Keyboard shortcuts
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.
Comments (8)
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reporter - edited description
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repo owner 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?
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reporter 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!
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repo owner 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!
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repo owner 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.
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reporter This is pretty awesome :+1:.
Can the next one be filter level with -/+?
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repo owner 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!
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Good suggestion on the keyboard shortcut library.