Keyboard shortcuts

[tomzx]

I'm a keyboard kind of guy.

I think it would be awesome if we could quickly use the keyboard to navigate through the interface.

Common shortcuts:

• Add item under currently selected item
• Delete current item
• Edit current item
• Navigate the tree/graph

My favorite/suggested keyboard shortcut library is https://craig.is/killing/mice.

[nanch]

Good suggestion on the keyboard shortcut library.

[Steve Hazel]

I'd also want shortcuts for:

• Switch between view and edit modes
• Cycle the node size between compact, expanded, and exclusive
• Increase/decrease the filter level
• Modify the node

Any thoughts on how navigating to a child (outward-linked) node should work? There may be many child nodes and these nodes will change along with the filter level and also due to the passage of time.

I'd like a navigation scheme that avoids having to cursor around as much as possible. Maybe something like assigning a number between 1 and 9 to the nodes in a consistent (say clock-wise) sequence. Any thoughts?

[tomzx]

Any thoughts on how navigating to a child (outward-linked) node should work? There may be many child nodes and these nodes will change along with the filter level and also due to the passage of time. I'd like a navigation scheme that avoids having to cursor around as much as possible. Maybe something like assigning a number between 1 and 9 to the nodes in a consistent (say clock-wise) sequence. Any thoughts?

I'd put the parent node over the current node, with the up key as the shortcut. Then, clockwise, items would be numbered 0-9. If there are more than 10 items, the 11th item has a + (or something else) displayed, which upon being clicked, will restart the 0-9 count from this node, clockwise again.

An other solution would be to split the children of the current node into 3 groups, such that the user would navigate to one of these using the left, down and right keys. Thus, for groups of more than 3 items, one would have to do something like left - right, or left - left - left - left - ... - left if there's a lot of items (this is basically a binary-search, or if you prefer a ternary-search).

I don't think either are extremely intuitive, but both should work!

[Steve Hazel]

Yeah, it doesn't have to be perfect right away. Can try both of these methods and more later on.

I'm partial to keeping my hands on home-row rather than shifting over to the arrow keys, but arrows are nice as dedicated keys. Thankfully software is flexible!

[Steve Hazel]

I've added rough keypad-based navigation to the cluster here for testing: https://benome.ca/decisions/

Numlock needs to be on for the keypad to work. 5 goes "up" a level while the other numbers navigate in their general direction.

Right now it won't work well if there's more than 8 child nodes and/or the nodes are at ambiguous angles. And obviously the remaining numpad keys can be mapped to other functionality.

I also added home-row navigation centered on "k" which is the same 5 on the numpad.

[tomzx]

This is pretty awesome :+1:.

Can the next one be filter level with -/+?

[Steve Hazel]

New keys:

• Alt + Numpad 5: Shortcut to root
• Numpad 0: Add a new child node and navigate to it
• Alt + Numpad 0: Add a new sibling node and navigate to it
• Numpad Decimal: Delete the focused node and navigate to parent
• Numpad Enter: Add a new point/event for the current focus
• Numpad Plus: Narrow the filter (zoom in)
• Numpad Minus: Widen the filter (zoom out)
• Numpad Asterix: Edit current focus (esc to cancel, main enter to save)
• Numpad Slash: Toggle size of focus

Thoughts so far:

• 90% of the way to a simple mind-mapper or outliner
• When the filter is on, compressed nodes should be skipped
• Would be nice to navigate to next/previous sibling
• Shortcut to maximum/minimum filter level (max/min zoom) would be nice
• Cursor/selection capability would be nice (modifier + numpad number)
• Now need keyboard support for everything else!