We are testing out hotkeys on the main SuttaCentral.net website. They are only minimally documented on the site so far but testing and feedback is most welcome. As with all new changes, you may need to do a ctrl/cmd + shift + R to see the changes. Here is what we have so far:
key
function
s
Open the top search bar and place cursor ready to search
v
toggle through three view states for aligned texts (plain/side by side/line by line)
n
toggle through notes view (on asterisk/side notes/none)
Please give them a try and tell us what you think. Note: these are just single keys, no need for Alt/Ctrl/Cmd. So they shouldn’t interfere with other shortcuts you may be using.
For now they are hinted at in the view menu if you forget:
Maybe not… All the other things are very temporary already. Like, you aren’t going to use the site with the settings panel open. But the Pali lookup is something I would imagine someone might keep open as they read. But I don’t actually use it much so I can’t really say.
I can’t think of anything else right that would help me when reading individual suttas. For me, the main other issues have to do with searching and navigation - which are difficult problems that I know you are working on.
But honestly I am not set on that. I’m doubting people toggle that very often. We could use b for that if we really wanted it.
We are already using s for search. I think t would be good for PTS refs. @Khemarato.bhikkhu, what do you think?
I had no idea about this. It’s curious that I don’t see any attempt to tell people about the shortcuts or the ?.
I like ? for this. It’s used on GitHub as well. I had been thinking k but ? makes a bit more sense.
Another interesting observation is that I don’t think I have ever accidentally triggered any of those shortcuts on D&D, which indicates to me that having single keypress shortcuts works well.
As a related aside, because the s hotkey will be popular, I wonder about this conundrum: When you go into search mode, unless you know to look for the small greyed-out x at the far right bottom of the search box, you will think there’s no way to get back to whatever sutta you are searching from. Until you’ve done it once, there’s an impression that there’s no way to get back.
Thanks a lot Bhantes!
