Let Me Specify Which Keys Do What

Scrivener Wish List
1

Hi all,

One of my biggest problems learning Scrivener has been remembering that different keys have different functions in different interface contexts. And I still routinely get some of them wrong. For instance – the behavior of the tab key in Corkboard view. I can never remember that tab moves to the next card, not a tab character in the text of the current card.

So here’s my blanket solution to this: A new Preference panel called “Keystrokes.” Here, the user can really customize their Scrivener user experience. Want the tab key to do what your mind naturally wants to think it does? No problem – much like the Keyboard preference pane in System Preferences, you simply click the little “+” sign to create a new key binding for a particular function (and by “function” I do not mean “menu items”; this is distinctly different idea, more in line with program behavior than anything else), or click on a current function to redefine it. Then simply press the key, choose from a (hopefully large) list of program and window behaviors, and you’re off.

This would solve a lot of problems for people who are always having trouble remembering what key to press to make Scrivener do X, or would be for people who find a lot of the current key bindings to be annoying (like me and the tab key in Corkboard). And of course, it would give everyone that much more ability to customize their Scrivener experience.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.

–A.H.

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The main thing to remember is that Scrivener’s keystrokes accord with the rest of OS X. If you are in a control such as an index card, then tab will take you to the next control, just as when you are in a table tab will take you to the next cell, just as when you are in an outline tab will take you to the next box and so on. Scrivener’s tab and enter key behaviour is all defined by OS X. Likewise, you can define keyboard shortcuts in the System Preferences keyboard pane, just as you can across OS X. But there will never - unless Apple introduce a universal control for such a thing - be a way to map every any arbitrary key to any arbitrary action, or to take control of every single keyboard action, as you suggest, as that way madness lies. :slight_smile:

All the best,
Keith