Questions tagged [keyboard-shortcuts]
key combinations that allow quick access to certain functionality, often used for power users or command line interfaces.
130
questions
1
vote
1answer
57 views
Setting a shortcut to change focus to a different section in a web app?
Let's say you have a web app with 3 sections. A left nav menu, a toolbar/settings section, and a main application area. Most of the time, the user will be engaging directly with the application, and ...
0
votes
1answer
72 views
Behavior of Tab in a form
Is there a case where it makes sense to use Tab to trigger a search with a long form of search criteria?
I work on complex applications in the medical field and the dev team wants to go from hitting ...
0
votes
1answer
70 views
Understand if user needs an undo and redo button always visible on the UI
So we have an app where users can undo or redo their changes using the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Shift + Z. There is no button available on the UI for them to do this. Only the keyboard ...
0
votes
2answers
96 views
Popups default focus on button - best practice
Do we need to auto focus on any one of the buttons inside a popup? Since, some users prefer keyboard to interact with the application.
For example: Confirmation popups in destructive actions like ...
1
vote
2answers
114 views
Can Alt key alone be used as a modifier in web apps? Eg: alt + >, alt + k, alt + a
I am working on a chat application and it is a web app. I tried mapping few keyboard shortcuts to Alt + modifier in Windows. To my knowledge, I didn't find any application using only Alt as a modifier....
0
votes
1answer
41 views
How should I bind the “Save as…” option in my application if I have multiple of such options?
I'm writing an application to edit behaviour trees. The application has individual trees, but also a collection of all of the trees in our application. I have a toolbar which has two "Save as..." ...
2
votes
2answers
72 views
Need an interface for rapid selection without losing focus on primary task
In my application, the user needs to listen to a transcript of a conversation while taking notes. But the user ALSO needs to be able to indicate in some way when the speaker changes.
I have the note ...
1
vote
2answers
59 views
Windows: is there a common hot key to favorite an item?
As per title: I have a list with "favorite" markers for its items, I want to add a keyboard shortcut to toggle the favorite status of an item.
is there any typical keyboard assignment in commonly ...
0
votes
1answer
114 views
Keyboard Shortcut For “Delay”
I'm currently building a web application which does task management.
A very common function is to "delay" the current task, which means it will be postponed until some point in the future. There's ...
4
votes
3answers
272 views
Is there a universally recognizable, OS agnostic glyph for the Super key?
The reason I'm asking is trivial, but I can't come up with a better place to ask.
I bought a keyboard that has Super keys with the vendor logo printed on them.
I've been meaning to replace them with ...
0
votes
1answer
31 views
Keyboard shortcut to activate speech recognition
Is there any kind of standard keyboard shortcut to activate speech recognition in a web application? If not I'd be interested in what people think about adopting "Alt + S"? Or better ideas. This would ...
1
vote
0answers
37 views
Global keyboard shortcut override conflicts for power users
Working on a Windows desktop tray application which listens to a global keyboard shortcut and provides a data readout from a device and sends the numbers (data) as key strokes to the application in ...
0
votes
2answers
85 views
Override browser shortcuts
The company that I work for is suggesting that we override browser shortcut CTRL + S in our single page app to apply changes (save). It's a complex editor so autosave would not work for this ...
2
votes
1answer
153 views
Why are the j and k keys associated with forward/back, respectively and why not vice versa?
This is a multiple-part question:
Why is it common to see the j and k keys implemented respectively as forward and backward navigation in web apps? I think it because of Bill Joy's work on vi and the ...
4
votes
4answers
257 views
“Cut and Paste” in a tree structure
I am working on a web app that provides a visual programming environment to generate 3D models - Mobius
It involves creating a scripts by adding lines of coding and just editing parameters. We are ...
56
votes
9answers
13k views
Is capturing known keyboard shortcuts such as F5 a bad UX?
I have a website that has an editable table with data in it.
Is capturing F5 to refresh data (with clear notification that the data was refreshed) instead of refreshing the entire page bad user ...
0
votes
1answer
85 views
Keyboard shortcuts as Numbers
I have read so many articles but am not getting exact answer what am looking for to implement. I am trying to enhance desktop application usability through shortcuts however am short of alphabets for ...
2
votes
1answer
73 views
What is the name of the reveal-menu-bar-on-Alt interaction?
