GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 498973
There should be a easier keyboard shortcut to switch tabs in gedit
Last modified: 2009-01-06 03:11:49 UTC
I want to be able to switch tabs in gedit using Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Alt-Tab. Just like in Mozilla Firefox and other apps. Other information:
Ctrl+Tab is out of question since it is the reserved shortcut for switching widget when you can insert a tab in the active widget. Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn are standards among the gnome desktop for that purpose but unfortunately it is taken by GtkTextView to go to the beginning/end of the paragraph.
I passionately agree, we need a better shortcut. Control+1 etc work for switching to tab 1 etc. But this is not useful when you have more than 4 tabs - you have to count to know the number of the tab you want. Alt+PageUp/Down are also available for end of paragraph, while Control+PageDown is a standard tab switch in various programs on all other platforms. Then we should file a bug with the HIG or GtkTextView? Please let me know. But a related bug in Gedit is that the next tab menu entry still does not work after it is bound to F8 for example. It has to be Control+F8
I too would like to see Ctrl-Tab to cycle forward through open gedit tabs, and Shift-Ctrl-Tab to cycle backwards (i.e. same keybindings as Firefox). > Ctrl+Tab is out of question since it is the reserved shortcut for > switching widget when you can insert a tab in the active widget. I can't honestly tell what that sentence means. Here's what I know: What Ctrl-Tab does in gedit 2.22 is move the focus to the toolbar, and cycle the focus forward through the toolbar buttons. Which seems like a waste of a good shortcut, given that all the most common & easiest keyboard shortcuts are already assigned to these toolbar buttons anyway (e.g. Open Ctrl-o; New Ctrl-n; Save Ctrl-s; Print ctrl-p; Paste ctrl-v; Find ctrl-f; Replace Ctrl-h; etc). For example, if I wanted to print from gedit, I would not press Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-Tab, Enter; rather, I would press Ctrl-P. Wouldn't everyone? Isn't 2 keypresses easier and quicker than 11? No, I don't understand the reservation about using Ctrl-Tab, because what it does at the moment simply does not seem all that useful.
> > Ctrl+Tab is out of question since it is the reserved shortcut for > > switching widget when you can insert a tab in the active widget. > > I can't honestly tell what that sentence means. Here's what I know: What > Ctrl-Tab does in gedit 2.22 is move the focus to the toolbar It also allows cycling to the left and bottom panels, and shift+ctrl+tab allows cycling backward. Also, it is useful for usability, and most notably for people that don't use a mouse (and there are a lot more of these that you'd think at first) The real solution would be IMHO to hijack the ctrl+pgup/pgdn buttons even if it means it doesn't work anymore in gtktextview. I can hardly think anybody uses that anyway, and this way we will be consistant with other gnome desktop applications. Ctrl+Tab as a shortcut won't be implemented as part of the gedit program anyway, so no need to rant about that. What you can do if you really want it is to implement it as a plugin.
as said above ctrl+tab is not going to happen. If you do not like ctrl+alt+pgup/down, you can edit the shotcuts of the corresponding menu items.
Oh well. I wish ctrl+tab was possible, but I understand that their are other usage-styles which this would interfere with, and that it's up to the developers to try and balance the conflicts between these, which is an unenviable task! So thank you all for considering it, and for explaining why it's not possible.