gui-click-over-keyboard

name	gui-click-over-keyboard
description	When to prefer GUI mouse clicks over keyboard shortcuts — especially for formatting, multi-step visual tasks, and cross-application workflows.

Prefer GUI Clicks for Visual & Formatting Tasks

Keyboard shortcuts are fast for simple operations, but many desktop tasks require direct GUI interaction via mouse clicks. Defaulting to keyboard-only approaches is a common failure mode.

Always use GUI clicks for:

1. LibreOffice Impress formatting

• Font color, size, bold/underline: select text by clicking/dragging, then click toolbar buttons or use Format > Character menu
• Slide background color: right-click slide > Slide Properties > Background tab > pick color from the color chooser
• Object alignment/positioning: click the object to select, then drag or use Position and Size dialog (F4)
• Multi-slide operations: click each slide in the panel, apply changes per-slide — no reliable keyboard-only path

2. Cross-application (multi_apps) workflows

• Switch windows by clicking taskbar icons — Alt+Tab ordering is unreliable
• Copy-paste across apps requires clicking into the target window and field first
• File browser dialogs: click through the folder tree or type the path in the location bar
• When coordinating data between Calc/Writer/Impress/Chrome: click into each app, visually confirm the data, then proceed

3. GIMP canvas operations

• Layer selection: click the layer in the Layers panel — keyboard shortcuts only cycle layers
• Color picking and area selection: must click on canvas coordinates
• Tool options (brush size, opacity): click the sliders or input fields in the tool options panel

4. Color and style pickers

• Color choosers in any app require clicking the color grid or entering hex values in a text field
• Style dropdowns (font family, paragraph style): click the dropdown arrow, then click the option
• These UI elements have no keyboard-only alternative

When keyboard shortcuts ARE appropriate:

• Ctrl+S to save, Ctrl+Z to undo, Ctrl+C/V to copy/paste
• Ctrl+A to select all content
• Typing text into an already-focused text field
• Opening known menus (Alt+F for File menu) as a starting point, then clicking menu items
• Terminal/command-line tasks (os domain)

Rule of thumb

If the task involves visual properties (color, position, size, alignment) or multiple applications, plan for heavy GUI clicking. Count your clicks — if your plan has fewer than 5 clicks for a formatting task, you are probably missing steps.