Questions tagged [keyboard-shortcuts]
key combinations that allow quick access to certain functionality, often used for power users or command line interfaces.
141
questions
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82 views
Is there a standard keyboard only method of removing focus from all HTML form inputs?
When navigating an HTML form using Tab, a properly designed form will allow that all interactive elements are accessible and focusable, but how does one break out of the focus using the keyboard?
...
1
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1answer
35 views
Idiom for global shortcuts on mobile devices
I have a mobile web app and there are two different modes for viewing content and the user may frequently toggle between them. I'd like to provide a very convenient way for the user to request this ...
0
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1answer
16 views
How to implement keyboard shortcut modes in a complex, paneled application?
My application is a fairly complex desktop app (for Windows) and looks like this:
(other than the image obfuscation and the numbered bullets, which I added as annotations just for this question).
So ...
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1answer
28 views
How to best display Shortcut Keys on Windows app?
I'm building an app which offers a standard workflow: the user selects or enters the name of a Source file, then a Destination file, then sets or generates a password, and hits the Go button to ...
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1answer
51 views
Video game main menu tab navigation mapping for PC
The tab navigation menu is very common for console video games. It is usually mapped on LB/RB buttons (Xbox).
I wonder what would be the most intuitive mapping for PC keyboard?
In Windows, this ...
2
votes
2answers
51 views
In a Desktop application, should the recent file list placed directly in the file menu
A desktop tool mostly offers recent files. I am used to press Alt+F and then 1 to open the first recent files. It seems that I learned it from Notepad++. I thought it was a "platform convention&...
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1answer
39 views
Browser shortcuts statistics
Im looking for some statistical data about using shortcuts in Chrome or any other browser. What users use the most and the least? haven't found anything on the web, anyone got an idea where can I get ...
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0answers
160 views
Shortcut Key for OK Button on Dialog Box with Grid
In a desktop app, I have dialog boxes that contain one or more small grids, various other simple controls, as well as the usual OK/Cancel buttons. Grids pose a problem to the usual use of Enter as a ...
0
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1answer
85 views
Which event type is preferable for keyboard interactions, “key up” or “key down”?
When implementing keyboard interactions, platforms provide two kinds of event: "key up" and "key down". For example:
The browser provides keyup and keydown.
macOS provides NSEvent....
1
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1answer
22 views
Is there a specification for OS-default mouse and keyboard text navigation and selection behavior?
On desktop platforms, each OS has a (relatively similar) set of behavior for text input navigation and selection. Some simple things include moving the cursor left, right, up, and down when tapping ...
2
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1answer
55 views
What to focus on after row deletion
I'm designing the keyboard navigation for a table/grid. Each row in the grid has a "delete this row" button. After a button is activated and the current focused parent row of the button is deleted, ...
2
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1answer
83 views
Correct Terminology for windows: keyboard preferences
This is a UX/documentation issue combined with a "what the heck" windows issue; hopefully this is the right place to post it, I couldn't find a stackexchange site focused on documentation.
In my ...
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1answer
97 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
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1answer
105 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
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1answer
104 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 ...
1
vote
2answers
265 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
197 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
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1answer
76 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..." ...
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2answers
76 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 ...
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vote
2answers
280 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 ...
1
vote
3answers
180 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 ...
7
votes
3answers
573 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
225 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 ...
0
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2answers
260 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
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1answer
236 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
301 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 ...
57
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
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1answer
87 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
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1answer
83 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 ...
2
votes
2answers
338 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
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2answers
92 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 (...
7
votes
1answer
8k 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
641 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
305 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 ...
69
votes
4answers
11k 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
102 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
207 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
1k 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
173 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
186 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 ...
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2answers
97 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
81 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
112 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
426 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
123 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
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4answers
456 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
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0answers
48 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
63 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
184 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 ...
