Faster new object creation with better keyboard shortcuts

WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND

Changing the way we can interact without the mouse to choose an object type when creating a new object.

HOW COULD IT BE DONE

For now, the new object creation menu looks like this (with note as default object type) :
image
As a text block is already automatically created, you can’t use your keyboard letters to chose the object type, and the only way to choose a type without the mouse is to :
Hit the up arrow once, then choose the object type you want in your “starred” types (see this feature request for custom starred types : Star types for faster object creation), and then click enter. If the type you wanna create is not a starred type, you will have to press enter on the “my types” button, and then search the type with your keyboard, and press down arrow key to select the one you searched, then pressing enter again to select your type.
As you see, this is not the most practical to use.
My request would be to not add this text block automatically, and instead, on new object creation, capture the keyboard inputs for type search, while being able to use tab (way closer than arrows) to move between the starred types if you don’t want to search, just having to press enter after it to select it. If you start typing on your keyboard, the my types search menu will then open, making the user able to find the type he wants. if he wants to select the first type of the search suggestion row, he won’t have to press down arrow before pressing enter, as the first row will be pre-selected (I don’t see why we need to press down arrow to be able to select any type you want) (no pun intended), just needing to press enter to use the type. to navigate to the other rows, he just need to press down arrow, as before.
If the user press enter without typing anything or pressing tab or arrow keys, it would directly create an object of the default object type chosen in the settings.
that means, the new object creation window would ever be the same template, not depending on the default object type.

REAL WORLD USE CASES

This would increase a lot the time needed to create a new object of any type but the default type,
and the default type would be created in the same amount of keys pressed, but not the same order, which is a really minor compensation for the speed in all the other cases.

So, ideally, the less you need to use the mouse to use anytype, the faster you will get because you don’t have to move your hand between your keyboard and mouse. This feature would be, I think, extremely time saving.

PS :
sorry if this is too long or explained badly, but i can’t do better than that :sweat_smile:

We are cooking a big update to new objects creation at the moment. We will address your request as a part of this update :+1:

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The improved object creation workflow shown in the November townhall meeting seems really great. It should definitely improve productivity and increase the comfort of using Anytype. Great job.

I think this quick-access menu could be even more improved by having two different groups of objects (rows) for quick-access objects:

  • (first row) user-defined list of objects (similarly to how one adds link widgets to the left sidebar) + sets and collections. If the user adds an object in this row, it does not need to appear in the recently used row. The user can select an object with a number (as shown in the meeting)
  • (second row) recently used objects (as shown in the meeting; quickly accessed with something like Alt + number, or with the keyboard)

And if you press Ctrl+N and start typing, I think the search list should be automatically opened, and the search query be recorded.

I think using Tab key to iterate over the shown objects could work well, too.

1 Like