Keyboard shortcut for "edit title"

Is it possible to set a keyboard shortcut for edit title? (Via keyconfig or otherwise?) I.e. when browsing items in the middle pane, it would be useful to have a keyboard shortcut that places the cursor in the title field for editing the title!
  • There was a request rather recently for renaming file attachments using F2 key (I think that's universal for rename). I can totally see F2 also being used to edit the item's title.
  • That's a Windows shortcut, but it's not particularly necessary here — if an item is selected in the middle pane, just press Tab twice and you'll be in the title field.
  • edited May 1, 2014
    It's also in Ubuntu. Looks like Mac is the odd one out here.

    Edit: also, tab, while it works (though at least on Windows I have to press it three times: [1] Info tab, [2] Item Type, [3] Item title), it's not at all intuitive. It also doesn't work if you have a different tab open in the right pane.

    Edit 2: (testing on Windows, but...) F2 is used to rename bookmarks in Chrome and Safari, though, interestingly, not in Firefox. Dropbox.com uses F2 to rename files. iTunes uses it as a "rename" shortcut as well.
  • though at least on Windows I have to press it three times
    Yeah, on OS X it skips the tabs at the top, which there's another shortcut for.
    it's not at all intuitive
    I don't know — Tab seems a lot more intuitive to me. You can Tab through the entire interface of Zotero and many programs.

    There's not much of a downside to adding this, I guess — but note that what we do is the same thing that Mozilla does in the Firefox bookmarks manager: pressing F2 there on a bookmark doesn't do anything, and to edit the name you press Tab to focus the fields in the bottom pane, which, as in Zotero, you can tab through and back. Also as in Zotero, 1) the metadata is in a separate pane and 2) there are multiple metadata fields. Switching the focus to another pane and privileging the title field above the others both seem a little weird to me. The main context I know F2 is to rename a file, where a title is all there is and it's already selected in the same place.
    It also doesn't work if you have a different tab open in the right pane.
    You're suggesting that F2 should switch back to the Info pane if another pane is selected? That seems even weirder to me.
  • The main context I know F2 is to rename a file, where a title is all there is and it's already selected in the same place.
    Yes, in-place editing would be ideal here, but we probably can't do it (or, unless it's trivial, it's not worth the effort)

    I don't have as strong of an opinion about switching tab panes, though. I think if the user presses F2, he/she intends to edit the item, so I wouldn't think that switching to the item info pane is that odd. Pre-selecting title is perhaps less natural in Zotero context, though title is at the top of the fields (past item type, which is rarely edited) and it is one of the more important pieces of metadata. OTOH, if we treat F2 as the "edit" shortcut, you might expect to edit Tags (for instance) when the tag tab is showing? <shrug>

    I'm more interested in using this shortcut to rename attachments though, which seems much more trivial in terms of user expectations.
  • Hi Dan,

    you said "Yeah, on OS X it skips the tabs at the top, which there's another shortcut for."

    Tab only cycles between left / middle / search, but never gets me to the Info/Note/Tags/Related pane, i.e. it doesn't get me to the title field in the info pane (which is what I meant).

    Also see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/36738/keyboard-shortcut-for-infonotestagsrelated/

    Thanks!
  • Tab only cycles between left / middle / search, but never gets me to the Info/Note/Tags/Related pane
    On what OS?
  • that's which OS?
  • edited May 13, 2014
    Mac OS 10.7
    (Zotero stand alone)
  • Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts and set "Full Keyboard Access" to "All controls". (The location might be slightly different on 10.7, but the pref name is the same.) That will let you get to the right-hand pane and Tab/Shift-Tab through the fields.

    I've responded to the other question in the other thread.
  • Really great - many thanks!!
    Bjoern
  • Just adding this comment to this thread also: 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), and in particular the Zutilo function
    ZutiloChrome.zoteroOverlay.editItemInfoGUI()
    can be bound to a key, and will focus the info pane, with the "title" field having focus, ready for editing!

    Bjoern
  • edited May 31, 2014
    Yes, in-place editing would be ideal here, but we probably can't do it
    Actually, apparently we can. Done for collections in the 4.0 Beta:

    https://github.com/zotero/zotero/commit/c0d6648b9eaf440e8a31d01ea50a0b2488e22320

    The problem with doing it for items is that double-click and Return are already bound to actions, which doesn't leave anything on Macs. F2 could toggle in-place title editing on Windows and Linux, but that's a little awkward when there's a whole row with multiple columns, and the horizontal space in the title field would be pretty limited.

    Anyhow, this now works for collections.
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