Add 10 new Hot Keys to the Identify page

Feature Requests
1

Hi, I mentioned these ideas to Cassi a while back, perhaps on the old forum, but then got busy IDing Penang and CNC, but now I really want these, and I think all of you who sort through doing a lot if IDs and data quility work will really like and get a lot of use out of these keys we have and some new ones I am now requesting, so on the Identify page: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify
if you click that little keyboard in the lower left, you have:
x = Captive Cultivated
r = reviewed
c = comment
a = agree with current ID
i = add ID
f = favorite

I use all those a lot (but not f=favorite)

I would propose changing f and adding these (yes, all of these things already exist, but require opening that observation on its own page and scrolling down…) (We want to keep strong IDers hands on keyboards for speed as much as possible)

f = follow this obs (I want to learn, or I don’t trust the ID and want to help once it is correct)
d = initiate a Disagreeing ID, so that when you enter “Dicot”, you don’t have to mouse or tripple-tab to “disagree”
g = add a Disagreeing Genus level ID, because I know that is right, but the species is wrong
u = explicit Unfollow this observation (since IDing implies following) (more sure than hitting f twice)
y = Yes, based on the evidence the ID can still be improved (knock out of RG without changing taxon, don’t trust current IDers)
n = No, based on the evidence the ID can not be improved (taxon: family = Casual, genus = RG)
e = there is NO Evidence (no photo, no sound)
l = mark location is inaccurate (there are 600 obs in (0,0) Null currently, vastly more in the World Ocean
t = Date / Time is inaccurate (spring emphemerals with Nov/Dec/Winter obs dates) (“d” already taken)
v = View in a new tab (for more detailed examination)

As is the current case with x and r, hitting these again would remove your vote from those DQA items.

Imagine how much faster and more pleasant your ID time will be …

2

Also having these available would hugely cut down on the server page loads since we would not have to open the full obs page to click through them, perhaps mitigating the frequent overloads we’ve had?

3 Likes
3

I would not mind at all if this existing feature request for arrow keys on the ID modal were to be merged into this one.

1 Like
4

here we have requested f = follow @kiwifergus

1 Like
5

Yes! and I like the toggle using “f”, and the explicit using “u”… nice touch!

6

I will note here though, a problem that I occasionally encounter…

If you click the field to enter an ID and start typing too soon (or mis-click with a slight drag between mouse down and up), your keystrokes are going to the “shortcuts” processing instead of adding to the ID textbox (or comments textarea). I look up from keyboard and see the beginning of my name chopped off, and if there were c’s and a’s etc in the first part, then I inadvertently wind up agreeing with the CID or other shortcuts being fired off, and it slows me down to have to clean up what I accidentally did. I usually just wait to make sure the field has the focus now, before I start typing…

4 Likes
7

Also an agreeing genus-level id, maybe ctrl-g

8

I think having keyboard shortcuts for these things would be great, but something I experience occasionally with programs that have lots of keyboard shortcuts is random things like new tabs opening when I am haphazardly typing. With identifying on iNaturalist I find myself agreeing with identifications when I am actually trying to type a comment when loading is slow, as you described. So I feel like having more simple letter shortcuts would lead to more hidden accidental mistakes.

4 Likes
9

Me too. Like the annotation keyboard shortcuts, I think the Data Quality Assessment ones, if added, should only be “active” when that tab is open. (Though I so rarely use that tab that I doubt I’d be able to remember the shortcuts anyway!)

I use it for favorite and wouldn’t want this changed. :star2:

3 Likes
10

maybe we could have “w” = Watch (for follow)

1 Like
11

Not that I personally wouldn’t love these extra conveniences. But I have to imagine that there is already a “translation” challenge for non-English users in making some kind of mnemonic sense of the existing shortcuts. Don’t know if they have already been chosen with that in mind, but if they have, any new ones should probably go through the same review.

4 Likes
12

@kiwifergus, your use case just happened to me (the “a” was a third character in the ID I wanted to add (poales), but became “Agree”, so I’d also propose:
p = Purge / Delete my ID from this observation, and open typein for a new ID.

@jdmore, perhaps those letters can be tied to the user’s “Locale” setting, so that they get their own that make mnemonic sense. these would only be on the web interface, and I think you can get that programatically from the browser(?)

2 Likes
13

I agree with @bouteloua that any DQA keyboard shortcuts should only work when the DQA tab is open, like annotations are now. Without having a visual representation of the DQA in front of you, you wouldn’t know whether what you purposely pressed is recorded, or whether or not you accidentally pressed a key and recorded something you did not want to record.

10 Likes
14

I did not know about the hotkeys. Thanks!

2 Likes
15

(Replying here because I jumped the gun and asked for my thread to be closed too soon.)

Last night I was able to scroll comments and previous IDs with the up/down arrow keys in the ID modal:

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This was exciting and I was happy about it, but today it no longer works (on two different computers, using Chrome). It also doesn’t work in a place where I actually miss the arrow keys a lot more often, the compare tool:

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I admit that I didn’t check the compare tool last night.

So would it be possible to reopen the request thread, and/or making the arrow keys work again?

16

Would you be OK if it was mapped to another key?

17

If it’s changed I’ll prob just use my mouse/trackpad to fav instead.

1 Like
18

I fav things so rarely it isn’t worth the hotkey. And if you fav that much it all gets buried on the fav page anyway right?

1 Like
22

Since it doesn’t appear to have been suggested for any other function, I’ll just go on the record that adding “s” for Save would be very convenient. Only active if/when the actual Save button is active.

1 Like
23

Could be problematic: if typing in any field and focus drifts to elsewhere in the page, any ‘S’ would prematurely save the observation etc. This happens with other shortcuts, notably c and a, and can be detrimental to workflow to have to undo the effects of. Even worse if not realised that it has happened.

1 Like