Enable Custom Key Navigation for Quick Command Menu

[nealot]

Currently, the quick command interface only allows cycling of items via the arrow keys. The requested feature would allow any key binding to be attached for the selection and navigation of items. For example, an individual may bind Ctrl+n to cycle down and Ctrl+p to cycle up. Personally, I really like the concept of the quick commands and would appreciate any type of modification that would allow for this requested feature.

[Pesala]

Why would you want to use two hands instead of one to navigate the dialogue?

It is standard behaviour on dialogues and menus to use the cursor keys and is a problem only when it does not work, e.g. in Settings.

[nealot]

@pesala I've grown accustomed to Vi-like keybindings which allow for ctrl+n, ctrl+p, or even tab to navigate menu elements. It is incredibly inconvenient to use arrow keys as a result of this. At the moment I've conceded to using an extension to provide these intuitive bindings but as we all know, these extensions have various limitations. I consider Vivaldi to be one of the most hackable browsers which is why I switched over.

In retrospect, even the ctrl+n and ctrl+p aren't really that important, as long as the tab function is added.

[Pesala]

@nealot The Tab and Shift+T ab shortcuts already work in the Quick Commands dialogue to focus the list or the field for text entry.

[nealot]

@pesala Hence why I've suggested custom key navigation. Finding out that the tab key doesn't cycle the suggested elements has forced me to use an extension, instead of the native dialogue. If there was an option to to use custom bindings this discomfort would not persist and I would gladly switch over to using the dialogue.

While researching solutions for this problem, I stumbled upon other posts like this https://www.reddit.com/r/vivaldibrowser/comments/3x8ygk/what_are_your_current_annoyances_with_vivaldi/ which comment on how others would like this feature added.

Currently I'm using this extension https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys to emulate the behavior I would want Vivaldi to provide natively.

[stellallets]

I strongly support this feature request.

To respond to Pesala: it's not a matter of two hands vs one, it's a matter of keeping hands on home row. On my most frequently used keyboards (mostly laptops), the arrow keys are really inconvenient to reach if I'm browsing using mostly the keyboard (e.g. using vimium j/k to scroll).

Note that this feature request only asks for the ability to bind other keys (aside/along with arrow keys) to navigate and select, not for the default to change. (I personally want to Tab down through the list, not Ctrl+n. I guess if you really need to keep Tab to switch between text entry field and the list, maybe j/k could work within the list.)

The customisability of Vivaldi is what led me to switch, and I'm somewhat surprised that custom key shortcuts for the Quick Command menu isn't already supported.

[nealot]

@stellallets Do you believe the reason this feature hasn't been introduced is because its implementation is non-trivial? Or do you think maybe it's just an oversight?

[Exr0n]

It looks like Vivaldi isn't really responding to these forum feature requests. Where should we make or upvote feature requests like these?

[Pesala]

@Exr0n Vote for the first post if you haven't already done so. (Voting again will remove your vote).

With nearly 2,900 feature requests, and a small team, those needed by few users or difficult to implement may have to wait for a long time. Wherever you see that a feature is tagged as In Progress, it may get done this year rather than next.

[CircuitRider9]

Totally agree his would be a killer feature!

For what it's worth, making basic text editing functionality shortcuts configurable inside Quick Menu as well would be extremely helpful too. E.g., normally Backspace erases a character, and Ctrl+Backspace erases a word. But quite some people who work a lot with Unix-like terminals are extremely used to using Ctrl+H for erasing a character, Ctrl+W for erasing a word, Ctrl+U for erasing the whole line, etc.. I understand that's a whole other story tho, so Ctrl+N/P for down/up would be a great start.

As for why one would prefer to press two buttons instead of just one arrow key to achieve one simple action - well, for one you have to leave the home row to get to the arrow keys, and secondly a lot of people remap Ctrl key to Caps Lock/Spacebar/etc in their OS's to make it really accessible, or use ergonomic keyboards for that.

[iwahbe]

I'd really like this feature as well. Coming from Unix systems (mac & linux) and Emacs, I have Ctrl-n and Ctrl-p burned into my muscle memory.

Navigating up and down with Ctrl-n and Ctrl-p in Vivaldi would be amazing.