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Re: Why are <next> and <prior> not called <page down> and <page up>?


From: Lennart Borgman
Subject: Re: Why are <next> and <prior> not called <page down> and <page up>?
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:19:39 +0200
User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 (Windows/20060719)

Drew Adams wrote:
    >     > <prior> and <next> are standard names, which means that users
    >     > can find things out about them (e.g. Google).
    >
    >     Are you seriously saying that it is more simple to find
    >     something about
    >     the usage of these keys if you use "next" than "page down"?
    >
    > Well, I don't know whether it is easier to search for one or
    > the other. The point is that one is a standard name, so _if_
    > you can find doc on it then you have found doc about many things
    > (e.g. apps) involving that key.

    Can you please explain what standard you refer to?

Didn't Stefan mention X11?
Thanks, but then we are talking about different levels. You refer to a technical level. I am more interested in what the user sees, the physical keyboard. I think it is easier to understand and remember for users if we refer to the physical keyboard. This is also very standard today.

    Are they not mostly called "left arrow" etc? Talking about them
    together as just "up, down, left, right" makes it rather easy to
    understand I guess. At least that was the case for me.

And yet you had trouble getting from Page Down to Next?
Yes, absolutely.

To be clear, we need to give them unique names. And since they already have
unique names, from the standard, why not use those? And, then, why use those
standard names in some cases but not in others?
Of course we should use good standard technical names internally. I guess X11 is good for this since Stefan mentioned it. But for communication with the users refering to the physical keyboard is in my opinion better.

Having different names is a bit complex of course, but I do not believe it can be more simple than that (and you have given good reasons for that).

It's the signal sent by the physical key that's important, no? How can you
even tell if your keyboard has an `prior' key - do you just look for a Page
Up label? That might not be sufficient, depending on what that key is mapped
to.
No problem on a standard pc I guess.




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