystroke handling path in the debugger and I think I can probably find a place to hook in some special handling for my globally-accessible keystrokes.
My questions are:
1. Has somebody already done this?
2. Is there a "standard" or "best practice" way of accomplishing this?
Regards, TF
participants (5)
-
Esteban Lorenzano -
Guillermo Polito -
Mariano Martinez Peck -
Sean P. DeNigris -
Tony Fleig