Keyboard reference

Generated by cargo xtask keyboard from crates/textweaver-keymap; do not edit by hand. The in-app keyboard help shows the same table with your own overrides applied.

What changed

In 0.1.0-alpha.6: F10 opens the menus in the terminal, as F10 does in Windows programs (File, Edit, View, Reading, Speech, Tools, and Help). Previous chapter keeps Alt+PageUp and Shift+D; next chapter keeps F11, Alt+PageDown, and d. On macOS the GUI uses Mac keys, not Ctrl renamed: Option with the arrows moves by word and paragraph, Command with the arrows goes to the ends of the line and the document, Command runs commands, and nothing takes VoiceOver's Ctrl+Option (see the GUI on macOS column). New keys: Ctrl+F9 cycles the interface announcements (off, minimal, normal, full), Ctrl+Shift+F9 starts and stops dictation, and Shift+F1 says what the next key does.

In 0.1.0-alpha.4 the default keys became the quick navigation keys of NVDA's and JAWS's browse mode. To keep the earlier keys, set preset = "classic" under [keyboard] in settings.toml (see the classic preset). Old key, then where its command went, in the terminal:

• . (next sentence): now Alt+Down or Alt+.. . says the current sentence.
• , (previous sentence): now Alt+Up or Alt+,. , says the current paragraph.
• s (say the sentence): now . or Alt+Shift+S. s moves to the next separator.
• Shift+S (say the paragraph): now ,. Shift+S moves to the previous separator.
• l (say the line): now Alt+Shift+L (Ctrl+L in the GUI). l moves to the next list.
• o and Shift+O (next and previous list): now l and Shift+L. o does nothing.
• Shift+H (history back): now Backspace or Alt+Left. Shift+H moves to the previous heading.
• Shift+L (history forward): now \ or Alt+Right. Shift+L moves to the previous list.
• k (scroll up): now Shift+J. k moves to the next link.
• Shift+K (say the link address): now Alt+Shift+K. Shift+K moves to the previous link.
• q and Shift+Q (quit): now Ctrl+Q only, which still asks first. q moves to the next block quote.
• Alt+Down and Alt+Up (next and previous note): now F12 and Shift+F12, or e and Shift+E. Alt+Down and Alt+Up move by sentence.
• ' and " (next and previous note): removed; use e and Shift+E.
• Alt+Shift+D (add a reference, terminal): now Alt+B, because Windows Terminal splits its window with Alt+Shift+D. The GUI keeps Alt+Shift+D.
• Alt+Shift+Up and Alt+Shift+Down (RSVP faster and slower) stay, and Alt+Shift+PageUp and Alt+Shift+PageDown do the same, because Windows Terminal resizes panes with the first two.

New keys: g and Shift+G (graphics), d and Shift+D (sections or chapters), Ctrl+Down and Ctrl+Up (paragraphs), Alt+Shift+Q (citations on or off while reading), Alt+Shift+X (explore math), Alt+Shift+Z (syllables), and Alt+Shift+J (difficult words). p and Shift+P still move by paragraph: NVDA's and JAWS's p is paragraph too. Say position stays on Shift+W.

Quick navigation, as in NVDA and JAWS

In browse mode, a letter moves to the next item of a kind, and Shift with the letter to the previous one. textweaver follows NVDA's letters:

• h: heading. 1 to 6: heading at that level.
• l: list. i: list item.
• t: table.
• k: link (u too).
• q: block quote.
• s: separator (a horizontal rule).
• g: graphic (an image).
• d: section or chapter, the nearest thing a document has to a landmark.
• Backspace: back to where you were before the last jump.

Where JAWS differs:

• JAWS moves between links with u (unvisited) and v (visited), and its k moves between place markers. In textweaver u also moves by link; place markers are bookmarks (b).
• JAWS's q moves to the main region, not a block quote.
• JAWS moves to a separator with the dash key. In textweaver the dash makes speech slower; use s.
• JAWS moves between regions (landmarks) with r, and its d moves to the next different element. In textweaver r reads the paragraph again; use d for sections.
• Sentences with Alt+Down and Alt+Up, and paragraphs with Ctrl+Down and Ctrl+Up, are JAWS's keys; NVDA uses the same paragraph keys.

Help keys

• ? in browse mode lists the keyboard shortcuts in both frontends; the GUI also opens that list with F3.
• F1 opens the help in both frontends.
• In the terminal, F3 is Find next and F4 Find previous, as in star's terminal reader, so the terminal's keyboard list is on ? only.

Modes and layers

Every binding belongs to a layer. What a key does depends on the mode you are in:

Browse keys are single keys, like a screen reader's browse mode, and work the same in both frontends. Global chords work in every mode. Speech Cursor keys take over browse keys with the same name while Speech Cursor is on (for example j reads the next line instead of scrolling).

In the tables below a key without a note is global; the others name their layer. The GUI column shows Windows and Linux. The GUI on macOS column shows the Mac's own keys: Command for commands, Option with the arrows for words and paragraphs, Command with the arrows for the ends, and Command+Option for the chords that use Alt with a letter elsewhere, because Option with a letter types a character on a Mac.

