macvim-dev / macvim-dev/macvim

Feature Request: Support Shift-F10 to invoke right-click context menu

Open
#541 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Feature Request
Dominant language
Vim Script
Stars
7.9k
Forks
691
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Apologies if this is a duplicate. I searched and couldn't find an existing issue.

Unfortunately, macOS doesn't natively support invoking the right-click context menu from the keyboard as is possible with the menu keyboard button or SHIFT-F10 on Windows and Linux. The solution associated with the accessibility feature to invoke CTRL-5(number pad) is insufficient because it opens the context menu where the mouse pointer is, not where the text cursor is.

However, third party applications such as Eclipse and IntelliJ on macOS do support this feature with custom application code. Eclipse implemented such functionality in this bugzilla: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=219305

This feature request covers adding this functionality to MacVim via the SHIFT-F10 keyboard combination. To be clear, the behaviour is to open the context menu at the keyboard arrow key cursor location, as opposed to the mouse cursor location. For example, this means when moving a keyboard cursor over a misspelled word, the context menu will display with, among other things, suggested spelling corrections for that word, irrespective of where the mouse pointer happens to be.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

The issue names no source files, tests, or entry points. Start by locating MacVim's handling for Shift-F10 and its existing context-menu invocation, then trace how the keyboard cursor location is determined. Done means Shift-F10 opens the context menu at the keyboard cursor rather than the mouse pointer, including for misspelled words.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

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

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.