Keyboard navigation: a new prototype

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Yakov

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Jul 18, 2025, 3:51:10 PMJul 18
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Hello everyone,

recently I figured that I really want to implement some nice keyboard navigation (aside the JumpKeysPlugin) while keeping an eye on accessibility, too. That proved to be a long-term project, but I think I now have a prototype that can be helpful, so let me share it:


I'm not 100% satisfied about the behavior on tiddler click (sometimes scrolling to the title is not convenient, so I'll be thinking about when to prevent it), but other than that (and maybe the selected tiddler styling), it looks to me as a good candidate to be included into the future core versions.

Let me know if you find it helpful or if you have any objections to adding similar functionality to the core.

Best regards,
Yakov

Yakov

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Sep 6, 2025, 8:11:15 AM (8 days ago) Sep 6
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Just want to point that the plugin got much more mature, now there are scopes (global/tiddlerEdit/tiddlerFocus) for commands, and one can set different hotkeys for those scopes (as an example of a global command, there's an implementation of saveChanges command, which can substitute SaveByHotKeyPlugin). Various other features were added, like ctrl+↑/↓ to jump between edit fields, esc to move focus from an in-tiddler element to the tiddler itself, etc.

There's still a lot to do (for instance, support of edit context commands, so that one can "ctrl+b to wrap selected text with ''...''", or means to quickly navigate between "areas" like backstage, main menu, or tiddlers), but it already makes my user experience much more pleasant, so you may want to give it a try.

(by the way, I've also updated YourSearchPlugin to make it compatible with DarkModePlugin and KNP)

пятница, 18 июля 2025 г. в 22:51:10 UTC+3, Yakov:

Roma

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Sep 10, 2025, 5:14:17 AM (4 days ago) Sep 10
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Dear Yakov,
Many thanks. I still find this kind of plugin very useful as it is related to productivity. I could try KeyboardNavPrototype, so here are my comments.
  • I love the keyboard access to menu commands (edit, cancel, focus, etc.) or fields in a tiddler. [Shift+Tab], [Tab] to reverse the cycle or go to fields in a tiddler, [Esc] to shift menu access / fields in a tiddler.
  • I use a lot JumpKeysPlugin. Both plugins are companions.
  • I didn't catch the focus trick. ctrl+↑/↓ just puts me page up or down. Since for first release I never could find FocusTiddlerPlugin (the reason why I didn't comment). I use CollapseTiddlersPlugin.
  • [Ctrl+Shift+d] or [d] just proposes me to suppress the tiddler when in edit mode, otherwise nothing.
  • I use TW almost always in "Tab mode" (TiddlersBarPlugin). This is why JumpKeysPlugin is, somewhat, more useful for me. But yes, the possibility to access commands, panels (areas)... was missing.
May be I forgot some comments. I will let you know in this case. I am very enthousiastic! I wish you the best...
Roma -

Yakov

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Sep 13, 2025, 9:50:19 AM (21 hours ago) Sep 13
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Hi Roma, thanks for the feedback!

The ctrl+↑/↓ are set to do 2 types of navigation:
1. If you select a tiddler (for instance, by clicking on it, but not on a button or an input inside it), it shifts selection to the next/prev tiddler;
2. If an input is in focus (for instance, an editor of title/text/tags), it shifts focus to the next editor. This was done primarily because with chkInsertTabs: true, you can't navigate out of text editor (as tab/shift+tab are "blocked").

> [Ctrl+Shift+d] or [d] just proposes me to suppress the tiddler when in edit mode, otherwise nothing.
Not sure what you mean by "suppress", doesn't it delete the tiddler?

среда, 10 сентября 2025 г. в 12:14:17 UTC+3, Roma:
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