It would be very nice to have a F1 thru F12 button bar, which can be used with keyboard modifiers (button click over 'F5' while 'Alt' pressed should give 'Alt-F5', and so on). Also, button captions should change according to the pressed key modifiers, showing the actual action/comand performed, even for reassigned keys. This way, if I have reassigned the 'F1' key to 'cm_RereadSource', then the F1 caption should read "Reread Source" or just "Reread" (this may be accomplished by having a "short caption" together with the "long description" we already know for commands). Note that this implementation would be useful also as a shortcut reference or hints: You don't remember if the Alt-F11 is already assigned or which command does it actually perform? Just press Alt and the caption over the F-11 key will be shown. You get the short caption and, if you need the full name for the command (long description and maybe even the cm_xxx internal name), just hover the mouse cursor over the button and it is shown. Additionally, these F-keys/buttons could be reassigned by the use of the right mouse button together with the modifiers (thus, a right click-Edit over the F11 button with 'Alt' pressed could edit the 'Alt-F11' button assignment).The toolbar could be displayed as follows (at the beginning of the line, a static caption can show the currently pressed modifier(s)):
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[F1-Help ] [F2-Rename ] [F3-View ] ... [F11-XX ] [F12-YY ]
Alt - [F1-Chg L ] [F2-Chg Rght ] [F3-Ext View] ... [F11- ] [F12-Alt YY]
Shft- [F1-Cust Col] [F2-Cmpr Dirs] ...
Ctrl- [F1-Brief ] [F2-Full ] ...
AlSh- ... (Alt+Shift)
ASC - ... (Alt+Shift+Ctrl)
...With this behaviour, the user could have much more functionality than today, while making it easier to recall and assign these commands.
