topic Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please! in Discussions

Hotkeys? Yes, please!

fxpm-nicole — Wed, 22 May 2024 16:58:14 GMT

Hello Connect Community!
This is Nicole from the Fx Essentials Product Management Team. I am in the process of exploring some potential changes around hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts, as this is something that is being asked for quite a bit in the Connect Community.

I have a few questions I'd like to put out there for everyone.
1. What are your top five most used hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts?
2. What shortcuts do you wish Firefox offered?
3. Is there a non-Firefox browser you prefer because of how they 'do' hotkeys/shortcuts?

As always, thank you in advance for contributing to this discussion! Looking forward to hearing all of your answers!

Thanks!
Nicole

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Wed, 22 May 2024 19:56:40 GMT

I personally don't really want to have fixed added shortcuts but the ability to edit shortcuts. That way, one I would never use becomes useful or alternatively I can swap around a shortcut that I rarely use with one that makes more sense in terms of what key it is.

Regarding "is there another browser?" I use Chrome as an alternative, but not because of hotkey. The reason is that I've found Firefox to have become increasingly unstable in the latest Ubuntu, freezing at random times on random sites with no apparent pattern and on different machines. However, I much prefer Firefox as a long term user for their bookmarks management and layout, but to be honest I'd leave it behind due to it's unreliability if I could make Chrome match that. It's turning out to be far more reliable. Apologies for going off topic, but you did ask that question and I'm glad someone is at last looking at hotkeys as a user edit choice.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

irrationality — Wed, 22 May 2024 20:56:02 GMT

I commonly use the following hotkeys:

⌘W to close a tab
⌘N to open a new window
⌘T to open a new tab
⌘⇧T to re-open a recently closed tab
Mistakenly use ⌘⇧W to try to re-open a recently closed window
⌘⌥I to open developer tools/inspector
⌘P to open print dialogue
⌘C, ⌘V, ⌘X for copy/paste/cut

My problem with hotkeys is that I accidentally "bump" the shortcut to navigate to a blank tab and lose work. On the keyboard that I use (Kinesis Advantage2), this is a simple finger slip that's very easy to make. I used to override this keyboard shortcut with an extension (Shortkeys), but now that does not work.

Other users have different motivations for customization, detailed in the Customizable hotkeys topic.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

shodanx — Wed, 22 May 2024 21:03:26 GMT

Hello !

I have rough note I have been keeping to document all my frustration related to setting keybinds in a game.

I presume most of these would apply to a firefox keybind editor windows

Please forgive its rough state

Also remember that mouse and joysticks are used to control applications

I would also like to trigger custom scripts such as bookmarklets with keybind

Now the list

Always allow to rebind a key even if already set
always allow unbind all keys
allow to change HOLD vs TOGGLE
ability to bind different keys for hold or toggle of an action
always have action to raise/lower image brightness

if key already bind, option to go to conflicting binding
if key already bin, allow to override
always allow to set a key to multiple actions
always allow one action to have many keys
always allow actions to bound to keyboard / mouse and/or controller

in game non-mandatory keybinding review and tutorial and setting wizard for all actions

in game tool tip shows keys currently bound for the needed tutorial action

button to CLEAR ALL BINDING

DO NOT prevent player from rebinding a key to a key that is already use. Either allow one key to be bound to multiple actions, or unbind the key from the other action. And don't swap the keybinding of the two actions

UNRELATED
always allow console easily
always allow to change the RENDER resolution

------
delete all the keybind
not too easy to accidentaly reset default keybind
not too easy to not save your keybind changes
can you unbind a key
what happens when you try to bind an already bound key
how hard is it to find keybind duplicates, is it even alloweed
can you bind a second key
can you bind mouse or joystick to anything
is the keybind layout confusing
can you easily change between toggle and hold style of keybind
can you have more than one bind per action
how annoying is it to set a keybind

explanation of keybinding when you mouseover

helicopter/on foot/vehicule conflict should not be stupid

Show keybind keyboard layout on screen

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

chimrichalds — Wed, 22 May 2024 21:09:43 GMT

The shortcut I most frequently attempt to use is New Private Window, but since Firefox uses a different shortcut than Chrome (which I have to use for work), what I actually use most frequently is apparently "Reopen last closed window" (a shortcut I have never and will never intentionally use.) This happens constantly and is an enormous dissatisfier.
More than anything else, Firefox should have built-in functionality to modify or disable all hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts. Shortcuts should have their own heading in Settings, and not require any kind of extension. I am not aware of any shortcuts that I would want added.
Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera all have this functionality as previously described. Overall I prefer Firefox but if I switch away from it as my primary browser this lack of functionality will be why.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

shodanx — Wed, 22 May 2024 21:18:10 GMT

I agree ctrl+shift+t should not be reopen last closed tab

It should be ctrl+shift+w, as in reverse of close tab which is ctrl+w

This would free ctrl+shift+t to open new private tab

I would also make HOLD+ctrl+shift+t to a new tab selector, that lets you choose, normal tab, private tab, new firefox instance(+profile switcher) and new selected multi account container (+vpn switcher)

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

shodanx — Wed, 22 May 2024 21:19:31 GMT

There are two conversations to be had here.

What should be the default keybinds

And

How to make a keybind editor

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

alefith — Thu, 23 May 2024 07:50:34 GMT

about the hotkeys I use the most, from the top of my head:
- F5

- previous/next page

- Ctrl+tab

- ctrl +N /ctrl + W

- pgup/pgdn, ctrl+pgup/ctrl+pgdwn

- tab and shift tab for forms.

- ctrl + f

Someone probably gave you this, but, just in case, you should check this thread:

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/customizable-hotkeys/idi-p/4979

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

arun — Thu, 23 May 2024 08:50:22 GMT

One thing that I miss from Safari is the ability to click on the close button on a browser tab along with the "option" key. When I do that on Safari, all other tabs besides the tab that I clicked on will be closed. I would love to see that ability on Firefox.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

wutongtaiwan — Thu, 23 May 2024 11:26:11 GMT

I want to customize keyboard shortcut functionality. The user sets a key combination to perform some operations. If the key combination is repeated, a prompt will pop up.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

ClaireStarsword — Thu, 23 May 2024 12:47:44 GMT

I believe the most important thing would be giving an option for users to edit hotkeys as they want, feels like a basic feature that is missing to be honest, as the default hotkeys might conflict with other sites or apps, or the user simply has different preferences or needs depending on their keyboard and/or disability. Besides, it's apparently a feature that has been requested for years: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/customizable-hotkeys/idi-p/4979

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

cutecoder — Thu, 23 May 2024 18:15:47 GMT

I REALLY wish you could move around on webpages with hjkl, that would be a HUGE life improvement.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 May 2024 18:19:50 GMT

Check out the Vimium extension.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

fxpm-nicole — Thu, 23 May 2024 18:20:53 GMT

Thanks for your input! I am hearing from a LOT of users that custom hotkeys is the way to go. It's pretty high on the list of ways to approach this!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

fxpm-nicole — Thu, 23 May 2024 18:25:14 GMT

Yeah, that is a very cool looking keyboard and I can see how it might be easy to bump hotkeys while using it! You mention others and their motivation for customization, but you didn't mention anything about you? Would customizable hotkeys be something you'd use? Thank you!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

fxpm-nicole — Thu, 23 May 2024 18:29:14 GMT

These are great notes, thank you so much! It's interesting that you mentioned gaming - that's one of the things I'm currently studying as far as how they handle hotkeys/customization. Do you do a lot of gaming with keyboards? Or are you mostly controllers and joysticks?

