43s status

[Bit]

(01-01-2015 07:38 PM)brouhaha Wrote:  

(01-01-2015 04:47 PM)Bit Wrote:  I think it'd make sense to name and label the menu keys (M1-6 perhaps?) so they can be more easily referred to.

There's an existing calculator documentation convention (since 1986) that the soft menu keys are referred to by the name of the function they perform at the time, typographically represented as an image of the the dot-matrix legend as it appears on the display.

I have a strong preference for NOT having any legends on those keys. IMO, such legends don't add anything but clutter and confusion. The actual position of the key isn't helpful in documentation, as that can shift from one firmware version to another, or when certain programs are loaded. Also referring to a menu function by name rather than e.g. F4 is better because F4 won't do the right thing unless you're at the right menu. The documentation can give a sequence like "TRIG g ACOSH" (with ACOSH shown as a soft menu item), and that is much more useful than stating it as "TRIG g F4".

That convention makes perfect sense in those contexts where there's no uncertainty about the menus that are or can be displayed, e.g. in some finished documentation. However, some nomenclature is required in order to refer to the keyboard or to the menus themselves, in a meta context if you like.

Having labels on those keys wouldn't prevent the documentation from using the sensible method you described. Nor would it prevent anyone, who knows what they're doing, from understanding that "TRIG g ACOSH" means push e.g. F4 once in the TRIG menu. But if they're confused and you're trying to help, it's useful if you can simply tell them it's F4, rather than having to say something like "the third unlabeled key from the right in the top row". If there are no labels on the keys, people will come up with ad-hoc and inconsistent names whenever there's a practical need to refer to a physical key instead of a soft function.