elementary / elementary/shortcut-overlay

Add a search field that is automatically focused

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#116 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Needs Design Priority: Wishlist
Dominant language
Vala
Stars
38
Forks
7
Avg merge
1d 2h
Merged PRs (30d)
1

Description

### Problem

Bringing up the shortcut overlay shows you a window with a *bunch* of text which can introduce a significant cognitive overload. Although text is well spaced and consideration have been taken to ensure legibility, it can be hard / straining to scan the entire content of the overlay for the one shortcut you're looking for.

### Proposal

Add a search field that is automatically focused, so that immediately upon bringing up the overlay you can start typing for what you want to filter the amount of shortcuts presented to you (e.g. bring up the overlay and start typing "screenshot area" would show you "Select an area to grab" and "Copy an area to clipboard").

This could be especially useful / powerful when combined with #115, so that you could additionally search / filter not only system-wide shortcuts but application-specific ones

### Prior Art (Optional)

Mouseless (macOS) does that
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/43272781/149143626-959c6f5d-fcce-4541-b7bc-38212ba2f416.png)

iPadOS also offers search for their shortcut overlay (see the search icon on the left)
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/43272781/149143937-98cb3dde-e837-49af-b053-a22ec979d44f.png)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

The issue names no files, tests, or entry points. Start by locating the shortcut overlay implementation and its UI entry point, then determine how shortcut filtering and automatic focus fit together; done means the overlay opens with the search field focused and typing shows matching shortcuts.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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