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Anonymous — Thu, 23 May 2024 18:34:16 GMT

The main reason I use Chrome instead of Firefox is because of its ability to change key bindings, in my case via the Keyboard Shortcuts extension which provides access to all available shortcuts for the browser and my extensions.

The most common shortcuts I personally use in Chrome are:

Open new tab to right
Close current tab
Navigate to next/previous tab
Move current tab's position right/left
Refresh/Hard refresh page
Previous/next page history
Jump to navigation bar for google searches and URL entry (Alt + d)
Tab
Find

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

fxpm-nicole — Thu, 23 May 2024 18:34:03 GMT

Thank you for your response! Just our of curiosity, are there any other hotkeys that are different between Firefox and Chrome that are a big pain in the butt like the one you just described? Another thing you brought up - settings. Anything we end up doing with hotkeys should definitely be more prominent - I agree, it's hard to find them as is. We will be working very closely with the settings team to ensure we can make hotkeys more accessible in whatever form they land.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

shodan — Fri, 24 May 2024 06:40:26 GMT

I play a lot of co-op gaming with friends and every time we try a new game, keybinding are almost always an issue. We talk about it while we do it and these are the observation we came up with. Games are very inconsistent in they keybinding schemes. For me I always put moving forward on the right mouse button and many games just don't expect that.

I largely do keyboard and mouse, except racing with a steering wheel and flight based with a HOTAS (joystick and throttle)

One game of particular note is Elite Dangerous, we call it "Elite Dangerous Keybinding simulator" while having very thorough controls, is extremely tedious to do and is the source of many elements on the list.

Ah that reminds me I need to add "keybinding dialog needs a search engine that filter outs actions"

One game that surprised us recently is Dying Light 2 that had a very nicely crafted system and introduced a surprising innovation. Almost every action, can be set to press, hold, toggle for the key trigger. That was great, often the developper decides the key mode and it cannot be changed. Plus this also allow to stack multiple actions on a single button. Like R for reload but long-press R for changing ammo type.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

shodan — Fri, 24 May 2024 06:46:59 GMT

This issue is a major accessibility concern that will have positive "curb cut" effect on all users not just impaired persons

As such it should be possible to get a accessibility grant for this

However if you want to remap firefox keybindings today

You can use the Microsoft powertoys

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

The "Keyboard manager component"

Here for example I remap reopen previous tab from CTRL+SHIFT+T to CTRL+SHIFT+W

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

fxpm-nicole — Fri, 24 May 2024 19:25:34 GMT

Yes! I am very aware of that post! 🙂
My main purpose for starting this discussion was to double check a few things I had a hunch on. I'm a research nerd at heart, I want to cover all my bases before I commit to a solution! 🙂

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

fxpm-nicole — Fri, 24 May 2024 19:26:10 GMT

Noted! Thank you for the suggestion! It's on my list!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

leotaku — Fri, 24 May 2024 23:14:41 GMT

Some really great suggestions have already been made here! I particularly agree with the following:

I don't really care about "better" default shortcuts, what I really want is an easy way to configure my own
The fact that shortcuts are currently not configurable is a major accessibility issue

I would also like to add that it should be possible to configure shortcuts WITHOUT any prefixes. Way too many applications only allow users to configure hotkeys that are prefixed with `Ctrl`, `Alt`, etc. These can be hard to perform for people with limited hand mobility. We should instead also be able to configure shortcuts like `x` to close a tab.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Fri, 24 May 2024 23:23:06 GMT

This is a great point about being able to use single keys. One of the reasons some shortcuts work well is because I can use one hand for shortcuts whilst not removing my other from the mouse. The converse of this is also true, especially those that use three keys. which slow me down and are more prone to errors Given that in most cases I personally only actually use a few shortcuts, I can easily assign them to one hand use or obvious keys. Tied to this is also using consistent keys for certain actions, something that is a pain across different software where they choose different keys.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

nobelphoenix — Sat, 25 May 2024 03:54:40 GMT

I'd like to get a custom hotkey option like everyone else in this thread but if we can't get that, at least please use a unified set of hotkeys with other major browsers, after using opera or chrome for a long period of time pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N to open a new private window in firefox and just failing to do so is really annoying. All the chromium based browsers use that same hotkey (vivaldi, brave, etc.) so it's really confusing why firefox decided to single itself out of it.

Hotkeys are there to be used subconsciously, I don't deliberately press each individual key hundreds of times throughout the day. After pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N whenever I need to open a private page in other browsers continuously, I've reinforced that circuitry so much so that I just can't alter it when I'm using firefox. I also tend to use private windows whenever I sidetrack from my work to search a relevant stuff, to watch a tutorial, etc. If I don't want to add onto the pile of innumerable open tabs as I'm working on a project, I simply open a private tab, check something and won't muddle my history or google/yt algorithm with something minor.

To answer your question directly so that you'd get some more relevant data:

1. Right now I'm using brave CTRL+T (open a new tab and jump into it), CTRL+W (close the current tab), CTRL+TAB (move to the tab on the right), CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (move to the tab on the left), CTRL+SHIFT+N (open a new private window).

2. CTRL+SHIFT+N (open a new private window)

3. I'd prefer any other browser to firefox just because they all use the same hotkey for opening a new private window. I'm currently using Brave due to non-hotkey related reasons.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

shodanx — Sat, 25 May 2024 09:42:33 GMT

I need a keybind, to center the current tab in the tab bar

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

alefith — Sat, 25 May 2024 12:57:53 GMT

if we're on the topic of suggestions, it could be a good idea to have a way of saving, sharing and even switching, hotkeys scheme. I was thinking about a file for that purpose, but it can be something else.

On top of that, it would be great to be able to share the hotkeys from device to device (like the passwords), in case of new firefox installation.

