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Keyboard shortcuts vs other Windows/macOS/Linux file managers

See original GitHub issue

What’s the Problem?

This file manager seems like one of the most promising choices available to get a modern experience in Windows, comparable to the Finder in macOS and a number of the better GUI file managers in Linux.

I use the Kinto.sh project by Ben Reaves, which remaps the keyboard in Windows or Linux to behave like macOS. I wanted Linux file managers to respond to keyboard shortcuts like the Finder in macOS, so I implemented a shortcut remap overlay that “modded” the shortcuts of all the Linux GUI file managers I could find (the ten variations in the list below). It was eventually merged into the base Kinto config file as part of the defaults.

https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/pull/463 https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/pull/594

The Linux file managers supported by these remaps are:

# Caja File Browser (MATE file manager, fork of Nautilus)
# DDE File Manager (Deepin Linux file manager)
# Dolphin (KDE file manager)
# Nautilus (GNOME file manager, may be named "Files")
# Nemo (Cinnamon file manager, fork of Nautilus, may be named "Files")
# Pantheon Files (elementary OS file manager, may be named "Files")
# PCManFM (LXDE file manager)
# PCManFM-Qt (LXQt file manager)
# SpaceFM (Fork of PCManFM file manager)
# Thunar File Manager (Xfce file manager)

I’m trying to port these remaps over to some file managers in Windows, where Kinto uses AutoHotKey to do the remaps. This is working OK for Windows Explorer (explorer.exe). But when I try to figure out the executable name for this “Files” application, I see things like this in the Task Manager properties:

49306atecsolution.FilesUWP_2.1.0.0_x64__et10x9a9vyk8t

So that’s the first problem. Without a standard, simple executable name like files.exe, I’m not sure how to apply AutoHotKey remaps. And I can’t even seem to find where this application is installed, either when I installed it from the release file downloaded from GitHub or when I reinstalled it from the Microsoft Store. I’ve never actually seen anything like this before. Is there a chance Files would eventually wind up with a more standard “real” executable name and location?

Anyway, there is an issue here (#1660) asking for a page in the preferences to list all the keyboard shortcuts, and I would also like to see that implemented. But at the moment what I need is just a reference to the currently implemented keyboard shortcuts. So if someone could point me to a file here somewhere that might list all of the current shortcuts, that would be helpful. I tried to search for “shortcuts” in the repo, but a lot of different things came up and it was not immediately obvious if any of the results would contain anything like a complete list of shortcuts.

Solution/Idea

My work on remapping keyboard shortcuts for file managers between macOS and Linux showed that there were a number of shortcuts that were common to both platforms and didn’t therefore even need to be remapped, and that there were some other shortcuts that were just minor variations using a different modifier key, and then some that were sort of standard but one or more of the Linux file managers had chosen different shortcuts which needed to be accounted for.

So my remaps for Linux file managers consist of a “general” block and then a few “overrides” for some of the individual file managers. I’d like to possibly converse with the devs here and see if it might be possible to get Files to conform as closely as possible to some of the established “standard” shortcuts commonly used by other file managers. Without seeing a list I don’t know for sure yet exactly how close the current shortcuts for Files are to the most common shortcuts I’ve seen in other file managers.

I happen to like macOS and the Finder, so I made remaps that made Linux file managers act like the Finder for all sorts of common functions like navigation, tab switching, and so on. But Windows shortcuts often most closely resemble Linux shortcuts, and vice versa.

In short, I would like to participate in discussions about Files having a keyboard shortcut scheme that is as closely aligned as possible with the most standardized keyboard shortcuts in other file managers. So that the transition is smoother for users who need to move between Windows, Linux and/or macOS.

For instance, the shortcut for “preferences” in macOS apps has always been standardized on Command+comma. In Linux, it is becoming fairly common for newer apps that don’t have a traditional menu bar (where the Preferences shortcut might have been Alt+E to open the Edit menu, then P or E or N) to use the equivalent of Ctrl+comma (which with Kinto’s remapping ends up in the same physical position on the keyboard). I notice Files doesn’t have a traditional menu bar, so it’s a lot like a modern GTK app in Linux in that respect.

Here is a spreadsheet of what I needed to remap to get the GUI Linux file managers to behave (mostly) as I expected:

Finder_keyboard_shortcut_mapping_project_2021-12-25.xlsx

The thing to pay attention to here is not the shortcut I was implementing (from macOS) but rather the shortcut(s) they were being remapped to in order to work with each file manager application. A number of them were actually standard across all the file managers I was testing.

Feedback/discussion on this entire matter is appreciated.