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Vlad

Orion wouldn’t need to know what mappings are used by extensions.

Let me give an example of what I'm talking about. The Zotero extension has one function (extract metadata from current page and save to the main Zotero application), which is activated by clicking on the extension icon. Unlike some similar extensions, it offers no way to map this to a keyboard shortcut.

I find the click-only approach to be unergonomic, especially if the extension is hidden in the overflow menu. (Sometimes I might be activating the Zotero extension 10 or 15 times in quick succession, and I suffer from RSI...) Chromium browsers offer such key mapping capability for most/all extensions. In Safari, as mentioned above, UI scripting is required.

What I am suggesting is that all that is needed for Orion is to have Tools > Extensions > [name of extension] > Activate in the application menu for each extension, with Activate simulating a click on the extension icon. For some extensions, this wouldn’t do anything useful, but for the likes of Zotero it would be very useful.

So, Orion wouldn’t need to know anything more about extension shortcuts than it already does. It would obviously be up to the user to avoid mapping clashes, same as with remapping any menu item.

    small_lion ok so it is about ext activation, not mapping extension shortcuts. i suggest to create a new post for this

      a month later

      Vlad

      Hi. I just started using Orion and I really like it.

      The one thing stopping me from using it as my default browser is the lack of custom shortcuts for extensions.

      For example, in Chromium based browsers, I use an extension called SN Utils, to add tons of features to ServiceNow, a SaaS solution I work with.

      I have successfully installed it on Orion, but I can't configure it's shortcuts.

      In any other Chromium based browser, I have a screen like this:

      Opera GX's extension shortcuts config screen

      I have an idea to tackle this in Orion, although I'm not sure if it's possible to implement it...
      In order to let us set the shortcuts using macOS default feature, Orion could list the configurable extension shortcuts as a submenu under Tools | Extensions | <extension name> after the Enable / Disable option:

      This was just my 2 cents to the discussion, trying to help you improving this amazing browser and make it even better.

      Cheers.
      Cristiano

        3 months later

        CristianoVM

        This is exactly what I am missing too. I'm here ready to jump on Orion as soon as they implement this feature. Please do it! I have been checking out the browser every month cause I like it that much, but this is stopping me from switching.

          8 days later

          For users who really want to have their standard shortcuts: Have a look into BetterTouchTool. There you can map any existing shortcut or thing with a new shortcut. It's one of my all time favorit productive tools.

          For me I need the Bitwarden short cut to be the same on all machines and unfortunaley I'm used to another shortcut than the standard one. Just add Orion to Bettertouchtool, add the shortcut you want and that it than should trigger the standard Bitwarden shortcut. Everything works perfekt like this.

          Vlad Hello Vlad,
          Is this already implemented? I really want to setup keyboard shortcuts for extentions actions as @CristianoVM suggested. Please advise me a workaround!

            It is not impemented yet. When it is, the status of this post will change to Done.

            16 days later

            There is one disadvantage that native macOS bindings have and that is that you can't configure a single character shortcuts though.

            For example SigmaOS browser uses:
            / - new tab
            d - close tab ("Done")
            s - share
            etc.

            After giving SigmaOS a try for a while I really got used to it and find it more natural than multi key shortcuts for simple things as new tab/close tab etc. so that was the first thing I wanted to do when I stared using Orion again and found out it's not possible with macOS Keyboard Shortcuts.

            This is the dialog that they use:

              I would like to see a menu in settings where I can reconfiger all shortcuts that use Orion. I know that I can do it in system settings, but it's too long and not convinient at all. Examples:

              Arc Browser:

              SigmaOS

                7 months later
                ForumNinja404 changed the title to Add ability to change keyboard shortcuts .
                  Merged 3 posts from Add ability to change keyboard shortcuts .
                    7 days later

                    Vlad macOS system Keyboard settings do not allow all keys to be used when creating shortcuts. e.g. Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+PgDown are common shortcuts for switching tabs and the macOS System Settings does not allow PgUp or PgDown to be used in shortcuts. This is another reason to consider native support for custom keyboard shortcuts!

                    4 months later

                    davidkaya I also used SigmaOS for a while and really liked it. I still find myself trying to close tabs on Orion by pressing d...

                    Additionally, related to this topic but a bit different: I often use the Keyboard Shortcut Settings in apps as a cheatsheet of what the shortcuts are, since I'm bad at remembering them, even when I'm not changing them. I even looked at the Orion User Guide and still could not find anything that resembled a shortcut cheatsheet.

                    Another thing I liked about SigmaOS is that it really encourages you to use and remember the keyboard shortcuts by mentioning them in the tooltips when you're doing things with the mouse. Two examples from when you hover over the "close tab" and "new tab" buttons:


                    • Vlad replied to this.

                      meroron All Orion shortcuts are visible in the menus, and you can remap them using native macOS settings. It feels redundant to buiild the same functionality again?

                        Vlad

                        Sometimes I know where a functionality is in the interface but don't know where it is in the menus. I have to check the menus one by one looking for the functionality, and then even if I find it, I might forget where it was next time, when I'll have to look for it again (because I have to check what a shortcut is multiple times before I memorize it). Maybe it's just bad memory from ADHD, but I feel tons of friction doing it that way – and having to leave the app to open macOS settings to customize the shortcuts is also yet another layer of friction. (I do think the fact that multiple people have asked in this forum about how to customize the shortcuts shows that it is currently not clear enough for the user)

                        Having the reminder what the keyboard shortcut is right in front of me as I used the app via mouse made it easy for me to remember the keyboard shortcuts without even trying, and then using shortcuts instead of the mouse made me much more efficient and using the browser felt much more fluid. I really only stopped using SigmaOS because performance was bad and it felt heavy/laggy, but I got so comfortable using it so quickly. With Orion, it's hard to find out what the shortcuts are, it's hard to memorize them, I end up giving up and just using the mouse, but then using the mouse feels slow and clunky, and it just gets a bit frustrating. I guess my answer is that sometimes redundancy is good?

                        One keyboard shortcut I've been looking for a long time and haven't found yet is the one to un-indent a tab. In SigmaOS it was option + left arrow. So far in Orion the only way I've found to un-indent a tab / break it out of its group is to drag and drop it elsewhere in the sidebar, carefully trying to drag it to root level rather than into another group... it's been pretty tough.

                          2 months later

                          meroron

                          meroron Sometimes I know where a functionality is in the interface but don't know where it is in the menus. I have to check the menus one by one looking for the functionality, and then even if I find it, I might forget where it was next time, when I'll have to look for it again (because I have to check what a shortcut is multiple times before I memorize it). Maybe it's just bad memory from ADHD, but I feel tons of friction doing it that way – and having to leave the app to open macOS settings to customize the shortcuts is also yet another layer of friction. (I do think the fact that multiple people have asked in this forum about how to customize the shortcuts shows that it is currently not clear enough for the user)

                          You can just hit ⇧⌘/ (or you can remember it as ⌘?) and type in the name of the menu item you want to click. If needed, use the up and down arrow keys to choose it and hit ⏎ to active it.

                            5 days later

                            Orion already supports mapping of extension shortcuts. Does this ask still stand?

                            Orion (via the macOS Keyboard settings) does not support some common keyboard shortcuts such as e.g. Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+PgDown for switching tabs.
                            Allowing these as keyboard shortcuts would allow muscle memory from other browsers to transfer to Orion.

                            • Vlad replied to this.