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Using acronyms makes the settings pages more confusing. #39

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WolfIcefang opened this issue Mar 23, 2022 · 1 comment
Open

Using acronyms makes the settings pages more confusing. #39

WolfIcefang opened this issue Mar 23, 2022 · 1 comment

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@WolfIcefang
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I like to imagine I know a lot of keyboard terminology, but I have a lot of trouble deciphering the Layout/Settings menu for EPKL without a user guide on hand. I believe part of the issue is caused by the excessive use of shorthand and acronyms. For example, In the Layout tab, the "Keyboard type" dropdown uses "ANS" instead of "ANSI". The "Mods, if any" dropdown uses "AWide" but could be using "Angle + Wide". The KeyMapper tab is worse, using 2 letter codes like "QW" and "VK" to represent... something, I don't know. I think VK means virtualkey, but why not just call it VirtualKey?

Sorry for sounding so terse but I'm not used to this backspace location yet and every typo is pain.

@DreymaR
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DreymaR commented Mar 24, 2022

I hear you, brother. ヽ( ⌒o⌒)人(⌒-⌒ )/

My problem is that I have to use a lot of abbreviations in file names and code, or names would get too long. But as you point out, in dropdown boxes and suchlike it ought to be more human-readable. But then again, using the same terms that are used in the code and file names make it easier to recognize those when you encounter them... It's a balance.

There's also the issue of flexibility: The dropdown menus in question are actually read and deciphered from the available layout folder names. So that means anyone could make other mods and variants than I have, and have them show up in the menus. If I were to follow your suggestion of using "Angle + Wide" instead of "AWide" (being the folder name component), that might stop working I think. But sure, I could in theory flesh out some of my mod descriptions in the menus by string replacements.

There are other users who think that we should use the CAWS terminology consistently, with mods described by only one letter. But I feel that this would be too obscure here and "CurlAWideSym" is much more readable after all.

I've used ANS instead of ANSI to cater for my "OCD tendencies": I edit that code a lot and having it be exactly three characters long everywhere helps me. Honestly though, I don't get how "American National Standard" can be hard to understand if "American National Standards Institute" is easy...!

The KeyMapper is advanced territory. There is a Help button there that hopefully explains what it's about, but it is in fact a complex topic. Luckily, most users don't actually need to change single key mappings – and it's still better than just figuring out how to do it from inside the .ini files I should think!

Any further suggestions beyond fleshing out the keyboard type and mod battery descriptions?

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