Improve keyboard navigation, especially cancelling/closing popups using the "ESC" key

[moai]

Long time user of MW here, clocking in multiple hours per day of regular, intensive use.

So, one of my biggest bugbears is the number of times I need to reach for the mouse. When things are moving quickly, I like to keep my fingers on the keyboard as much as possible. Here is a short list of some examples of things that can be fixed/improved to make this rage-inducing annoyance go away:

• When there is a popup/modal/dialog window, one has to click the cancel button with the mouse to make it go away. "ESC" does not work on most modals (as it does on most PC apps). This is a frequent occurrence (several times per hour).
• With a cursor in focus inside a comment bubble or text box on a chart, "CTRL-V" will not paste text from your clipboard; it will instead paste some object in a random place on the chart that you might have copied to the clipboard previously. Instead, one has to reach for the mouse, right click, and click "paste". argh. CTRL-C similarly does not appear to work when selecting text to copy, again requiring a trip to the mouse.
• Keyboard shortcuts that I have re-assigned to something else often revert back to the previously assigned function. This occurs after restarting the app. Sometimes. Checking the keyboard shortcut preferences shows that the previously assigned function is no longer associated with the shortcut, however, so I simply relegate it to the status of an orphaned shortcut and use a different key combination. At some later time, the shortcut miraculously works again.

I could think up more, but the general theme here is that keyboard usability is really important for active traders and can make the difference between getting in on a trade or missing out because I had to reach for the mouse to click cancel on a popup that got in the way at the wrong time. A general sweep is needed through the whole app to make sure that things like the above points are not ruining the usability of an otherwise fantastic platform. One would hope that MW has a UX expert or three who is looking out for these type of things and giving them appropriate priority in the backlog.

 

[Tigger]

+1

Escape to cancel is 100% the most annoying interface bugbear in Motivewave. Really, how long does it take to link the Escape key to the cancel buttons? We're left with the feeling developers don't care.

I'm also a long time user and love the Motivewave product, but I really wish that Motivewave spent more time understanding customer frustrations. This user forum is like talking in a vacuum. They need better customer advocacy to engage loyal users.

 

[MidKnight]

As someone new to MW and just starting the trial, I was extremely disappointed to find this thread. Extremely extremely.

Hotkeys are so essential I have a dedicated xkeys specifically for easy and fast use of my trading packages. Hotkeys are absolutely essential and any platform lacking stability in this area just cannot be considered a serious alternative to my current trading platform.

ESC must be the common hotkey to get rid of annoying popups. Day trading is fast and requires razor sharp focus on what the market is doing. It doesn't help your customers to distract them to try and figure out how to close a popup with non-standard user interface responses.

Why is this area so weak? Why does the staff not see it is important to their customers?

 

[moai]

To be fair, the keyboard shortcuts are quite extensive and highly configurable. I have configured dozens of key bindings in the global settings and i have rarely wanted to do something there that couldn't be supported.

But then again, that is what makes little things like the ESC key that much more frustrating. So much work has been done to provide a powerful keyboard shortcut feature, but it is let down by a couple really silly (and easily fixed) shortcomings.