The hotkeys schemes could be shared along themes, making it a full user experience sharing.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

alefith — Sat, 25 May 2024 13:01:17 GMT

is it a place to suggest new function to associate with hotkeys too?

I'd love to have a hotkey to regex search, or to open the image hovered in a new tab. But it's probably not the topic here, right?

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Synchro — Sun, 26 May 2024 09:29:14 GMT

I use the following ones (at least I recalled them quick):

Ctrl+T
Ctrl+Shift+T
Ctrl+Tab
Ctrl+F
Ctrl+[+] and Ctrl+[-]

I also use Page Up, Page Down, Home, End, ↓, ↑ for navigation in page when there is a lot to read.

I am not sure I need any new hotkeys, but who knows, maybe I just can't imagine now how I would use them. I believe I miss more mouse gestures that uset to be in old Opera 12.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

lostmsu — Tue, 28 May 2024 14:44:02 GMT

- Ctrl+T and Ctrl+W to open and close Tabs

- Ctrl+H for History

- Ctrl+F for Find

- Ctrl+ __D__ to Duplicate current tab (IT ACTUALLY DOES NOT WORK - it is a muscle memory from the time FF had customizable shortcuts. Now I get the "Add bookmark" window, get annoyed, remove the bookmark that I don't need, and then use the mouse to click the Duplicate tab menu that I actually need) - please see the thread

- Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Shift+Tab to swtich between tabs

- Ctrl+[+]/[-]

- F12 - for I am a dev

- F5 - for I am but a man

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

lc0 — Wed, 29 May 2024 12:00:02 GMT

Great idea

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

okay_okay — Wed, 29 May 2024 13:46:43 GMT

Thanks for starting this conversation. Not sure if this has already been said but when moving over from a different browser it would be nice to have option of using same hotkeys from previous browser that we're familiar with.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

wunewww — Wed, 29 May 2024 14:26:03 GMT

The top 5:

`Ctrl + [numbers]` to travel between tabs
`Ctrl + PageUp/Down` to rotate b/w tabs, I usually change the sequence of tabs for this
`Ctrl + w` to close tabs
`Ctrl + t` to open tabs
`Alt + left/right arrow` to load backward/forward

suggestions:

as mentioned in Firefox View Tab Keyboard Shortcut , Firefox view is awesome, it is worthy to have a shortcut to open it.
i use firefox both on windows and linux, is it possible to unify the two keybindings? e.g. on linux, `Super(Alt) + [num]` is equal to `Ctrl + [num]` on Windows, is it possible to set them in the same?

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

loaf — Wed, 29 May 2024 15:28:11 GMT

much of how I use keyboard shortcuts in FF has been covered by others. however I think a super sweet feature would be a retooling of cmd+k (not sure if that is win+k or ctrl+k on windows)

I use cmd+L to get to the omnibox, mostly for grabbing a url on my keyboard. it would be great if cmd+k would utilize the omnibox differently, so that the default was not simply searching via the default search engine

picture this workflow as being inherently about commands and actions pertinent to FF itself, like:

opening the settings page or bookmark manager
directly toggling certain settings, like themes
search for an extension by name and launching it
then, lower priority in results list would be specific bookmarks, open tabs, search results etc

so I want to toggle to dark theme? cmd+k "theme" would reveal the option. I want to open some extension or it's settings page? cmd+k "extension_name." I let my tabs get out of control, know that there is a news article open somewhere but don't want to ctrl+tab through thirty tabs. cmd+k "npr" surfaces that open tab with the NPR article

Vivaldi and Arc do pretty great jobs with this. this feature would elevate the FF, in my humble opinion

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

lc0 — Wed, 29 May 2024 17:33:19 GMT

The previous suggestions already cover about everything. Since extensions aren't working on protected pages it's important that there is a native and flexible way to rebind, define new and export/import shortcuts settings.

Additionally, something annoying is that there exist a kind of failed/suspended tab state where F5 and F6 aren't working. When going to a tab like this the obvious reflex is to do F5 to reload them, but it just do nothing, same for F6.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

jscher2000 — Wed, 29 May 2024 22:32:02 GMT

Just as a footnote: Ctrl+K/Command+K is the shortcut to put the cursor in the optional search bar. When the optional search bar isn't displayed, the shortcut is redirected to the address bar with the default search engine selected as filter, so that the input can't be misinterpreted as an address.

More on the optional bar: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/add-search-bar-firefox-toolbar

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

loaf — Wed, 29 May 2024 22:59:09 GMT

yes, this exactly describes the current cmd+k behavior. this has me thinking more about my suggestion, so I am just going to riff on it a bit — less response to you and more blue-sky-ing

I think that cmd+k is not currently as useful as it could be, as cmd+L focuses the address bar, and the address bar is capable of search or direct url navigation. although I am sure there are users that value having the optional search bar next to the address bar, for whatever reasons

and thinking now on the Vivaldi and Arc examples I tossed out there, cmd+k is not actually accurate. Arc uses cmd+t to offer a floating search bar that will open a new tab and navigate somewhere if that makes sense based on user input, otherwise it is a general purpose command center to provide instructions to the browser. and Vivaldi offers basically the same thing, except you can program it to whatever you please

the cmd+k shortcut in general is seeing more adoption by web apps as a kind of magic search, so hard-coding an FF shortcut to that combination, with no way to change it, could actually cause some headaches

tl;dr I would like a magic search box, whether it floats or is just a special state for the address bar, that primarily queries the browser itself for settings, bookmarks, open tabs, various other commands, etc., without showing me a bunch of results from the internet first. and without having to type * or % or ^ or whatever to narrow the scope

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Thu, 30 May 2024 01:21:42 GMT

As I'm watching these answers unfold, I think they can easily be categorised as follows:

1) A request for the ability for a user to remap the keys used

2) Those requesting particular current hotkeys for certain functions to be changed to more standard or alternative keystrokes

3) Those asking for functions not currently implemented on a variety of hotkeys

It seems that implementing (1) also then solves (2) without you necessarily changing any current hotkeys. The advantage of leaving the current hotkeys as they are are that there will be lots of Firefox only users who use them as is or prefer them and you'll just get a different lot of users complaining- plus you won't need to remap your own software! And the "we're happy" users won't be replying to this thread as it's not something they are bothered about, but they will complain when their favourite hotkeys change or stop working.

Regarding (3), implementing (1) as a priority then leaves you able to look at the requested functions rather than the particular chosen keys and then implementing them on what free keys there are. People can then remap to their preferred combinations, based on an assumption that I'm making that people are possibly asking for the same function but giving different hotkeys depending on where they are coming from.

