Keyboard via poll
by Igor2
Results
I received 9 partial answers to the poll - thanks everyone who
answered. This is a small sample, but this is the best I could get
(I can't reach more pcb users).
Raw results are available in html, tsv and
csv format.
My interpretation
(User obviously means "those users who answered the poll")
- 1. very few users use the lesstif hid, still user count is more than 1
- 2. users are open to try alternative menu/hotkey layouts...
- 3. ... and only a few users change the default layout
- 4. ... because they are happy with the defaults and/or don't want to maintain the diffs on upgrades
- 5. there is a strong demand for multikey in the GTK HID
- 7. use of vendor (drill) mapping is rare
My conclusions
pcb-rnd: the GTK HID needs multi-key support.
Community: although users express their needs, they do not contribute
even in smallish, non-programming tasks like designing the hotkey layout.
This is probably in-line with the answers for 4: they don't really customize
things, they want to use the software as is.
Conclusion: it is worth shipping multiple menu/keyboard layouts as long as
they are all maintained in the central repo (questions 2, 3 and 4). It is
pointless to invest in tools that make customization easier or to prepare
for collecting user-customized menu files, as users won't invest any time in
this.