Firefox has the following interaction on the GNOME desktop (observed in Firefox ~55, GNOME ~3.26):
Starts with menu bar hidden
When you click Alt the menu bar appears [1] (and stays visible after the ...
1
vote
2answers
241 views
Keyboard shortcuts for special zoom mode
I'm designing an editing program (Mac/Windows) that has a slightly unusual scheme for zooming and controlling the mouse cursor: a normal mode in which the cursor works normally, and a special mode in ...
0
votes
2answers
69 views
Keyboard shortcuts for viewing the previous/next image
I'm building a free (FOSS) image viewing application and would like for the user to be able to control both the panning of the image as well as changing to the previous or next image via the keyboard (...
4
votes
1answer
5k views
Why were Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y chosen as undo/redo shortcuts?
Is there a reason why some keyboard shortcuts are chosen?
Specifically, ControlZ and ControlY. Sometimes I happen to switch from a QWERTY keyboard to a QWERTZ keyboard. Apart from the time it takes ...
0
votes
2answers
320 views
What's the appropriate windows equivalent for command-enter?
I use command-enter key sequences in applications like slack and gmail often and find them very helpful.
I'd like a user to be able to submit a form in a web application I'm building with command-...
3
votes
2answers
297 views
Is there any UX study that explains and (dis?)proves the benefits of the Touch Bar on new MacBook Pros?
I am a programmer, UX designer, and love the semi-structured approach the touch bar has offered to user interfaces, especially when contrasted to the "anything goes, your finger is a mouse" design ...
67
votes
4answers
10k views
Are there any guidelines concerning the use of Alt, Ctrl and Shift keys?
I'm designing a complex product to be used in a professional setting, and I'd like to create keyboard shortcuts to the various functions. Are there any guidelines to help me decide when should I use ...
3
votes
2answers
100 views
Should a legacy app that uses universal shortcuts for non-standard functions change to more traditional keyboard shortcuts?
I have inherited code maintenance of a legacy app that has been used for 10+ years. We have a small group of users who use it and only 1 or 2 new ones each year, due to employee turnover etc.
One ...
6
votes
3answers
186 views
Is it acceptable for a keyboard shortcut settings system to be limited to English keyboard?
I am working on a plugin for an Integrated Development Environment which should be able to allow the user to set keyboard shortcuts in order to perform certain actions with ease. However I am having a ...
3
votes
1answer
846 views
How should a mouse-over-for-keyboard-shortcuts be designed?
Our toolbar has a keyboard icon on the right, which, when hovered over, displays a large keyboard reference tooltip. Clicking the icon opens the settings' dialog on the tab for keyboard bindings.
My ...
6
votes
3answers
169 views
Should <ctrl>+<shift>+<m> behave the same as <ctrl>+<m> with caps lock on?
This has just occurred to me after being confused about behaviour in vim until I noticed I had Caps Lock on.
On the one hand, <ctrl>+<shift>+<m> (lower case m) is the same as <...
3
votes
2answers
166 views
Should Escape immediately close an application?
My question comes directly from the fact that the popular RetroArch emulator uses Escape key to quit the whole application and, moreover, it's apparently a big source of drama for some.
It ...
1
vote
2answers
95 views
Making your interface completely keyboard navigable, Will it improve UX drastically?
I am developing an user management console interface, actually completed developing where in admin can add user, search user, filter user etc. currently it is not completely keyboard navigable.
So I ...
1
vote
1answer
73 views
How should I write keyboard chord within a sentance, in plain text
I would like to write out a keyboard shortcut in a sentence, in plain text. This could be in any font - monospaced, or not - but there is no text formatting (color, size, weight), dingbats, or ...
2
votes
1answer
78 views
keyboard based drag'n drop as preview or direct ?
I've got so far my drag'n drop indicating where the items will be dropped:
However, i have the same operations available through keyboard shortcuts, ie: ALT + Arrow-Keys. But the keyboard variant ...
2
votes
1answer
347 views
“Link”, “Alias” or “Create shortcut” in WP Media Library
Introduction
Here you can see a folder structure within a media library (Wordpress). Now, I want to make it very userfriendly to make it possible, that a file can be in multiple folders. The user ...
