Jol,
My productivity is adversely impacted because when I switch gears, the keys - limited by single character - are short in supply. So, I have to painstakingly decide which keys I haven't used lately, decide whether to do it and get over it, edit my cheat sheet, and hope that my next ad-hoc work flow is not going to need a key i pitched out.
If I could peck in tri, that is a heck of a lot easier to recall than t or T for trimming, especially if many other shortcuts for full-word commands have a t or T in the spoken word. So, very, VERY quickly, the mind is banging against the desk trying to create mnemonics to suppress the fact that too few keystrokes exist for the multi-syllable and mono-syllable commands.
It also could lead VCP/Shark to a new level of shortcut use: delayed entry/quasi-script-like scripts.
Say, I want to string a number of shortcuts, and I know that trim and sweep have different subfunctions or sub-options. I could hit my well-rehearsed command of 3 or four letters, hit a hyphen (instead of assigning hyphen to a command because I ran out of of keyboard keys), type the second command or sub function, and hit enter or use my mouse. Now, with the mouse near relevant geometry, only specific, reasonable, or workable commands might work, and this could tie in with the one-step-further suggestion made by TEM.
Single-key commands are fine if your commands or tools available do not exceed the number of keys on the keyboard. But, even if i have 200 keys on the keyboard, many of them have no comprehensible associativity to them. One may as well have a separate generic keypad or palette with stick-on keys. But, why buy an extra external device with two commands per key limit. That would clutter up the desk if reference docs are lying about.
As a touch typist, I can hit the keys for the commands I need. Typing in 3 or 4 letter combos of my own choosing (that can or will overried factory defaults) is nothing but the flick of the wrist for one hand in many cases. My left hand can issue commands while my right hand moves or extends geometry, and maybe I could even get out of right-clicking except to look at clicked-on geometry's properties. But, if I have to hit Shift and start fidgeting to recall that one-letter key, I end up taking my hand off the mouse to physically force recall of that key. Multi stroke commands on a single key just follows the spoken first syllable or two. Might even eliminate using the shift key in some cases, if it is aware of the caps-lock key.
Finally, periodically changing laptops and adding a new, more compact external keyboard wreaks havoc on my mind-mapping of keys. I have on my compact keyboard some insane key arrangement because that is how the makers of it mapped the letters and home/arrow keys. So, now I cannot efffectively use it. Mentally, I know on my laptop, the + key is in two places. But, the compact external keyboard has its second + key under a function, and the tacticle feel feedback is lacking. So, having a VCP function on the + key means a new drag on my issuing of a command. Why should symbols that are not part of spoken words be resorted to because all the single-letter alphabet keys (that cannot possibly serve all the available command or even three of them without shifted and unshifted keys) are taken up?
Unless there is a very, very expensive patent encumbrance in the way, there is no Human Factors negating reason to constrain users to single-letter commands when facing or when overwhelmed by 200+ commands. Only 26 letters in Engish, and 52 if shifting. If I ignore non-alpha symbols, how would I get on without 2/3/4-letter keystrokes to issue a command.
Sorry this is so long, but I am passionate about this, and there can be a way to avoid patent issues if a preponerance of prior art is gathered and shoved into the faces of any company trying to badger Punch!/Encore around.
Thanks for reading all this if you got this far.
