Keyboard-first task management: every DoTo shortcut
A task tool that requires the mouse interrupts the thing you were doing twice: once to switch to it, and again to come back. Keyboard operation is not a power-user luxury here, it is what keeps the interruption short.
DoTo is built so that everything reachable by gesture is also reachable by key, and everything reachable by key is discoverable from the shortcuts panel with the question mark.
Getting things in
Capture is the only shortcut worth committing to memory immediately. It works from any view.
- Ctrl or Cmd with K opens Quick Capture
- Typing a hash inside capture suggests tags you already use
- Typing an angle bracket switches the same field into command mode
- Enter saves and closes
Finding things again
Search is deliberately on a single unmodified key, because it is the second most common thing you do.
- Slash, or Ctrl and Cmd with F, opens search
- Arrow keys move through results
- Enter opens the highlighted result
Operating on items
This is where most task apps run out of keyboard. Moving between views is easy; acting on what is in front of you usually is not.
- J and K, or the arrow keys, move focus between items
- Space completes the focused item
- Enter opens it for editing
- Ctrl or Cmd with Z undoes the last completion or deletion
Moving around
Single letters switch views, chosen to match the first letter of each.
- I for Inbox, T for Today, C for Completed, S for Settings
- Question mark shows the full shortcut list
- Escape closes the topmost open layer, one at a time
Questions
- Why does Space complete an item instead of opening it?
- Completing is the primary action on a task and deserves the larger key. Enter opens the item for editing, which is the less frequent of the two. Space previously did both, which left no keyboard route to completion at all.
- Do the shortcuts work while I am typing in a field?
- Single-letter shortcuts do not, so typing a title containing the letter t does not navigate away. Escape and the modifier combinations still work, and Ctrl with Z is left to the browser inside a text field so ordinary text undo behaves as expected.