Improve help menu '?' UX

[abitrolly]

The UX for newcomers can be improved with a few interface improvements.

? - when pressing it, the menu appears, awesome

? - when pressing it again in the new menu, it looks like scrolling or something. Holup - there is no scrolling - it is just some content in the window being replaced with other content. Weird. An improvement to that could be.

• ? key closes the menu

When the menu is active, PgUp and PgDown scrolls some window on the background. What?

• PgUp/PgDown scrolls menu contents

Looks like all menu items fit the window. Or not?

• menu contains indication that scrolling is possible

Whoa! It appears that there are different menus for different windows, so these are context dependent, but the title is always the same - -Menu-.

• menu title shows where it belongs

[jesseduffield]

These are all sensible suggestions. The pgup/pgdown thing is tricky: we have a convention at the moment for , and . to page up and down, and pgup/pgdown handles scrolling in the main panel. If I could start again, I would do it the other way around, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea to change the default now given how many users would be accustomed to the existing configuration

[ChrisMcD1]

/close

Modern ? menu is much better on most of these issues.
? to open, <esc> to close. We have Local and Global keybindings separated out into sections, so you can get a sense of what is going on. The scrollbar appears at the correct time. The pgup/pgdown improvement seems like a wont-fix since it would break existing expectations. I personally scroll with j and k and that feels very natural. You can even search with / which limits the need for much scrolling in normal use if you temporarily forget a keybinding.

[abitrolly]

@ChrisMcD1

Modern ? menu is much better on most of these issues.

Is there specific ? menu you are referencing? Or do you mean currrent lazygit manu?

? to open, to close.

Right hand to open and left hand to close. How it that much better than not even thinking about hitting another key?

We have Local and Global keybindings separated out into sections.

👍

The scrollbar appears at the correct time.

Not sure what the scrollbar problem was.

The pgup/pgdown improvement seems like a wont-fix since it would break existing expectations.

Expectations or preferences?

I personally scroll with j and k and that feels very natural.

I am glad for you are satisfied with vim support, but why close the ticket?

[abitrolly]

Breaking changes are announced, so as long as new defaults match people preferences, it is okay to break things,

[abitrolly]

Tried new version. Can't not exit vim bug is resurfaced as Can't scroll help window. There should be at least hint and the bottom when PgUp/PgDn malfunction.

[ChrisMcD1]

@abitrolly The main reason this ticket was closed was its age. When I sat down yesterday, we had around 750 open issues, and as of right now we are down to 700. Having that many issues open makes it nearly impossible for contributors to realize what thing should actually be worked on. So far, you're the first to object to their issue being closed! Thanks for continuing to use the project.

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In response to your questions:

Is there specific ? menu you are referencing? Or do you mean currrent lazygit manu?

The ? menu I am referring to is the "Keybindings" menu that we are opening in these screenshots.

Right hand to open and left hand to close. How it that much better than not even thinking about hitting another key?

All popup menus in LazyGit close using the <esc> key, so most users instinctively will hit that when trying to close a popup. Having a one-off closing keystroke for this particular popup doesn't seem intuitive.

Not sure what the scrollbar problem was.

Neither am I 😅 probably some bug from a few years ago.

Tried new version. Can't not exit vim bug is resurfaced as Can't scroll help window

You should also be able to scroll with your default arrow keys <down> and <up>

It sounds like the one outstanding behavior you would like to see changed, the behavior of PgUp and PgDown. Could you please create a new issue specifically about that behavior so that it can be on the top of the maintainers mind?