GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 738325
Change Ctrl+Tab current action
Last modified: 2021-07-05 10:53:42 UTC
"Ctrl(+Shift)+Tab" is currently used to switch group/panels (https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/keyboard-nav.html.en), but it's also a very well known shortcut for switching between tabs in every other (non-GNOME) applications like Firefox or Chromium. I think it'd be more pertinent to find a new shortcut for the switch group/panels action. Once this is done, we will be able to fix this 7 years old bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498974 Thanks!
Given that Alt, Super, Shift, Alt+Shift, and Super+Shift are taken with regards to Tab, the only remaining standard modifier key seems to be AltGr, and I'm not sure whether it's found on a majority of keyboards. Another option would be to not use Tab at all, but I have a hard time coming up with one. A sequence with Esc, perhaps, as it's a way to "escape" from the text area and continue tabbing, or with CapsLock, if that's even possible, given that it's right below the Tab button. I'm wondering whether anyone besides Gnome deals with switching panels when a text area with tab support is entered (and how). In any case, using Ctrl+Tab doesn't really seem workable anymore, considering that this shortcut has been brought into popularity by web browsers and apps are increasingly disregarding Gnome's Ctrl+Tab convention.
Let's try to make a proposition here. I've seen in the "keybord navigation" documentation (https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/keyboard-nav.html.en) that there is an error: it says that Super[+Shift]+Tab are the only shortcuts to switch between windows, this is erroneous. These shortcuts does work, but so do the more standard and widely used Alt[+Shift]+Tab. So why don't we transfer the actual behavior of Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab to Super[+Shift]+Tab and then use Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab for the more standard and widely used tab switching behavior? To sum up: * Alt[+Shift]+Tab: switch between windows (no changes) * Super[+Shift]+Tab: move keyboard focus (before it was Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab) * Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab: switch between window tabs (before it was Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown) So, what do you say?
The good parts of this proposition are that it removes a shortcut duplication in the HIG *and* GNOME apps will fit nicely in a Windows environment too.
I like Romain Failliot's idea above. Another option would perhaps be to use Ctrl+Alt+Tab for switch group/panels? No matter the solution: This really needs to be fixed. Every other application other than Gnome's uses Ctrl[+Shift]+Tab to switch tabs. Not supporting this standard, across all of Windows and all other apps on Linux breaks a whole lot of peoples work flows, makes it unnecessarily difficult for people to switch to a Gnome based OS. It is both a hindrance for adoption and counter to the culture of standards and cooperation. I love Gnome and I'm so very thankful for all the work all of you put into it every day! But this is just so very annoying in my day to day use of my PC. So please work on this! Thank you!
As a hack, you can still specify "<Primary>Tab" and "<Primary><Shift>Tab" as keybindings, directly using dconf-editor or gsettings. For instance, gnome-terminal: $ gsettings set \ org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Keybindings:/org/gnome/terminal/legacy/keybindings/ \ next-tab '<Primary>Tab' $ gsettings set \ org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Keybindings:/org/gnome/terminal/legacy/keybindings/ \ prev-tab '<Primary><Shift>Tab'
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