customizable keyboard shortcuts
requesting this BASIC feature be added.
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+1000. As much as I love the idea of Workflowy, I don't use it for this reason. I'm a developer, and the developer community is accustom to 1) using either emacs or vi keybindings in most / all of their tools and 2) being able to change any binding they like.
I'd switch to Workflowy in a heartbeat if I could use the shortcuts I use in my other tools.
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First of all: I _love_ this product.
This request adds to the list of keyboard shortcut requests: search is super powerful, but it drives me bonkers that I can't just `cmd+F` my way to the search. Using Escape is maybe the least intuitive shortcut, and it's not finding its way to my fingers... 😢
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Hi Axel,
The thing with using Cmd+F is that many WorkFlowy users use WorkFlowy in their browser apps... and we don't want to hijack the browser's Cmd+F feature... because it is distinct to WorkFlowy's search feature... and many folk use both in tandem.
We could implement on the desktop app... but once again, many of our users use desktop and browser... so we don't want to confuse their muscle memory.
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To Frank's point, I actually like the esc default instead of hijacking ctrl+f, for what it's worth.
But I also want to serve as Exhibit A for the importance of customizable shortcut configuration. (Like Dynalist, go ahead and make this a paid plan feature!) Right now, a lot of the default shortcuts in WorkFlowy won't work for certain users on Chrome OS. For instance, two great hotkeys that are owned by Chrome OS and cannot be overridden, afaik, are:
Alt + Shift + M
Alt + Shift + L
So for people on Chromebooks, these WorkFlowy hotkeys effectively don't exist. Enabling custom mapping will unleash a lot of WorkFlowy functionality for people who sometimes use Chromebooks.
Alt + Shift + D does work, but I've had no luck with other Alt + Shift combos ... Mirroring and link copying without touching my trackpad remains tantalizingly close, if only I could set a _different_ keyboard trigger.
By the way, does anyone have success getting Shift + Ctrl + B to do something in WorkFlowy's web app on Chrome rather than opening the browser's bookmark bar? If so, please, share the wisdom!
Other WorkFlowy hotkeys, like Alt + Shift + ↓ simply conflict with extension hotkeys I've had set up for a long time, and it's not appealing to redesign my efficiency "muscle memory" around the inflexibly of a single tool ... so I won't be using these hotkeys unless I can set them to something else in WorkFlowy, which means ultimately I'm less likely to use WorkFlowy.
Finally, Ctrl + K won't work for me either, but this issue is specific to my usage of WorkFlowy (i.e., not a problem in the three other web apps that use this shortcut), and it's not Chrome OS–related like the earlier problems. Anybody else having this problem & have ideas around it? Thanks!
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Well put, Jacob. Any argument for or against a specific key combination becomes an endorsement of customizable shortcuts. Rather than hearing "we've done a great job of setting up keyboard shortcuts that everyone should be happy with," or poking holes in someone's shortcut preference, I would love to hear the argument against implementing customizable keyboard shortcuts. Is it too big an engineering task? Is there too little demand to justify it? Would attempting to implement this feature break Workflowy or make it too heavy and slow?
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Another vote from me.
Obsidian has the best implementation of customizable keyboard shortcuts I've seen in any program so far. They allow you to search for any shortcut you want to configure, allow multiple shortcuts for the same action (fe Mac vs Pc) and also tell you which keyboard shortcuts have already been set to another function in case of a conflict.
Roam also has configurable keyboard shortcuts these days, but their implementation is slightly less impressive, possibly due to the fact that they have to work in the browser, which would also be the case for Workflowy. Some pitfalls here are syncing the keyboard shortcuts across different browser sessions and with the desktop app.
I am quite happy with the keyboard shortcuts on Windows, but on my Mac with a Belgian azerty keyboard, the shortcuts for zooming in and out are real finger twisters at the moment 😋.
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Being able to customize hotkeys is one of the main reasons I moved to Dynalist. Unfortunately Dynalist makes other basic features really hard to perform, so I'd very likely move back and pay for Workflowy Pro again if customizable shortcuts were implemented, specially if custom CSS is coming too.
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Which features did you find hard to perform in Dynalist, Cleroth? Their permalinks to nodes are buggy, so look out there.
As a heads-up, Legend offers hotkey customization: https://legendapp.com
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I went into detail here: https://talk.dynalist.io/t/ios-is-there-a-way-to-add-a-quick-item/7940/6?u=cleroth and further down that thread.
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Ah thanks, Cleroth. That's great feedback to them, well written. I encounter this need for a FAB in Dynalist mainly on Android, where clicking below the last node sends you right to the top of the page (not desired and very annoying if it's a long doc)!
I don't know if a FAB is the right solution (since it can get in the way), but something like what Workflowy and Checkvist's Android apps offer would help a lot on mobile, with a hotkey like tab + N for this functionality on the desktop app.
We'll see if Dynalist improves this or Workflowy adds custom hotkeys first! Legend's mobile app has the FAB, but too many other bugs, in my opinion. Their web is app is second to none though. The way Checkvist does the + functionality on mobile I think you'd like, by the way.
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So how far down the road are we @Frank? I see you're working on comments and mentions and change tracking and considering basic publishing while what might be considered absolute core functionality, i.e. customising shortcut keys, goes unmentioned.
It does my head in that something like the escape key can't be remapped when in almost every other app I use the escape key has the same functionality and it's not for immediately switching to the bloody search field! Not to mention the issues with Mac shortcuts.
Your focus seems to have shifted to teams functionality while ignoring basic functionality. As a paid up team of one I can tell you which I one I would prefer.
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Hi Mark,
> So how far down the road are we @Frank?
TBH, I have no idea. The team has not indicated that it is on our current list of items we're working on or the upcoming set of things we're focusing on.
> It does my head in that something like the escape key can't be remapped
Understood. I feel the same way.
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