Add 10 new Hot Keys to the Identify page

Feature Requests
24

Good point for sure. Would you then suggest eliminating the c and a shortcuts?

25

No, but I have raised it as a concern earlier in this thread and it has been experienced by others. I wouldnā€™t want to lose shortcut functionality, and I know a lot of users do rely on them, but I also see strange ID situations where I think the stray ā€˜aā€™ in particular has occurred. Iā€™m not sure what the best solution would be for the existing problem, and Iā€™m just pointing out here that we would be adding to that problem if we added an S for save.

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26

Ctrl/Cmd + Enter is the norm for saving: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/save-submit-with-cmd-enter/4093

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27

Thanks, that thread had flown under my radar. Not yet implemented though, right? Probably a better compromise than a single easily mis-typed letter key, as @kiwifergus noted.

28

Not as far as I can tell in testing it!

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29

No, but itā€™s something weā€™ve discussed. Iā€™d be OK with D, U, Y, N, and maybe V for starters and seeing how that goes. Iā€™m worried that having so many keyboard shortcuts will introduce more errors, so I think adding a few at first would be a good idea. We were thinking the Data Quality Assessment ones would open up that tab if you pressed them, so youā€™d know if your keystroke got recorded.

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30

bump?

1 Like
31

This would be very useful for me when trying to identify things that I donā€™t know much.

32

could there be a hot key for adding standardised comments from this page ?https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/responses

maybe some could involve button combinations to ensure theyā€™re not easy to accidentally press?

33

A post was split to a new topic: How to turn off keyboard shortcuts on Identify?

34

I would appreciate this feature.

Presently I would use a Traditional Project instead (to review later the observation, without being notified if there is a change).

35

Iā€™m confused by this statement:

The follow function already exists, are you saying you only use a Traditional Project because the follow function doesnā€™t currently have a hotkey?

36

No, not only. More precisely, I use a few traditional projects for:

  • Observations I may be able to identify later.
  • Observations showing leaves, or flowers, or fruits, that I use as a knowlege base to remind me of some taxa when identifying.

Where is the ā€œfollow functionā€?

37

In the upper right of an observation page you can choose to follow a user or a single observation.

image

4 Likes
38

I just wanted to add this is not only a speed issue, but an accessibility issue. Having keyboard commands available here (and in other areas) makes it much easier to use voice recognition software for people that canā€™t (or want to avoid) using the mouse and keyboard. As someone with experience in this area (both from the programming point of view and as a user of voice recognition) I am happy to help if you have any questions.

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39

What about letting identifiers remap the keys? Right now it takes 2 hands to type (thanks letter I-key), but if the user could pick the keys, one hand could be for typing and the other for mousing?

40

Thatā€™s an interesting idea. Picking hot keys is a non-trivial task because you need to ensure youā€™re not conflicting with OS and browser hot keys. But some programs allow this, and that would solve the translation issues.

41

Note that there are a variety of tools to provide your own mappings via keyboard macro programs - I use a couple for this purpose, not only for hot keys but to automate common responses.

For the Windows PC I use autohotkey (https://www.autohotkey.com/), which allows very sophisticated macros but has a steep learning curve. There are also browser extensions which can map keyboard commands or keywords to scripts - for the Chrome browser I use text blaze (https://dashboard.blaze.today/). I know there are some for other browsers but I havenā€™t had time to play with them.

These programs often take a bit of tweaking to get the timing right. If thereā€™s interest, it might be valuable to create a separate discussion where people trade scripts and experiences. If it hasnā€™t been done already.

1 Like
42

The most useful I think would be the n for ā€˜No canā€™t be improvedā€™ and it would be nice if it would work without having to navigate to the DQA tab first.

I donā€™t like the idea of changing f to follow - changing thing that already have known meanings creates unnecessary confusion.

43

This week we discussed adding some of these. I think weā€™re for adding some, but with these caveats:

  • we want to avoid adding more single-button shortcuts. So for stuff like Data Quality Assessment votes, itā€™ll probably be a combination like 'L+N` = location is not accurate.

  • the shortcuts will only be available on the proper tab so that you will get visual feedback that your intended action was actually saved properly. Basically the way Annotations shortcuts currently only work when youā€™re on the Annotations tab.

  • no shortcuts for disagreements. Those are supposed to be deliberately thought through and selected.

6 Likes