Finally, for those who might complain along the lines of "I've got 500 machines to change..." or so people can backup or pass over the user selected keystrokes to other users, make sure they can be saved/reloaded in a file which carries through on with any Firefox updates. This might be specially of use to game players who might want to have different optimised keystrokes for different games or want to pass around a custom keyboard layout to fellow players.

Finally, in the words of the great and late Stan Lee- 'Nuff said!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

alefith — Thu, 30 May 2024 06:19:31 GMT

purr-fect.

Seems the best way to do things to me too. adding functions to specific hotkeys can then be done via extension.

I don't even think integrating a script interpreter launcher as an option for hotkey is necessary.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

dannycolin — Fri, 31 May 2024 20:11:34 GMT

Firefox has a similar feature to customize extension shortcuts (See: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/manage-extension-shortcuts-firefox). The only missing piece is to customize the browser ones (e.g. Ctrl+t to open new tab)

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

dannycolin — Fri, 31 May 2024 20:17:23 GMT

This would be a very useful feature to have especially for both users and addon developers. A lot of keyboard shortcuts are already assigned to browser functionalities and it reduces the number of available ones for the installed addons.

A good example is User A might not need Ctrl+P to be assigned to "Print page" because they rarely use it and the menu entry is good enough those rare occasions they need it. They could reuse it for a functionality provided by an addon that they use daily.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

strangler01 — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 03:47:18 GMT

bro i wish you do something for the realoading key please add a feature for that, i use vimium on firefox so to go to normal mode i press escape and it stops the website from loading it's been so annoying to repeatedly press escape and then again Ctrl+R

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

slipsec — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 22:04:04 GMT

ctrl + shift + a : to search tabs. I don't much mind re-learning new private browser, it's simple enough but the shortcut to search tabs is the most clunky bit of my FF migration. Ctrl+L to focus, then %, then space. It's not even a hotkey, it's a sequence.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Jon — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:33:57 GMT

This is great feedback, thank you!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

johnerino — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 19:19:26 GMT

Hello,

I am glad that this is still being discussed and I second this. I also would like the feature of customizable hotkeys. I prefer Firefox, but since I am more familiar with the chromium browsers, I find it to be difficult to switch to Firefox because of muscle memory. Being able to remap the keys to a my preference and then export this configuration to my other devices would make me very happy.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

whatever2024 — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 01:46:21 GMT

Not only remapping, but also the ability to disable a shortcut entirely.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

MrKistic — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 02:06:30 GMT

Please let us disable or re-map them. Try using any sort of modified keyboard and see how insane things get. Especially the Tab navigation keys which are pretty bad to start with on a Mac. Using Command + Option + arrows for tab navigation is a terrible idea, and in my case it means my word selection keystrokes start changing tabs 🤦‍♂️ Chromium browsers use Ctrl + arrow but even better put it in the menus so you can override it at OS level. Firefox gives you wacky shortcuts and NO option to change them! That may have been okay in 1994 but it's just not cool in 2024.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

jgr — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:04:45 GMT

Great points. Especially thanks for the reminder that those shortcut settings will need to be ready for export/import.

In most cases I need your point 1 (and this since years, by the way). Remapping shortcuts, for me it's a must, because of

some shortcuts being overlapping with web applications (typically ctrl-i and ctrl-b for italic and bold), and
others overlapping with my system-wide settings (shortcuts for switching between virtual desktops f.e.).
Last not least I very often switch between several operating systems (thanks to virtuality), and each os comes with own shortcuts, some of them overlapping with Firefox' defaults as well…

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 21:46:14 GMT

Good call. I think this is the first time it has been mentioned, but it's a good point. I thought at first "Why? Surely you just ignore it?" but then I remembered a problem I had with Yahoo mail where they had a shortcut to send (it was something like Shift or Ctrl+Enter maybe). The number of times I sent a half written email because I'd done something such as Ctrl+V and not fully released the Ctrl key before pressing enter to find the email sent! I got over it by doing exactly what you are asking for. At least if the don't implement this but do allow remapping it can be stuck somewhere on the outer limits of the keyboard!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

ieteilyiteylhtr — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 15:24:46 GMT

As someone with a disability that requires me to use a special keyboard, I am so excited this is getting attention. On macOS, I am able to map custom shortcuts in System Settings, but they need to refer to menu items in an application. Adding common actions in the menu, such as "next tab", "previous tab", "back" would help a lot (Chrome has these).

A fully customizable config file, as others have mentioned, would be even better. No fixed layout can account for every input device, keyboard layout, and preference.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 16:06:19 GMT

Good points. In an odd way, the more control over the keyboard, etc. for a user, the simpler the app can initially be because all the random bases don't need to be covered for all users, whilst letting individuals add in what they might specifically need. The config file though is also really important as it means you don't have to keep refiguring when updating or moving across platform/devices.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Mutzu — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 11:50:30 GMT

Hello @fxpm-nicole,

Ok, let's answer your questions. 🙂

The only shortcuts I use regularly are Control + B to to toggle the bookmark side pane and Control + P to open the print dialog. Sometimes I use PageUp, PageDown, Up or Down to navigate within the page. But I would need other shortcuts I'll mention later. And of course, Control + C and Control + V for copy and paste.

I guess I don't use many more as they are rather complicated and therefore hard to remember. Also, I have one hand on the mouse and I would need to move it on the keyboard, since some hotkeys feel quite awkward or impossible for me to be pressed with one hand. E.g.: "Control + Shift + O".

So I would appreciate it if there was a hotkey approach for one hand.

One Key Approach

I think it's for historical reasons that the Control key (or Alt, Alt Gr, ...) needs to be held down simultanously for shortcuts.

Actually, the additional Control key is only necessary if an input field has the focus. That’s why I'd suggest using the Escape key to remove the focus from input fields if they have it.
The I or Insert key could reset the focus as it was before. Of course, this could also be done with a mouse click. Then it's possible to use only one key.

But you could still use the control key version in addition.

I'm thinking about how hotkeys are used in the 3D software Blender.

It's the concept of pressing keys serially. (This means the next key must be pressed within a short time span.)

The ideal shortcut map for my current workflow would be:

First key	Second key (serially)	Third key (serially)	Action
G			open Simple Tab Groups Plugin side pan
G	1		open Simple Tab Groups Plugin side pan; and open the first group of the tab groups
G	2		open Simple Tab Groups Plugin side pan; and open the second group of the tab groups
G	{number}		open Simple Tab Groups Plugin side pan; and open the {number} group of the tab groups. (0 is the tenth group.)
N			new tab
P			open print dialog
B			toggle bookmark side pane
+			add page to bookmarks (same as clicking on the star)
-			remove page from bookmarks
H			hide current tab in a tab archive at the very right of the tabs bar.
C or W			close current tab
Left			go to left tab in the tab bar
Right			go to right tab in the tab bar
1			open first bookmark from the bookmark bar
{number}			open {number} bookmark from the bookmark bar. (0 is 10)
Alt (hold)			show assigned number key on the bookmarks in the boomark bar
F			focus on search input field at the bottom of the frame

If this serial key mapping for shortcuts was customizable, it would be awesome.

