How come GUI applications always require me to hit a control key combination when I want to do something? That’s both stressfull, annoying, and useless. If you are going to have some hotkeys in a GUI, do everyone a favor and make it as much like Pine as possible. In Pine, when you are in a field where you can type, then you have to hit control key combinations. Otherwise, a single keystroke will allow you to compose, delete, or whatever.
Furthermore, try following Pine’s lead in displaying the keyboard shortcuts onscreen at all times. That allows people to use the shortcuts without moving the mouse to remind themselves what those shortcuts actually are.
If you do these things, I predict that people will come to love and use your program, but they won’t know why. They’ll just know that they get things done faster with your stuff than with the other options. I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s why I like pine, despite it’s lack of GPG integration or support for tagging. All other applications require control keys.
Maybe I’m just and inveterate vi-er, but I don’t think it’s just me. A lot of people like Pine – I am most definitely not alone. I think we like it because its interface is gets so much right. So figure out exactly what it does right (I think it’s single keypress commands and the available commands at the bottom of the screen, myself) and do that. I bet your application will be more popular than you previously imagined.