Single-key shortcuts

Browse keys are single printable keys. Speech recognition, dictation, and switch or scanning keyboards can type them by accident, so they can be turned off (WCAG 2.1.4, Character Key Shortcuts): press F9, run toggle character keys from the command palette, or set this in settings.toml:

[keyboard]
character_keys = false

While they are off, printable keys and Space never trigger commands in any mode; chords with Ctrl or Alt, the arrow and function keys, and the command palette (F2) keep working. Quitting and deleting a note or highlight always ask first ("Quit textweaver? y or n"), however you start them, so a stray q cannot close a document. The actions listed at the end of this page have only single keys; with single-key shortcuts off, run them from the command palette or give them a chord in keymap.toml.

Changing keys

Put overrides in keymap.toml in the configuration directory. Each line replaces all of an action's keys; an empty list removes them:

next_sentence = ["Alt+.", "x"]
stop = ["Escape", "b:Shift+Z"]
bold = []

A key may name its layer with a prefix: g: global, b: browse, s: Speech Cursor, e: edit. Without a prefix, a single character goes to the browse layer (so it never gets in the way of typing), and any other chord goes to the action's usual layer. textweaver warns about unknown actions, keys it cannot read, and keys a terminal cannot send, and keeps going. A key your overrides would bind to two commands in one mode is not applied; the warning names it.

Terminal notes

• Terminals cannot send Ctrl+H (it is Backspace), Ctrl+I (Tab), Ctrl+M or Ctrl+J (Enter), Ctrl+Shift+ a letter (it arrives as Ctrl+ the letter), or Ctrl with digits and most punctuation. The terminal defaults avoid all of them; the browse keys cover what the GUI does with those chords.
• F10 opens textweaver's menus. Some terminal programs keep F10 or F11 (full screen) for themselves; then run menu from the command palette (F2), and move by chapter with Alt+PageDown and Alt+PageUp.
• Shift with the arrow keys extends the selection in browse mode; most terminals send these keys, but some terminal programs keep Shift+Up and Shift+Down for scrolling their own window.
• Alt chords work in the terminal. star's terminal reader lost them to the Escape key; textweaver reads them directly.
• The keys 1 to 6 move to the next heading of that level, and Shift with the digit to the previous one, as in a screen reader's browse mode. The tables show Shift with a digit as the character a US keyboard types (! @ # $ % ^); textweaver matches the digit key itself, whatever your layout types. On Windows (Windows Terminal and the classic console) it reads the key from the console, so every layout works, including French AZERTY, where the digit row types & é " without Shift. Elsewhere terminals send only the character, so textweaver knows the shifted digits of the US, UK, German, Spanish, Nordic, and Italian layouts (" £ § · ¤ and & as well as the US ones). French AZERTY types the digits only with Shift, so outside Windows set digit_row = "azerty" under [keyboard]: then & é " ' ( - are the digit keys 1 to 6, and the digits typed with Shift go back.

Reading

Navigation

Speech Cursor

Voice

Search

Bookmarks and notes

File

Editing

View and help

The terminal on macOS

A terminal never passes the Command key, so on a Mac the terminal keeps the keys in the Terminal column, with Option as Alt (in Terminal, turn on "Use Option as Meta key"; in iTerm2, set the Option key to Esc+). These commands use other keys on a Mac, because VoiceOver keeps Ctrl+Option, Mission Control keeps Ctrl with the arrows, and macOS keeps Ctrl with F1 to F8 and Ctrl+Space:

The classic preset

textweaver's single keys as they were before the default became the NVDA and JAWS layout: . and , move by sentence, s says the sentence and l the line, Shift+H and Shift+L go back and forward, o moves by list, and q quits (after asking). Choose it in settings.toml:

[keyboard]
preset = "classic"

The old screen-reader preset is now the default, and preset = "screen-reader" still works: it means the default keys.

Your keymap.toml overrides apply on top of it. The tables above show the default keys; the preset changes only these, in both frontends:

In this preset next_block_quote, previous_block_quote, next_separator, previous_separator, next_graphic, previous_graphic have no keys: run them from the command palette, or bind keys in keymap.toml.

Where the default commands of those keys went, in the terminal:

• Say the sentence at the cursor without moving: Alt+Shift+S, s (browse).
• Say the paragraph at the cursor without moving: Shift+S (browse).
• Move to the next separator (horizontal rule): the command palette only.
• Move to the previous separator (horizontal rule): the command palette only.
• Move to the next list: o (browse).
• Move to the previous heading without reading: Alt+Shift+H, { (browse).
• Move to the previous list: Shift+O (browse).
• Move to the next link: u (browse).
• Move to the previous link: Shift+U (browse).
• Move to the next block quote: the command palette only.
• Move to the previous block quote: the command palette only.
• Move to the next graphic (image): the command palette only.
• Move to the previous graphic (image): the command palette only.
• Move to the next chapter or section: F11, Alt+PageDown.
• Move to the previous chapter or section: Alt+PageUp.
• Move to the next sentence: Alt+., . (browse).
• Move to the previous sentence, or to the start of this one when more than three words in: Alt+,, , (browse).

Command palette only, with single-key shortcuts off

These actions have only single-key shortcuts by default. With single-key shortcuts off, run them from the command palette (F2) or bind a chord in keymap.toml.

Commands without keys

These commands have no keys by default. Run them from the command palette (F2, then type part of the name), or bind a key in keymap.toml.