Best regards,
Mutzu

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

irrationality — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 01:26:14 GMT

The minimum customization that I desire is the ability to disable certain hotkeys. Whatever combination navigates to a new blank tab has caused me to lose work on multiple occasions. See my comment from Feb 2024.

Ideally, there would be an interface that displays actions and their current keyboard shortcut. Users could add, remove, change, or reset-to-default the shortcut for any action.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

suikaz — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:59:18 GMT

additionally I do kinda understand why you changed some things to be like Chromium but also would prefer to have a predefined Firefox set that has backspace and ctrl+shift+b working as expected without the need to alter them separately

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

suikaz — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 17:02:55 GMT

I still try ctrl+shift+b every time I want to open bookmarks library because that just makes sense

and pretty often tap backspace when I'm sitting besides someone else trying to figure out a way around an unknown website to quickly move back in history and it doesn't work

when it comes to ones that do still work probably ctrl+t, ctrl+b, rarely ctrl+shift+t and generic text editing shortcuts

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Jon — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 18:32:48 GMT

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

nobelphoenix — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 21:17:21 GMT

When can we expect to see a change? I don't expect a certain date or patch number but more like will it be next month, or next year?..

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rehman_Navid — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 16:03:46 GMT

I wish there was a way to switch tabs with keyboard shortcuts. The function exists on Windows version of Firefox but I'm missing it on Ubuntu.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

jscher2000 — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 20:15:54 GMT

@Rehman_Navid wrote:
I wish there was a way to switch tabs with keyboard shortcuts. The function exists on Windows version of Firefox but I'm missing it on Ubuntu.

Which shortcuts are missing? There is one significant difference, related to going to tabs by number. On Windows, it's Ctrl+number and on Linux, it's Alt+number.

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

hamiltonl — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 04:53:40 GMT

My top five hotkeys:
1. ctrl + T - new tab
2. ctrl + W - close tab
3. ctrl + tab or ctrl + shift + tab - cycle through tabs
4. ctrl + L - cursor in address bar
5. ctrl + F - find in page
Short cut I wished Firefox offered
I wish I could use ctrl + shift + n to open a new private window.
I am in the process of switching from Brave to Firefox because of the upcoming vertical tabs feature. So far the main thing I'm missing from Brave is ctrl + shift + n to open a private window. I believe this makes way more sense than ctrl + shift + p. I guess the "p" is for "private" but "p" usually stands for "print". ctrl + n already opens a new window and adding shfit in there for a private window is easy to remember. I really hope this can be changed or maybe allow users to modify the hotkeys. Hopefully this feedback is helpful.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

mcortt — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 17:00:04 GMT

I use the majority of the hotkeys. I really like the way Vivaldi does hotkeys. You can change almost any hotkey, and there are things that normally don't have hotkeys that are allowed to be assigned a keyboard shortcut by the user.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

suikaz — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 11:14:34 GMT

the way they did hotkeys and mouse gestures is the golden standard that used to be common and expected, it's sad nowadays it's surprising

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Wyzo — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 23:47:54 GMT

2. What shortcuts do you wish Firefox offered?
A shortcut for the eyedropper (even a complicated one like with "Alt"). When you do lot of testing on colors, you'd like to have a direct shortcut!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rehman_Navid — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 03:33:02 GMT

Hi! sorry for the late response. I eventually found out the shortcut. It was Ctrl + Tab for switching between already open tabs.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

frelancesage — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 09:02:05 GMT

I'd love a shortcut to switch tabs by number! Would be way faster than hunting with Ctrl+Tab.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

suikaz — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 08:49:57 GMT

ctrl+1-0 work, don't they?

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 18:30:24 GMT

"ctrl+1-0 work, don't they?" Not on my machine, but I don't have hundreds of tabs open at once. I'm not sure how numbers would actually be faster than pressing ctrl+tab once you've factored in working out what number it actually it is? However, that doesn't matter because if user key reprogramming is built in, those who might need it or prefer it can do it by reprogramming the keys.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

wutongtaiwan — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 15:56:19 GMT

I want you to emulate the Floorp browser, which is a fork of Firefox that has a wealth of custom hotkey features.The more custom hotkeys, the better

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Allan-L — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 20:14:58 GMT

Put a key shortcut or icon to open the chatGPT panel, thanks

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

mcortt — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 20:45:08 GMT

Hard agree. Would be nice for a key shortcut to show/hide the sidebar too.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 21:27:24 GMT

Thanks for posting this, an interesting find! I've just loaded it on and had a quick look at it. It does seem to be faster/more responsive slightly. Interesting though, it also has user selectable hot keys easily accessed up front in the settings, something many here (me as well) have been asking for: "Customize Floorp's keyboard shortcuts. Floorp provides more than 80 customizable keyboard shortcuts! Duplicate keyboard shortcuts will not work. Restart Floorp to apply these settings." It also lets you disable the Mozilla standard ones easily with a tick box if you want to go the whole way.

From my first quick look, what is doesn't appear to have, though I've be pleased to be corrected, is a table of the actual shortcuts in use.

An earlier comment seems to point to the actual hotkey utility to be based on keyconfig, which also appears to ne Firefox compatible, so surely this could be added in automatically by Mozilla?

https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp/discussions/483

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

TechHorse — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 18:01:58 GMT

As a keyboard user I would find it difficult to pick a top 5 for hotkeys, as I use so many of them.

Much easier for me is to list some functions that I would like to be able to define hotkeys for in Firefox.

These include the following tab functions:
* Close Other Tabs
* Close Tabs to Left
* Close Tabs to Right
* Move tab to Start
* Move tab to End
* Duplicate Tab
* reload all tabs

A non-tab related function that I would also be interested in is a hotkey for signing out of your Primary Password.

Actualy I would prefer an item in the Tools Menu for signing in / out of the Primary Password, but would be satisfied with a hotkey. Because as it stands, there is of course no straightforward way to de-authorise your Primary Password once you have finished logging in somewhere.

Finally, the user should definately be alerted if there is a clash. I have used applications before now that give no indication that the key combination that you have just defined is already in use, and would not want to see that happening here.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 20:50:02 GMT

As well as alerting to a clash, a table showing what's used would also help in picking alternatives, especially where you are choosing multiple hotkeys around similar functions (such as your tabs examples).

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

TechHorse — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 23:17:05 GMT

Also, in the library it would be very useful to have the standard Windows alt+up hotkey for moving up one level to the parent folder.

