Add a command palette

carl

How about having menu commands accessible from the URL bar, and specially styled as such when offered?

This is a good idea, it would complete everything that is being asked for here. Can you create a seperate feature suggetion just for this (and any thoughts on presentation/styling)

     A command palette in Orion would also be like the 'Quick Actions' panel in Xcode 15 and higher. From Xcode 15's release notes:

General

New Features

• The new “Quick Actions” panel provides keyboard access to perform commands across Xcode. (108024215)

Another piece of community 'documentation' on this is https://sarunw.com/posts/little-big-improvements-xcode15/#quick-action.

     I think that there may be a few orthogonal concerns/feature requests being conflated here, especially after some of the thread merging that's happened. Whether a user can search through:

• URL/URI navigation auto-complete suggestions
• bookmarks
• history
• open tabs
• recently open tabs that are now closed
• tabs open or recently open but now closed on/synced from other devices
• menu commands
• other potential user actions (for example, items available in contextual menus for, say, the current tab that aren't in the application menus)

in:

• the unified address/search ('location?') bar
• the application-global Help menu in the top-level top-of-screen menu bar
• the interface for creating new programmable toolbar buttons and assigning actions to them
• a potential command palette

is a set of unique questions/considerations for each UI/UX location.
     Personally, I'd prefer that for/in:

• the unified address/search ('location?') bar, I can search through:

  • URL/URI navigation auto-complete suggestions

  • bookmarks

  • history

  • open tabs

  • recently open tabs that are now closed

  • tabs open or recently open but now closed on/synced from other devices

  • but not:

    • menu commands
    • other potential user actions (for example, items available in contextual menus for, say, the current tab that aren't in the application menus)

    as surfacing these definitely seems like it could well prove confusing in the 'location' barg, as it doesn't fit the UI element's purpose/idiom/idiomatic usage.

    (They at least shouldn't show up by default; allowing these could potentially be a user preference which I'd personally keep turned off.)

• the application-global Help menu in the top-level top-of-screen menu bar, I can search through:

  • only menu commands

  (This is default system behavior that can't be changed, as far as I'm aware.)

• the interface for creating new programmable toolbar buttons and assigning actions to them, I can search through:

  • all the items/actions currently surfaced through this UI
  • other menu and command palette actions as applicable

• a potential command palette:

  • menu commands

  • other potential user actions (for example, items available in contextual menus for, say, the current tab that aren't in the application menus)

  • optionally:

    • URL/URI navigation auto-complete suggestions

    • bookmarks

    • history

    • open tabs (for a 'jump to open tab' feature in the command palette)

    • recently open tabs that are now closed

    • tabs open or recently open but now closed on/synced from other devices

    with individual toggles. (Whether each of these is surfaced in the command palette by default is something that I'll just leave as an open question.)

     (Finally, other entries that could perhaps also be surfaced in a command palette, too, are:

• from the programmable toolbar button creation and action assignment UI, the:

  • 'Run JavaScript' and
    • 'Run AppleScript'

  actions

• Items/entries from the application menu's 'Services' sub-menu.)

I want to mention that the Search function of macOS already covers lots of features of command palette. Just hit ⇧⌘/ (you can remember it as ⌘?)

Here’s the demo:

In the demo, I switched tab and bookmarked the current active tab. Apple really needs to educate their user base.

Vlad , I don’t think you understand the core idea of a command palette. With a command palette, you only have to remember one keyboard shortcut and the names of various functions to achieve a keyboard-centric workflow:

• Want to create a new tab? Use that keyboard shortcut → type in some letters → Use a keyboard to pick it → Enter!
• Want to switch to another window? Use that keyboard shortcut → type in some letters → Use a keyboard to pick it → Enter!
• Want to turn on Focus mode? Use that keyboard shortcut → type in some letters → Use a keyboard to pick it → Enter!
• Want to disable a plugin? Use that keyboard shortcut → type in some letters → Use a keyboard to pick it → Enter!

Yes. It’s slower than to remember all the shortcuts outright. However, the barrier to a keyboard-centric workflow is so much lower.

Please don’t merge the search bar with a command palette. They serve different functions and should be kept separate. I’ve never encountered any apps that merge them.

The Search function of macOS does share the same core idea with a command palette. However, just like many other built-in features, there’s no customization at all. You can’t really customize what will show up after you type in some letters. This is crucial for professional apps because the number of available actions can be hundreds. Also, the number of actions being shown at the same time is also limited, and the order of items can’t be changed.

At the moment, I think the team should postpone this idea. When Orion reach a stable release and/or release on Windows/Linux, the team should revisit it. On Windows, there’s no native feature that serves the purpose of a command palette. And Linux… has too many desktop environments (DE) for me to remember. In the meantime, if you think you can populate the menu even more, you should do that.

Finally, I know this is not ideal, but consider that this suggestion gets a considerable number of upvotes and Apple does a poor job at educating its user base (as usual), I think you may want to mention the Search function in Orion’s documentation.

as @khoanguyen0001 already mentioned, i think the idea needs to be understood.

As a user of raycast, a spotlight alternative, i using it all the time to navigate and control different apps. It has extensions that are both built by the devs (that provide the basics) and the community (that provide plugins for whatever app you need).

In general, the extension system is quite elegant and simple:

• there is a global shortcut to summon the action bar
• any extension can register any type of keyword and resulting action
• if multiple actions are available, there is a default one
• any action can also require an input from the user, users would hit tab or enter to enter the details or sub-menu
• there are different apis for each action, some allow you to simply perform a simple task, other may fetch data and display a list of element, which again let you do an action and some even come with simple config menus
• each keyword can be assigned a shortcut, that would trigger its action
• users can set abbreviations to reduce the number of strokes needed
• fuzzy search allows for easy location of any keyword registered

For example, an extension here could be search:

• we have a keyword "search"
• there is a default shortcut set to "cmd+s"
• the user has set an abbreviation to "s"
• the action would fetch data from the configured search-engine and display the results in the list
• one item then can be selected and opened by pressing enter
• the search extensions would expect an additional query input

Image the flow now:

1. user hits the global shortcut, in this case cmd+k, a common pattern
2. user now types "s" to search
3. In this case, the search extension would expect further input, so the user hits tab to focus on the search term input
4. the user starts typing their query
5. the action bar expands with results from the query and preselect the first result
6. the user can then just hit enter or use the arrow up and down keys to go to the page they want

I think integrating the functionality into the search bar would be annoying, as in the search bar the user's intent is to clearly find something, not to perform an action. Having keywords and search-results being mixed in the address bar would make the results of "search" annoying.

I attached the details on how raycast for example lets me search all homebrew, show the the details, go to the package i wanted and install it. all without having to click once.

cmd+k in this instance would show me all the actions available

@Vlad my suggestion is an entire different suggestion for the most part and just contains the command palette. I included the image for the last bullet point, I will remove it should it be confusing. Please unmerge.

This was suggested to be implemented into the native Orion Search Bar.