Keyboard reference

How the keyboard is laid out

Three things share the keyboard:

• The window owns the keys that mean the same thing wherever you are: Tab, the console, the theme and settings dialogs, full screen, quit.
• The panel owns movement and marking - the arrows, Insert, +, Enter, quick search.
• The panel's plugin owns the function-key bar. A file panel is a plugin, so F5 means whatever the panel showing the file decides it means - a copy on a local folder, an upload somewhere else. The rows below are the local filesystem panel's.

The bar along the bottom always shows what the twelve function keys do right now. Hold Shift, Alt or Ctrl and it repaints with that modifier's row.

Window and panes

These work anywhere in the main window, whichever panel has the focus.

F9 belongs to the menu bar under every modifier and is never handed to a plugin. F10, F11 and F12 are window keys only while the panel leaves them free - the local filesystem panel binds Alt F10 and Alt F12, and those win.

Moving around a panel

Quick search lives for as long as the modifier is held: let go of Alt (Cmd on macOS) and the search box disappears, leaving the cursor on the match. What Ctrl C puts on the clipboard is the panel's decision - the local filesystem panel copies the files themselves.

On a Mac keyboard the key labelled delete reports as Backspace, so there it is bound to Delete rather than to parent navigation. Step out of a folder with the .. row at the top of the listing.

Marking files

The cursor and the marks are two different things: moving the cursor never disturbs what is marked, and an operation acts on the marks whenever there are any.

+ and * answer on both the main row and the keypad.

Function keys: the local filesystem panel

These are the rows the local filesystem panel publishes to the function bar. Another panel plugin - an archive, a container, a bucket - fills the same twelve keys with its own commands, and the bar always shows the panel that is actually loaded.

Unmodified

With Shift

With Alt

Cinnamon, MATE and GNOME take Alt F7, Alt F8 and Alt F10 for window management before any application sees them, so on Linux Ctrl Shift Fn names this whole row as well.

With Ctrl - sorting

Clicking a column header does the same thing as its key, and repeating a sort flips its direction. macOS reserves Ctrl F2 to Ctrl F8 system-wide, so there Cmd Shift Fn names this row instead.

Go to folder

The path can be absolute, or relative to the folder the panel is showing. The text field keeps the focus throughout, so a path can be walked without ever reaching for the mouse:

Inside the panel dialogs

Esc closes every one of them. This is what each adds on top.

Find files - Alt F7

Folder tree - Alt F10

Folders history - Alt F12

User commands - F2

A user command can carry a key of its own - a bare letter or digit - which runs it while this list is open. The keys the list needs for itself (Enter, Esc, Insert, Delete, F4, Tab, Space, Backspace, the arrows, paging and Home/End) can't be assigned.

Platform differences

The same build runs on all three platforms and the shortcuts are the same, except where the desktop underneath takes a key first.

macOS

Linux

Both aliases are additions, not replacements: where your desktop leaves Alt Fn alone it still works, and the function bar shows the Alt row while Ctrl Shift is held, so you can see what you are about to press.