Is there a cheatsheet somewhere that has all of the keyboard shortcuts? Two that I am looking for in particular are to jump between Binder and the viewer; and second, to jump between splits.
Also, the ability to get to the Notes pane and then back to the main editor viewer would be handy.
So, three – so far.
There’s no easy way of doing this. The problem is that Cocoa’s responder system is based on tabbing/alt-tabbing between views, which obviously gets scuppered in the case of a text view, where tabbing has a completely different meaning. It would involved creating menu items such as “Put focus in document view” with dedicated shortcuts, which is a bit of an ugly solution.
If you know of any app that handles using keyboard shortcuts to move between text views in a graceful way, let me know, and I will take a look to see if I can do something similar, as I agree that this would be nice. Obviously it will be a low priority, though.
Actually Ulysses is one. Cmd-Opt-UpArrow toggles between the main text edit view and the Notes view. Cmd-Opt-DownArrow does the same, but when in the Notes view, jumps down to the meta-data area allow you to title the document. When a split is open, the DownArrow one will also get you into that from the meta-data view. There is no way to go straight between splits though – an oversight in my opinion.
Thanks, I hadn’t noticed that. I’ll take a look. No promises for the next beta, mind.
Huh. This doesn’t work for me. And I can’t see these shortcut arrows defined in a menu anywhere…
What version of Ulysses are you running? It was added relatively recently. My version is 1.2.2r2
Same here. Hmm. Are the shortcuts in the menu for you? I’m on a laptop, but the arrow keys should work the same… Strange.
Ahem. blushes Okay, I just woke up. I changed the original response to have the actual keyboard shortcuts. Silly, I was even pressing them the whole time testing the behaviour so I could describe it accurately. Ha.
Ah, cool. Huh - why aren’t they in the menus? That’s a little strange. If I implement it, they’ll probably go in a Navigation submenu in the View menu. I firmly believe that all commands should be available through the menu; even if you never access them that way, it means you can use the men for a handy reference - the “cheatsheet” you mentioned to start with.
Yeah, I don’t know why they kept that feature so low-key. Like you said, it is not documented anywhere that I know of except in the release notes. I’m of the same camp: All things should have multiple, documented, access points. Some people cannot stand to memorise keyboard shortcuts, and some people (like me) cannot stand to be clicking about. 
Right, I’ve implementes this as follows:
The shortcut keys are:
Shift-Cmd-Alt-I - navigate up
Shift-Cmd-Alt-K - navigate down
Shift-Cmd-Alt-J - navigate left
shift-Cmd-Alt-L - navigate right
I know those keys seem a bit weird, but I couldn’t use the arrow keys because they are already assigned to zoom with alt-cmd, and have other meanings within the views, and for some very strange reason you can’t assign the shift key modifier to an arrow key - so, for instance, shift-cmd-alt-up isn’t possible. (Yes, I know Ulysses has managed it, but I guess that’s why they didn’t do it through the menu - you can’t; they must have trapped the actual key strokes. I’d rather keep things through the mensu). My second choice would have been W, A, S and D - the up, down, left and right keys for most gamers. But then it appeared that A wouldn’t accept the modifiers I applied it. I have no idea why. So I went for something similar on the other side of the keyboard… Anyway, I’m sure you’ll get used to it… I may change it to O, K, L & ;, which is another old gamer standard, though. Anyway, it works like this:
Navigate up and down - only have any meaning in a horizontal split. They will take move you between the splits. In actual fact, both do exactly the same because there are only two views to navigate between.
Navigate left and right - navigate between the binder, the main document if there is only one document, the top document if there is a horizontal split, or through both it is a vertical split, and the notes or synopsis view.
Hope that works for people.
Actually, I think IJKL is good. Coming from the Vim world, it will take a little getting used to, because when I think “direction” with the left hand near the home row, I think Up/Down:J/K Left/Right:H/L.
But, I like it better than WASD because that one requires two hands to move. IJKL only requires the left hand to move to the modifier keys, the right hand can stay right on the homekey position (OKL;) would require a shift over to the right. WASD would require a left shift with the left hand, and a right jump to the modifiers with the right hand.
Thanks, this will be very useful.
i am truly sorry to be so dense but i am trying to use the keyboard shortcuts (I, J, K, L) to navigate with a mac usb keyboard and do not understand how to effect an “alt” key on a mac mini.
again, am sorry but i do not understand and am trying very hard to use scrivener beta (1.0 RC b1) and make it work for me
thanks
rich
Hi Richard, actually you won’t be able to use these keyboard shortcuts just yet because the beta of Scrivener that is out at the moment is beta 1, and these shortcuts are only available in beta 2, which won’t be out for a couple of weeks - so you’re not being dense, they just don’t work yet.
All the best,
Keith
Thank you Amber for raising this and Keith, once again, for immediately implementing this. I had the same exact question. The ability to use key commands to navigate between the text entry view and the notes view will be VERY helpful. Moving between these two panes is crucial for my workflow. Actually having split vertical panes, each with a separate document, along with a fully sized note view, available at all times is crucial. It will absolutely transform the way I write. Or will finally give me an application that allows me to write the way I want to without cumbersome workarounds to achieve exactly what Scrivener will deliver straight up - this is the writing tool I have fantasized about. The fact that Keith has added the possiiblity of “locking” one of the panes when split, regardless of where you click in the Binder is also an important improvement. It looks like the new beta will be extraordinary.