0
votes
1answer
116 views
Access keys vs Single key press on a web page
Usually, keyboard shortcuts on a web page are created using access keys. Now I'd like to avoid the traditional way and instead use single key presses instead. This can be done by using the Mousetrap ...
2
votes
0answers
39 views
Free object movement keyboard shortcut [closed]
In many graphic and writing tools there snapping grids and other constraints which block the user to move graphic objects to unwanted positions or to help aligning objects to other objects.
In Linux (...
0
votes
4answers
286 views
How to indicate that there are keyboard shortcuts in a highly graphical UI?
Here's a screen in our desktop app. It has lots of keyboard shortcuts. How would I indicate to the user that these exist?
I considered a small "?" help button which pops up a window listing the ...
3
votes
0answers
45 views
On what basis should software developers opt for optional extensions/plugins to provide users with customisability options? [closed]
I refer to this article, describing Google's 'fix' for their previous reversal of the backspace key functionality in their Chrome browser, as an example of the type of scenario I'm asking about.
A ...
0
votes
1answer
60 views
Why does Ctrl+Tab behave differently in different programs? [closed]
In some programs such as IDEs/code editors, Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in the most recent order (and in Windows, Alt+Tab cycles through apps in the most recent order), whereas in web browsers and ...
1
vote
2answers
174 views
What level of default keyboard shortcuts should exist and how to assign them?
In my experience, to figure out keyboard shortucts is somewhat difficult. I can either leave them as defaults and learn those, or change all of them to how I see fit. There are all these obscure ...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
Keyboard hotkeys for direction + two clicks [slither.io]
I am using AutoHotKey to add hotkeys to slither.io. In this game player has two inputs:
Mouse click events (hold down LMB, release LMB, press RMB)
The direction to mouse pointer from center of the ...
3
votes
2answers
71 views
Proper Keyboard focus order for dynamic menus
I have a small modal-like pane that appear when a user clicks on or keyboard navigates to special filter input. This pane is full of buttons that indicate how the filter should properly act. While the ...
2
votes
4answers
212 views
Why don't mobile qwerty keyboards use keyboard shortcuts?
Desktop/laptop keyboards utilize shortcut via key combinations like Ctrl + V.
What don't mobile keyboards, like on Android and iOS, do this?
If we implement shortcut keys in mobile applications ...
1
vote
2answers
138 views
How do I reveal hidden hotkeys?
My application has many actions which can be used without using a hotkey, such as closing a tab. These actions are available in the menu bar where the hotkey for that action (Ctrl+W) is also listed.
...
3
votes
2answers
220 views
Should a web-based non-modal dialog prevent users from leaving it via keyboard access?
Say that a dialog is non-modal, meaning that a user can use the mouse to interact with elements outside of the dialog without closing it.
Does this also mean that the user should also be able to ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
Where should keyboard focus be after activating a button that brings up a non-modal dialog?
I have a button that shows a non-modal dialog, like this:
The "Show Symbol Picker" button brings up the symbol picker non-modal dialog. If the button is pressed again, the dialog stays open, and ...
18
votes
4answers
4k views
How to expose the keyboard shortcuts of a web application to the user?
I just added some basic keyboard shortcuts to a small website I am developing. I am wondering what is the best way to expose these to the user?
I noticed that Gmail shows an overview if you press ?.
...
0
votes
3answers
140 views
Should desktop apps allow you to zoom in with ctrl +/-?
Web browsers and text-editors are the only desktop apps that come to mind which support zooming via ctrl + + / - / 0 or (cmd + + / - / 0) shortcuts. Why is this? Should my app / desktop apps in ...
3
votes
3answers
219 views
How to define shortcut keys for an application?
Are there any guidelines to defining shortcut keys for an application. I understand that these shouldn't contradict with OS level short cut keys but there are so many other applications and how can ...
3
votes
1answer
171 views
Shortcut to save a document?
With the offline programs the convention (at least in English) is to type Ctrl+S to save a document. However, in many online web(app)s the convention is to type Ctrl+Enter to submit the current form, ...
2
votes
0answers
126 views
Common keyboard shortcuts for formatting [closed]
I know that there are some almost universal formatting keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl-b for bold, Ctrl-i for italics, etc. What keyboard shortcuts would you recommend for preformatted text, (un)ordered ...
