About shortcuts...

[thisIsTheFoxe]

In line with #955 (among other) it might be good practice to support other common (coding) shortcuts, like:

• Ctrl-Space to trigger code-completion
• Cmd-f to trigger a text-search
• Cmd-W to close the window
• Cmd-, to show settings
• Cmd-. to stop running
• Alt-[Up/Down] to move one or multiple lines up down
• probably more fitting for ruby Cmd-# rather than Cmd-/
• Cmd-[os] to load / save
• Cmd-n to make a new song
• Alt-Click to open docs of the clicked function
• Cmd-Click to jump to the definition of the clicked variable

Most of these are universal, however, for reference I used VS Code (the most used IDE in 2019 according to StackOverflow)

Also, there are some questionable shortcuts, where I'm not sure why anyone would need them, like:

• M-[ul] - Convert next word (or selection) to upper/lower case
• C-[pnfb] - Move curser (same as ^,v,<,>)
• C-[hd] - Delete forwards / backwards (same as Del, Ctrl-Del / Fn-Del)
• S-M-[ud] - Move up / down 10 lines

So what I'm basically trying to say is that the shortcuts as they are right now are quite unintuitive and make it hard to work fast and productive at least in my exp.

[SebiderSushi]

Just a heads up that you used Cmd, Ctrl & Alt there.

The manual section about keyboard shortcuts mentions that they are designed to work the same on all the supported platforms, e.g. the Mac-PC thingy with the Cmd button etc.

At some point it also mentions that the shortcuts aim to provide an alternative to reaching for the arrow keys.

But i can definitely agree with you on the proposed additions. Especially the lack of a search function has tripped me up very quick.

[Steven24K]

A command to stop the programming from running does allready exists Alt+S is to stop and Alt+R to start.

I agree that the Alt+space would be a nice to have for all of the users comming from the VS code community.

For me as windows user it was new for using the alt key to trigger commands, since I was used to the Ctrl, but the same goes for mac users with the CMD key.

Since the main purpose of this tool is to educate people and the main users are teachers. It makes sense to make a generic shortcut key the Alt in this case for all platforms. This way a teacher does not have to re-explain why Ctrl+C is not working on mac over and over again.

But adding more short cuts can be a great feature, to improve the usability. Especially for live coding sessions.

[janmyler]

I have just discovered Sonic Pi today and had a quick jam session. I have noticed that as someone using a code editor every day, I was expecting many of these shortcuts to work. To the ones listed at the top of the thread I would add the ability to tweak numeric values (as you may know from browser dev tools) with keyboard. Alt+Up/Down – change by ±0.1, Up/Down – change by 1, Shift+Up/Down – change by ±10.

For live jam sessions this would make the workflow of tweaking numerical params so much easier, in my opinion.

Edit: I have realized that the edit up or down w/o any modifier key could cause some strange issues as the params are just code (moving up in the code, cursor running into a number, getting stuck modifying it, panic 😅).