Proposal for Implementing Keyboard Shortcuts and Menu Access Keys

[kjrstory]

I propose the implementation of keyboard shortcuts and menu access keys to enhance the usability of baram. Please refer to the image below.

Firstly, access keys enable direct access to submenus by pressing Alt+ the first letter of each menu item. For instance, pressing Alt+F will display the submenu under File as shown in the image.

Shortcuts facilitate direct actions. For example, Ctrl+N, Ctrl+O, Ctrl+S, and Ctrl+Q are set to perform specific actions. Pressing Ctrl+N will have the same effect as clicking File->New.

Access keys can be easily added in the UI file by including an ampersand (&) before the relevant letter in the menu item names. Setting up shortcuts involves adding a few lines of code (likely less than 20 lines) in the main_window.py file, such as:

self._ui.actionNew.setShortcut('Ctrl+N')

The functionality of these proposals has been confirmed by modifying the actual files. If this proposal sounds good, I am ready to make PRs to both baramMesh and Flow.

[jiban]

That sounds good. Please go on. Thank you for your interest in BARAM.

Jake

[kjrstory]

I only applied shortcut keys for frequently used main menu commands. (PR #73) But, shortcut keys are also required for commands other than the main menu, and if there are shortcut keys that overlap with other shortcut keys or better shortcut keys for each command, I would like to leave this issue open for suggestions. The shortcut keys reflected so far are summarized as follow

Shortcuts

• baramMesh

Command	Shortcut
New Project	Ctrl+N
Open Project	Ctrl+O
Save Project	Ctrl+S
Exit Program	Ctrl+Q
Set Parallel Environment	Ctrl+P
Set Language	Ctrl+L

• baramFlow

Command	Shortcut
Save Project	Ctrl+S
Save as Project	Ctrl+A
Close Project	Ctrl+E
Exit Program	Ctrl+Q
Set Parallel Environment	Ctrl+P
Set Language	Ctrl+L
Open ParaView	Ctrl+V