As it stands, if I am in an items list in the righthand pane and wish to go up one level to the parent folder, then I have to press shift+tab to move to the lefthand tree list, press left to move up to the parent folder, then tab back into the righthand items list.

The standard Windows commands of alt+left and alt+right for moving backwards and forwards work in the library, and it would be useful if alt+up was to work here also.

Plus please enable backspace and shift+backspace as alternatives for alt+left / alt+right in the library, just as I can use them in the main window.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Ponda — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 09:48:06 GMT

Other than copy/paste and search I think I use only ctrl+shift+t to restore accidentally closed tabs. But I also use Total Speed to use NumPad for video control, which works great except that it triggers its own, very limited fullscreen instead of original or PiP, making this particular key bind useless. I would likely use more hotkeys if I could easily check them in browser and rebind to my liking.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

iksfclol — Sun, 11 Aug 2024 19:57:57 GMT

Hello!

There is one hotkey I would absolutely love changed.

In Google Chrome you can press ctrl-shift-a to search your tabs (there is also a nice UI for this). This is an immensely useful functionality that I feel really really deprived without. Our closest comparable functionality for this can be accessed by pressing the down arrow on the far right of the tab bar and pressing "Search tabs".

Currently ctrl-shift-a for us opens about:addons. I really do not feel this is worthy of this prime keyboard real estate and could be changed to another hotkey.

I do think our tab search could do with a better UI, Chrome's ctrl-shift-a is nicer, vivaldi's ctrl-e is nicer. But getting a nice ergonomic shortcut would be a great start.

Also, seriously, if you're sitting on a browser all day reading programming docs or whatever, try this functionality out its a just sublime boost to productivity.

Thank you!

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

haingdc — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 14:48:30 GMT

In my case, I have the classic search bar with shortcut is 'Cmd + K'. I use it frequently but with some sites, they have the same shortcut for searching. That creates a conflict. My wish is that Firefox have hot keys system with strong customization 🙏

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

wutongtaiwan — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 09:48:36 GMT

I want to know when this feature will be developed? Have you decided to develop this feature?

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Rebel_Bell — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 13:20:30 GMT

Possibly the most important comment here! This seems to have been talked about for a long time (before this actual thread) on what is such an obvious development. Talk means nothing if it's not actioned.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

haingdc — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 17:14:57 GMT

So do I. It would be great if we can see some mock-up

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

ZacW — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 19:08:20 GMT

A status update for this feature would be incredible. Are we waiting another 2 years, or 2 months?

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

tifan — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 23:53:58 GMT

would be great to inform us of the update please

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

bdodroid — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 19:57:25 GMT

Honestly I just want to get rid of ctrl+shift+p (or change it to ctrl + shift + n)
It breaks the shortcut to the Command Pallet in github codespaces (where I do 80% of my work) and it was just maddening enough to drive me back to chrome as my daily driver.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

ThePillenwerfer — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 14:45:33 GMT

I don't know if you're still interested but the main ones I use are Ctrl-Shift-p and Ctrl-Alt-Shift-i. If I did want to save or print a web-page, which I very rarely do, I'd certainly press ^S or ^P rather than mess about with the menus. I may make more use of them in general if I knew what they were. A link on the Help menu would be handy.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Jon — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:10:51 GMT

Hey all, YES we're still listening and interested in hearing your feedback / ideas for all things hotkeys here. Keep it coming! We'll plan to close out this discussion in the next week or so and of course share any plans when they're available.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

ThePillenwerfer — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:39:07 GMT

Further to the above I've just looked at a list of shortcuts and was surprised to see "Delete Selected Autocomplete Entry ==> Shift-Delete" as I've been pressing that out of habit with no result and had concluded it was a function Firefox didn't have. Maybe it's a Linux thing.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

d9a — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 18:12:19 GMT

I just created an account to echo a few others here: the lack of customizable keyboard shortcuts is the single biggest thing preventing me from switching back to Firefox, and that's been the case since the day support was dropped however many years ago. Some of the potential changes being discussed in this thread could finally make it possible for me to come back and cut a whole lot of Chromium out of my life, so I'm thrilled to see this getting some much-needed attention.

In the meantime, I've been using Vivaldi, which I would also call the gold standard (at least in terms of flexibility -- their actual implementation is iffy at best, and even default shortcuts fail to be recognized in a variety of circumstances due to their entire UI being a React app). While there's plenty of room for differentiation, here's a simple yet specific example: if Firefox introduced a keyboard customization page that was a blatantly ripped off clone of Vivaldi's, I'd be dusting off some decade-old songbooks and singing Mozilla's praises from the rooftops.

I've also recently been trying Floorp, and while it's a marked improvement over Firefox in several ways, the keyboard shortcut customization is still pretty limited compared to what's possible in Vivaldi, and leaves me without access to some things I'd really like to be able to do with just a keyboard. It's also a shame that Floorp doesn't display any existing shortcuts, and only lets you disable all default ones with a single checkbox rather than modifying/removing individual ones as desired.

Off the top of my head, these are the keyboard shortcuts I have the most trouble with in Firefox:

Duplicate the current tab
Pop out the current tab to a new window (without reloading)
Jump directly to a tab with Ctrl+# -- this works on Windows, but for some reason got moved to Alt on Linux, which conflicts with unrelated system-wide shortcuts for me
Open common internal pages (settings, addons, etc)
Plus a few more that currently work, but are admittedly less common so I'd like to emphasize their importance to me:
Place my cursor directly in the address bar
Reopen the last-closed tab
Reload the page both with and without using cache
Open the browser's process manager, preferably in a popup window rather than a tab
Open/close Dev Tools, including shortcuts to directly open a certain tab (inspector, console, etc) -- almost fine, but Ctrl+Shift+J opens a console-only popup for the browser itself, rather than full dev tools for the current page

Some of these already have shortcuts, but ones that don't make sense to me and are hard to remember. Some are possible with addons, but typically a separate one for each desired behavior, leaving me with a big mess of addons installed each doing one tiny thing. While I deeply appreciate the flexibility offered by addons to extend my browser as I see fit and don't want my browser to be a whole kitchen sink of built-in features I'll never use (looking at you, Vivaldi), I really think custom keyboard shortcuts are a core fundamental feature of a browser, and anything that doesn't support them is doomed to be little more than a toy.

