keyboard pane navigation

realtime99
By far the most common mouse action I do in Zotero is activating either the middle or right pane, and switching between tabs in the right pane. I do this when correcting reference information, so I'm typing between each move of the mouse, essentially.

Is it possible to have a keyboard shortcut to change the focus between the Zotero panels, and one that cycles through the right-panel tabs (similar to the way Firefox cycles tabs with Control-Page Up/Down)? Or does something like this already exist?

This would dramatically increase my speed with Zotero, and more importantly, reduce repetitive hand motions back and forth to the mouse which can worsen RSI.
  • adamsmith
    if you actually mean the right panel tabs, you can cycle through them with arrows. The thing that doesn't work well is getting from the fields in the right hand panel back to the central panel - say you're down at the publisher of an item, then you need a whole bunch of shift+tabs to get back to the center pane.
    I don't really see a good way out, though. We already use tab, shift+tab and the arrows, alt+tab is taken by the system and ctrl+tab by Firefox, shift+arrows and ctrl+arrows is used for selection in the center pane - not sure what is even left?
  • realtime99
    Thanks, I didn't see that the shift-tab eventually went back to the center panel.

    I see that in the first tab, Info, the Tab key takes you from the right-panel tab to the fields. (the ambiguity with the word 'tab' here is maddening!)

    But, it also seems that this does not work on the other tabs, such as 'Tags.' Is this deliberate?

    I do have one idea for a potential improvement. It seems that, when a right panel tab is highlighted, the up/down arrows and the left/right arrows are redundant in moving through the tabs.

    If it were possible to use the up/down arrows to move through fields rather than on tabs, and shift+tab took you from any field to the tab and then to the center panel, then you could navigate from any field to the center panel with 2 keystrokes.

    Or, is it possible to use shift+arrows in one way in the center panel, such as moving through fields, and in another way in the right panel?

    Thanks!
  • realtime99
    One other idea--can you just have "shift focus to next pane" (and previous pane) as user-defined keyboard shortcuts? They could be blank as default.
  • charlespetersen
    Anything ever happen with this? I can't seem to figure out a way to shift focus to the right hand pane without using the mouse. And then it'd be great if I could navigate in the right hand pan with keyboard shortcuts, but again that doesn't seem to work... Any help much appreciate. Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    Nothing new about this, but you should be able to get to the right-hand pane with tab and navigate within it with tab (and navigate between the different tabs of it - Info, Notes, Tags, Related - with the arrow keys.
  • dstillman
    and navigate between the different tabs of it - Info, Notes, Tags, Related - with the arrow keys
    or Ctrl-Tab/Ctrl-Shift-Tab on a Mac
  • charlespetersen
    Thanks, Dan and Adam. I am using Zotero 4.0.9 on OS X Lion and the behavior I get seems to be a little different. Using just the tab key, I scan switch focus between: the library, the tag selector, the middle pane, and the search field. But that seems to be the only thing the tab key can do. It never takes me to the right hand pane.

    If I do switch focus manually with the mouse to a field in the right hand pane, e.g. "Publisher," I can then use tab to switch between the different "Info" fields. Using the arrow keys doesn't seem to do anything. Once I hit return in any field, the focus is switched back to the middle pane. I can use "Control Tab" to shift to "Notes," but then the focus moves, for some reason, to the search field.

    It seems to be impossible to get to add tags, for instance, without mousing. Is this right? Or is the behavior I am encountering non-standard? It would be really great if there were some way to add tags and related items to an item without using the mouse, especially as my RSI is pretty bad.

    Thanks for all your help!
  • dstillman
    Using just the tab key, I scan switch focus between: the library, the tag selector, the middle pane, and the search field. But that seems to be the only thing the tab key can do. It never takes me to the right hand pane.
    If you select an item in the middle pane and press Tab a few times, you don't end up in the fields in the right-hand pane? That should absolutely work, and always has.
    It seems to be impossible to get to add tags, for instance, without mousing. Is this right?
    No. Tab from the middle pane, Ctrl-Tab twice to select the Tags tab, space bar to press the Add button, type a tag, Return to save it.

    If these things aren't working for you, either you're doing something wrong or something isn't working right on your system. If this is Zotero for Firefox, try disabling your other Firefox extensions.
  • adamsmith
    have you looked at Zutilo?
    https://github.com/willsALMANJ/Zutilo
    If you want to take advantage of the built in keyboard shortcut functionality (rather than using a 3rd party tool), you'll need to install Zutilo directly from github as the new version hasn't made it on the mozilla add-on page yet.
  • dstillman
    edited August 5, 2013
    adamsmith: Everything Charles is asking for should be possible with the built-in keyboard navigation, though.
  • adamsmith
    oh absolutely it should be possible.
    Reason I mention Zutilo is that it reduces something like adding a tag from 4 keystrokes to 1, which seems like a nice feature to have for someone relying on the keyboard as much as possible.
  • charlespetersen
    Thanks Dan and Adam. I hadn't realized I wasn't getting the standard Zotero behavior. It turns out what I was getting was due to a setting in the keyboard panel on the Mac control panel. I had "Full Keyboard Access" set to "Text boxes and lists only." Not sure if this is a standard setting or something I changed a long time ago. I just switched that setting to "All Controls" and I'm now getting the behavior Dan described.

    Thanks, also, for the tip about Zutilo. I will check it out!
  • dstillman
    Huh, I didn't know that had an effect on Zotero. Unfortunately "Text boxes and lists only" is actually the default setting, but hopefully anyone who cares about keyboard access generally will find their way there to change that.
  • Bzwingmann
    Hi all,
    I was just wondering if anything had been done regarding the option to collapse the right hand pane? I'd be really interested in that!

    In terms of navigating via keyboard keys:
    -------------------------------------------
    The thing that doesn't work well is getting from the fields in the right hand panel back to the central panel - say you're down at the publisher of an item, then you need a whole bunch of shift+tabs to get back to the center pane.
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    I haven't had that, quite the contrary: whenever I edit something in the right hand pane and just hit enter, I end up right back in the middle pnane. I find that quite annoying actually but for people who aim to move about via keyboard it could be the easiest way to do get there?
  • dstillman
    whenever I edit something in the right hand pane and just hit enter, I end up right back in the middle pnane. I find that quite annoying actually but for people who aim to move about via keyboard it could be the easiest way to do get there?
    That's by design. Otherwise nothing would have focus after you pressed Return. If you want to edit other fields, you can tab straight to them instead.
  • vvitorello
    ---------------
    "The thing that doesn't work well is getting from the fields in the right hand panel back to the central panel - say you're down at the publisher of an item, then you need a whole bunch of shift+tabs to get back to the center pane."
    ---------------

    Hope I´m not being obvious, but the "esc" works for me. It will work when you are in any of the fields in the right hand panel(it´s similar to pressing enter after editing, but you don´t actually alter anything).

    I would also be interested in the option to collapse the right hand pane.
  • dstillman
    Yes, Esc works too, if you don't want to save a change. When a field loses focus, either from Esc or Return, the middle pane will be selected. (Note that adamsmith's post above is from 2012 — I don't know if this was working the same way then.)
  • bjohas
    Hi all,

    I've written up all I know about about navigation between panes here:
    http://www.sciencemedianetwork.org/wiki/Zotero/better_navigation_between_panes

    Some navigation is also possible with keyconfig + zutilo (e.g. moving to info and tabs pane within the right hand pane).

    Bjoern
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