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keyboard shortcut question

davidnjacoby says:
Hi folks,

I have looked through the keyboard shortcut documentation and understand everything fine (er... I think). But I'm kind of a "mouse avoider" and I there's something keyboard-shortcut related I haven't figured out how to do.

If I arrive at the home page, I can tab down to the field where I create a new list item. Then I hit return, and voilà, new item added. BUT: If I then want to use any of the wonderful keyboard shortcuts to modify that new list item, I have to use the mouse to select that item from the list, and only THEN will the keyboard shortcuts work. What I need is for the list item I'm adding not to slip from my control (that is, the control of my keyboard) when I hit return.

Can somebody help a brother out?
Posted at 11:14pm on September 21, 2009
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
If I understand right, you're entering the "Add a new task" field (which can be focused by pressing 't', by the way), entering a new task, and then you want to use another shortcut.

You should be able to press 'Tab' to leave the field, at which point other shortcuts are accessible.

Hope this helps!
Posted 15 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Perhaps what David misses is the ability to operate on a freshly added task? This change in behavior was just added with the addition of smart add, to diminish the chance of inadvertent edits. If that is what he means, he is not alone. The basic workaround (click the task name in the yellow notificatioj bar) doesn't help his desire to be mouse only. While I find smart add to be terrific, one thing to try would be to disable it and revert to the older behavior, where recently added tasks remained highlighted and could be manipulated via keyboard shortcuts.

Can I turn off the Smart Add feature?
Yes, just visit the "Settings" screen in the web app. On the "General" tab, you'll see a "Smart Add" option. Simply set it to "Off".
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/smartadd/faq/
Posted 15 years ago
davidnjacoby says:
What I wanted to do was NOT leave the field of the current list item I'm adding and go back to site-wide keyboard shortcuts, but stay focused on the list item at hand and get to things like the tags field, etc.

BUT.... being the rather slow-witted chap I am, I failed to click the little question mark next to the field there, which shows you the "smart add shortcuts" (I always miss something... if anybody needs to do usability testing for the complete moron, give me a call).

Enabled with this new knowledge, I find that, e.g., #writing at the end of the text adds my "writing" tag to the item. God, life is so good on the internets!

Still, I guess I should *suggest* that RTM add the category "smart add shortcuts" to the "learn keyboard shortcuts" page, know what I'm saying?

Peace,
dnj
Posted 15 years ago
devon20net says:
@andrew - the task editing shortcuts aren't accessible until the task is selected. When Smart Add was added, the autoselect feature was removed so now the user must manually select the newly added task before using any of the shortcuts.

@david - check out this thread to see the arguments for & against autoselect as well as a workaround or two.
Posted 15 years ago
This topic has now been closed automatically due to a lack of responses in the past 90 days.