Finally, all of those shortcuts need to be possible to change or remove, if only to be consistent with the rest of my system, whatever that means for me. No single set of defaults will ever be right for everyone, and customization is key to making a browser feel like it's "mine." A great example is opening a private browsing window, which in every other browser I can think of uses Ctrl+Shift+N, while Firefox expects me to swap the N for a P. In addition to my personal belief that N makes more sense (open a new window with Ctrl+N, or add a modifier to make it a different type of window) it's unfortunately also unlikely to be practical to fully stop using a Chromium-based browser for the foreseeable future (it being "the new IE" and all that). If I'm going to be running multiple browsers side-by-side and don't want to hate my life, I need to be able to make them behave consistently. Additionally, if there's a shortcut I don't use, disabling it in the browser frees it up to be used for something entirely different, and reduces the chance of surprises if I fat-finger something (like Ctrl+Q, sandwiched between the extremely common Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+W, and Ctrl+A, instantly closing all browser windows without confirmation, as Chrome used to do by default).

A little off-topic, but closely related in my mind: Vivaldi also allows users to customize all its various context and dropdown menus, which is also extremely useful when I'm using a mouse. About half of Firefox's assorted menu entries are things I can confidently say I'd never, ever want to select, so being able to remove/reorder things lets me have a perfect balance of minimalism and power-user functionality that's impossible to deliver out of the box. Being able to move things out of submenus like "More tools" would be especially useful, since I really hate Firefox's new non-cascading mobile-style main menu that slowly animates between "pages" that replace the level above them, and want me to move my mouse over to a small "back" button to move back up, making it quicker to just close the menu and re-open it. Customizing menus would obviously be a completely separate project if it ever gets picked up at all, but it's the one other big "killer feature" I think Vivaldi has over Firefox.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

shodan — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 18:39:18 GMT

Hi Jon,

This discussion has 87 replies to it.

What you need to do is not to close it out.

What you need to do is , you and your team, to responds to things.

Not "make a statement" but actually engage in what has so far been a mostly a one sided discussion.

What firefox needs to have is a Valve's "Steam Input"-like system that allows any sort of input device (keyboard, mouse, joystick) to be able to be bound to absolutely ANY browser internal function, or java scriptlet/bookmarklets

Don't even try to constrain and map what input event can and can't to which internal function.

A game keybinding inspired interface attached to any and all existing internal function (with intellisense/code completion -like search)

Don't try to anticipate what function we'll need or what device we're using, leave all of that to the user and just let us bind anything to anything else. The users will figure it out.

And don't end this discussion, retreat to the ivory tower and then come back with a finished product.

Because if you do that, you will forget really obvious things, like "allowing to bind more than two keys to the same action", which happens all the time in games.

If you don't want to be doing this all over again in 5 years, you need to let the users steer development early and often. (This holds for many other aspect of FIrefox (and all software))

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

haingdc — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 06:12:59 GMT

Thanks for listening to us. Hopefully, Firefox will have improved in shortcut management. Btw, I see that add-on shortcuts are here but it's hard to spot the page

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

jan2 — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:04:44 GMT

Mark multiple tabs keyboard shortcut key.

the new mark and close multiple tabs is great and one i've wanted for a long time. pressing ctrl+w is tedious. Good job. im a keyboard user and with the ctrl+w should come a keyboard shortcut for marking the tabs I want to close.

i constantly open multiple search hits to choose which gives the closest answer to my search and often just leave the discarded tabs open and just clean-up periodically. i move the interesting ones to the left with alt+tab and ctrl+shift+pgup pgdn keys. then i move all the way right and start ctrl+w repeatedly.

This is tedious, but works for now.

With your excellent team finding this small shortcut will be a breeze.

But the ovations will be enormous 🙂

good luck and keep up the good work,

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

alefith — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 10:07:35 GMT

probably would be a good idea for a ff function/extension: a result aggregator for a single query across multiple search engine. with said engines customizable.
Should we open a new issue/suggestion for this?

Ps: it'd be awesome to have a quick way to compare the search result of, say wikipedia and google scholar; or amazon, etsy, google shopping, and whatever online store; or even better: a customizable search of NYT, daily telegraph, and whatever newspapers...
It would be an awesome tool against fake news too.

Tell me what we should do with this idea, I mioght have to learn how to code mozilla extensions^^

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Jon — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 14:39:04 GMT

Thanks! This is really good feedback and supports what a lot of others are asking for: the ability to customize keyboard shortcuts, including being able to change or remove them.

And for context menus, there's a similar idea thread here on Connect:

Feel free to check it out, vote, and add any additional insights 💪

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

P1h3r1e3d13 — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 20:14:45 GMT

1. What are your top five [“five”] most used hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts?

Actual top five (hotkey GOATs):

Ctrl+T
Ctrl+W
Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab (counts as one!)
Ctrl+F
F5 (I actually pressed it here instead of F & 5 🤦)

Daily at least:

Ctrl[+Shift]+T, Ctrl+W (tab open & close)
Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab (tab cycle)
Ctrl+1 & Ctrl+9 (first & last tabs)
Ctrl[+Shift]+R & Ctrl+F5 (reload)
Ctrl+F, /, ', F3, & Esc (search in page)
Home, End, Ctrl+↑, Ctrl+↓ (page top & bottom)
Ctrl+. (1Password)
Ctrl+Enter (.com completion)
~~Backspace~~ (I've mostly trained myself out of this one)
Tab (navigate forms, occasionally links)
Almost everything under “Editing”
Ctrl+S (save—mostly on PDFs & images)
Ctrl+0 & Ctrl+mousewheel-up (zoom reset, zoom in)
Ctrl+Shift+A (add-ons)
^, *, % (address bar suggestions, if you're counting that)
smart keywords, if you're counting that

And somewhat less frequently:

Ctrl[+Shift]+B, Ctrl+D (bookmarks)
Ctrl+Shift+P (new private window)
F12 (developer tools)
Ctrl+U (view source)
Ctrl+J (downloads)
Ctrl+Shift+S (screenshot—trying to learn this one so I can hide the button)
Space (go down a screen)
Ctrl++ (i.e. Ctrl+Shift+=) (zoom in)
F11 (full screen)
Esc (cancel drag-and-drop)
Space, ←, → (media)
Ctrl+Q (update bookmark)

2. What shortcuts do you wish Firefox offered?

Ctrl+, (settings—why does only Mac get this?!)
Ctrl+` (Firefox View)
open sidebar (most recently used, like the sidebar button does)
open each sidebar feature: synced tabs, chatbot
[smash face on keyboard] (make page conform to web standards)
general shortcut customization, as others have said

3. Is there a non-Firefox browser you prefer because of how they 'do' hotkeys/shortcuts?

Never!
I like some of the options in some other browsers, but nothing is broken/missing enough in Firefox to override the rest of the benefits.

Thank you @fxpm-nicole for working on this, and for doing it in a user-first way! 🍻

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

P1h3r1e3d13 — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 20:16:19 GMT

(Maybe this is easier to read.)

