Keyboard Shortcuts: Accordance vs. Windows

[Daniel L]

I created a keyboard shortcut to open a New Workspace using Ctrl+W. I tried to use it, but it wasn't working. Then, I noticed that my tabs were disappearing! Well, it turns out that Ctrl+W is a Windows shortcut that closes the active window. In a tabbed environment, such as Accordance or web browsers, that means closing the active tab.

 

It is great that Accordance warns about conflicts with other Accordance keyboard shortcuts, but Accordance knows nothing about Windows shortcuts. Can you make Accordance shortcuts to override Windows' shortcuts? At the least, Accordance should be aware of OS shortcuts and warn of conflicts when customizing Accordance shortcuts.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows-dcc61a57-8ff0-cffe-9796-cb9706c75eec#WindowsVersion=Windows_10

[Steven S]

In the link you provided, are you referring to the CTRL+W entry under File Explorer? If so, my understanding of that documentation would be that that shortcut is not system-wide but specific to the File Explorer application.

 

I checked several Windows applications, and while CTRL+W is ubiquitously implemented to close something, I did find a few apps that ignore it in some or all cases (e.g., GIMP and PuTTY), which would suggest it's not a universal Windows thing.

 

Looking at the Accordance Keyboard Shortcuts tab in the Preferences dialog, I did not see an entry for Close Tab, so I'm guessing the CTRL+W shortcut is hardcoded within Accordance (it seems the only keyboard shortcuts Accordance exposes are for commands present on the main menu). When checking for shortcut conflicts, I'm assuming Accordance only looks at other entries that appear in the Keyboard Shortcuts list, and so, since Close Tab isn't there, it doesn't warn about the conflict.

 

Therefore, unless I'm overlooking something, this may indeed be an issue that could be fixed by Accordance.

[Daniel L]

19 hours ago, Steven S said:

I did find a few apps that ignore it in some or all cases (e.g., GIMP and PuTTY), which would suggest it's not a universal Windows thing

If apps create their own custom GUI elements, Windows GUI APIs will not be invoked. GIMP is not native to Windows, and PuTTY is a geeky app, so they're both oddballs. 

 

Ctrl+W works in Accordance as would be expected in standard Windows apps. The list of Windows shortcuts is pretty stable. Developers should make Accordance aware of relevant OS shortcuts that work in Accordance, which makes them unavailable to be used as Accordance shortcuts.

 

If it would require creating custom GUI elements to prevent the Windows shortcuts from working in Accordance, I think that's probably a bad idea and too drastic. Hopefully, there's a simpler solution.

[Andrew Patterson]

+1