ChromeOS units have turn into way more helpful for the reason that Cr-48. With Linux and Android apps, and “internet solely” being far much less of a hindrance nowadays, they’re compelling as a secondary machine. However having to study an entire separate set of keyboard shortcuts to make use of them effectively is all the time going to be painful.
However assistance is on the best way, if some experimental options within the newest beta ChromeOS launch (111) are any indication. As noticed in Kevin Tofel’s About Chromebooks weblog, an up to date model of the shortcut viewer within the Settings app—first seen in October 2022—has the early makings of a shortcut altering and including mechanism.
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ChromeOS’ keyboard shortcuts viewer, with experimental flags enabled and exhibiting lock icons subsequent to shortcuts, together with “Reset all shortcuts” button.
Kevin Purdy -
The dialogue to remap or add a keyboard shortcut in ChromeOS, non-functional however accessible in Beta builds. (Ctrl+alt+left arrow is the creator’s addition).
Kevin Purdy
Clicking on a shortcut brings up a dialogue that means that you can, for the time being, add various shortcuts to widespread shortcuts for manipulating tabs, home windows and desktops, system settings, accessibility, and different utilities. A small “lock” icon subsequent to every means that you may additionally be capable to unlock these shortcuts to take away or alter their defaults. A “Reset all shortcuts” button provides one other trace. Sadly, not one of the shortcuts you add appear to work for the second, although the promise is there.
I am somebody who hops between a Mac (work), Home windows (gaming), Linux (Pi work and testing/googery), and ChromeOS (shared “dwelling” laptop computer) on any given day. My mind is able to remembering all the foremost shortcuts I exploit, certain. However the minor annoyance of getting to achieve inside my psychological submitting cupboard for them, normally after urgent the fallacious keys a minimum of as soon as, provides as much as a serious sigh-inducing frustration. I’ve used deeper system hacks, or apps like Rectangle for macOS, to line up my shortcut preferences between most of those methods; ChromeOS has lengthy been the holdout for this type of alignment and customization.
Tofel lists three flags he wanted to allow within the chrome://flags part of his Beta Channel gadget to make the brand new shortcut viewer accessible; I needed to allow yet another earlier than it will present for me. These three plus one are listed beneath:
- chrome://flags#improved-keyboard-shortcuts
- chrome://flags#enable-shortcut-customization-app
- chrome://flags#enable-shortcut-customization
- chrome://flags#enable-only-show-new-shortcut-app
I additionally enabled chrome://flags#new-shortcut-mapping, although I am not sure what impact that had. As famous, none of those shortcuts will permit for shortcut remapping for the time being, however they’re prone to be efficient in an upcoming ChromeOS launch.