1. What are your top five [“five”] most used hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts?

Actual top five (hotkey GOATs):

Ctrl+T
Ctrl+W
Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab  (counts as one!)
Ctrl+F
F5                (I actually pressed it here instead of F & 5 🤦)

Daily at least:

Ctrl[+Shift]+T, Ctrl+W   tab open & close
Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab         tab cycle
Ctrl+1 & Ctrl+9          first & last tabs
Ctrl[+Shift]+R, Ctrl+F5  reload
Ctrl+F, /, ', F3, Esc    search in page
Home, End, Ctrl+↑/↓      page top & bottom
Ctrl+.                   1Password
Ctrl+Enter               .com completion
Backspace                back—I've mostly trained myself out of this one
Tab                      navigate forms, occasionally links
[duh]                    almost everything under “Editing”
Ctrl+S                   save—mostly on PDFs & images
Ctrl+0 & Ctrl+wheel-up   zoom reset, zoom in
Ctrl+Shift+A             add-ons
^, *, %                  address bar suggestions, if you're counting that
[user-defined]           smart keywords, if you're counting that

And somewhat less frequently:

Ctrl[+Shift]+B, Ctrl+D  bookmarks
Ctrl+Shift+P            new private window
F12                     developer tools
Ctrl+U                  view source
Ctrl+J                  downloads
Ctrl+Shift+S            screenshot—trying to learn this one so I can hide the button
Space                   go down a screen
Ctrl++ (i.e. Ctrl+Shift+=)  zoom in
F11                     full screen
Esc                     cancel drag-and-drop
Space, ←, →             media
Ctrl+Q                  update bookmark

2. What shortcuts do you wish Firefox offered?

Ctrl+,                    settings—why does only Mac get this?!
Ctrl+`                    Firefox View
open sidebar              most recently used, like the sidebar button does
open each sidebar feature: synced tabs, chatbot
[smash face on keyboard]  make page conform to web standards
general shortcut customization, as others have said

3. Is there a non-Firefox browser you prefer because of how they 'do' hotkeys/shortcuts?

Never!
I like some of the options in some other browsers, but nothing is broken/missing enough in Firefox to override the rest of the benefits.

Thank you @fxpm-nicole for working on this, and for doing it in a user-first way! 🍻

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

haingdc — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 02:44:14 GMT

And Don't forget counting Addon shortcuts in 🙂

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

vincentj — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 06:41:06 GMT

What are your top five most used hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts?

#1 is Ctrl+F for Find (along with F3/Shift+F3 to Find Next/Previous), but this is sadly getting less useful lately.
Some sites override the Ctrl+F shortcut which I absolutely hate... I know I can press Ctrl+F twice to open Find, but I would prefer if I could just prevent all sites from overriding this shortcut in the first place.

The other reason it's getting less useful is because some sites now implement virtual scrolling, so not all items are added to the DOM. This destroys the built-in browser Find feature which makes me cranky. If sites want to implement virtual scrolling, then I wish I could make my browser have a virtual super-tall window to force Find to work again... performance be damned.

Breaking built-in browser search is a terrible web design trend that should be shamed and abolished.

Other frequently used shortcuts in no particular order:

Ctrl+Shift+P to open a private window
Ctrl+Shift+T to reopen a closed tab
Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn to switch tabs
PgUp/PgDown to scroll
Ctrl+Home/Ctrl+End to go to the top/bottom of a page
Ctrl+Mousewheel up/down to zoom, and Ctrl+0 to reset zoom
F12 to open dev tools
Alt+Left/Alt+Right to navigate backward/forward

What shortcuts do you wish Firefox offered?

Waaay back in the day, you used to be able to press Esc after the page loaded to stop all web requests, animations (animated GIFs or Javascript animations), sounds, etc. Basically, you could press Esc to make the page Stop Doing Stuff. That doesn't work anymore so I have an extension called SuperStop which does this with Shift+Esc. But then, Firefox bound Shift+Esc to open the process manager, which broke the extension.

So, I would love if Firefox would re-implement that ancient browser feature where a simple press of Esc would actually stop ALL animation/sound/web traffic/javascript activity on the page. Would be very useful when I want to keep a page open for reference but want to disable all the distracting video, animation, and battery-sucking javascript nonsense.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

irrationality — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 12:30:09 GMT

Love the write-up and mention of Escape! I tried this recently and was disappointed it didn’t work like I remembered. I also use the page zoom features and some of your other shortcuts.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 20:12:49 GMT

Many things that I can click with the mouse to bring me to another page allow me to hold Shift to open that page in a new window, or hold Ctrl to open it in a new tab. This includes links on a page, items in the suggestion panel and the navigation buttons. However, actuating these features with Enter or their keyboard shortcuts doesn't always allow this. For example, I can't press Ctrl-Alt-Left to open the previous page in a new tab, but can click the back button while holding Ctrl, or I can't use holding Ctrl when selecting items in the location bar suggestions with arrow keys and (Ctrl-)Enter, but can by clicking them. (I did just learn that Tab and then Enter on the page support this, but not on the other UI parts).

I think supporting this meaning of shift and control everywhere possible would be Intuitive, as I sometimes expect it to exist where it doesn't, because of the parts where it already does. Many keyboard inputs such as Ctrl-Enter in the suggestions, or Ctrl-F5, or Ctrl-Alt-Left also don't have any existing meanings, so they wouldn't break anything in these cases.

Some cases, like Ctrl-N for new window and Ctrl-T for new tab already break this expectation, but because of text input, Shift-T for new window wouldn't work, and furthermore both this and something crazy like Alt-Shift-T which would work would violate the expectations of other firefox users who know where these Shortcuts used to be. That's why I think of this as a future use case for completely customizable keyboard shortcuts, which others have already suggested. Finally I don't know if all of these can be introduced in the meantime by Extensions, as Ctrl-F5 has F5 take precedence somehow, and I can't imagine an extension changing what happens when I press Ctrl-Enter on a search suggestion. That's another reason why I think this would be well placed inside firefox.

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

d9a — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 20:35:44 GMT

Many keyboard inputs such as [...] Ctrl-F5 [...] also don't have any existing meanings, so they wouldn't break anything in these cases.

Quick note about this one example: Ctrl+F5 does have an existing meaning in Firefox, which is a "hard refresh" AKA reloading the page without using any cached data. Shift+F5 also does the same in many other browsers, but in Firefox it opens the DevTools panel to the Performance tab (one of many unexpected defaults I'd love to be able to "fix" on my own machines)

Re: Hotkeys? Yes, please!

kcrht — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 19:22:12 GMT

2. A keyboard shortcut to open the context menu for selecting a container for a new tab would be immensely helpful.