Suggestion: Add ability to navigate between panels with keyboard shortcuts

[anuarkaliyev23]

Hi, this is a minor suggestion — at this moment, as I understand there needs to be a mouse click to navigate between panels, for example — from navigation panel to collection view and highlighted Raindrop's details with exception of esc to navigate from right to left and closing the application once it is pressed on navigation panel.

Is there a possibility to add additional key to navigate from left to right (and additional way from right to left), for example, with h and l keys which would be somewhat intuitive for vi/vim users?

I propose it mainly because I can navigate up/down with j/k keys, but since I don't see explicit code for it, I suppose it is default in underlying TUI framework which would be somewhat widespread in Terminal interfaces.

It is stated that braindrop is somewhat opinionated in README

Braindrop is and generally always will be fairly opinionated about the "best" way to make use of Raindrop (AKA how I like to use it); but where possible I want to keep it quite general so it will be useful to anyone.

But in my opinion — option to use keyboard only is somewhat convenient for terminal interfaces so I think it would be nice to have

[davep]

as I understand there needs to be a mouse click to navigate between panels

No, you simply need only press Tab and Shift+Tab to switch through the panels.

I propose it mainly because I can navigate up/down with j/k keys, but since I don't see explicit code for it, I suppose it is default in underlying TUI framework which would be somewhat widespread in Terminal interfaces.

If you mean moving through the raindrop list: no, that's not a Textual thing, that's a my code thing.

As for the "opinionated" quite from the README, that's about the use of Raindrop and how Braindrop is designed to work with it; it says nothing about how one should work in the terminal. I have no wish to make a tool that can't be used unless you're mouse-only and every application I build attempts to be keyboard-first.

[anuarkaliyev23]

Got it, thank you for clarification!

So, I guess I just didn't know functions well enough and somehow didn't think of a tab to switch, sorry 😅

Maybe j, k, Tab, Shift+Tab should be added explicitly on popup that appears on ? key press since they also seem to be used anywhere on the main screen?

[davep]

Core navigation isn't a "command" (hence you won't find it if you pull up the command palette) and so would not be in that list. That's a list of the commands you can use, and their associated keyboard shortcuts, if they have any at all.

More generally, in any of my applications that use this framework I don't show core control navigation in the help as generally it's such a basic feature and so common to so many applications, CHUI or GUI, going back quite a long way. Adding help on common control navigation using the keyboard would be like also including help on how to click with the mouse.

As for support for j and k when it comes to moving through vertical lists of things and documenting that: it's not how I'd recommend the casual user navigate such a list; instead I'd expect them to use the arrow keys as you'd use in most other applications; rather they're there as undocumented (in the easter egg sense) comfort options for folk who have muscle memory relating to vim, less, etc...

[anuarkaliyev23]

Got it, I guess it is reasonable and help messages for navigation are not necessary, it's kinda intuitive enough

Thank you for the clarifications, I think discussion can be closed as resolved

Sorry for the inconvenience if I caused any, I guess my habits in terminal navigation might've affected me, but j/k are indeed kinda auxiliary, and not the main method of navigation for most users😬

[davep]

No apology needed! It's always good to ask. 🙂