Up/down key to enter edit mode

At present, we must click a block to enter edit mode or select a block. It would be great to be able to simply hit the up or down arrow key to auto select a block, and then continue using up/down to navigate which block is selected, then hit enter on a selected block to edit that block…

This is how Notion works, and it enables a keyboard-only workflow.

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that’s a great idea, yeah something as simple as this would allow for a good keyboard experience!

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Totally! It’s all about workflow :slight_smile:

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Add-on to this feature request: when a block is selected, hitting left arrow should put the block into edit mode with the cursor at the beginning of the block, and right arrow should do the same with the cursor at the end of the block. Let’s achieve total keyboard flow state!

Actually, now that I think about it, this addition would mean that users wouldn’t need to have to type ‘enter’ to start edit mode; left/right arrow could either be an addition or could substitute for ‘enter’ as a way to start edit mode.

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Yes! This is a great idea… Thanks!

And to add a few more thoughts on this line of thought…

Up/down arrows auto-select block when not in edit mode… Up arrow auto selects bottom block, down arrow selects top block… could also auto select last selected/edited block (this is how notion works i believe)

left arrow while block selected enters edit mode at start of block

right arrow while block selected enters edit mode at end of block

Shift + up/down arrows with block selected: select multiple blocks

cmd/ctrl + shift + up/down arrows: move selected block(s) up or down

cmd/ctrl + shift + left/right arrows: indent/outdent selected blocks (not edit mode)

My biggest improvement in this area would be, a command (‘alt+enter’ for example), that adds a block below and starts you writing there, regardless of where you are in the block above.

I constantly find myself in the middle of a block wanting to make a block below and then having to either go to the mouse to make a block below or navigating the the very end of the current block before pressing ‘enter’.

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Thank you very much for this great idea!
I’ve added the ability to press Up/Down to enter edit mode, you can try it on logseq.com, the next desktop app release will include it too.

This is how it works:

  1. Both Up/Down will auto-select the last edited block (notice that it doesn’t work when refreshing the browser).
  2. If there’s no last edited block, Up will edit the last block and Down will edit the first block.

It’s a bit different from Notion that Up/Down will edit the block instead of select it first, the reason is that the core editor is under refactoring and we don’t want to introduce a “select” mode for navigation, also, press Up to open the last block is a bit faster than select and Enter to open the last block. We’ll revisit this behavior after the core refactoring, any suggestions are welcome!

Also, the shortcuts can be customized in config.edn now, check the code: logseq/keyboards.cljs at master · logseq/logseq · GitHub

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this is excellent, can’t wait for it to work on the desktop app! Great work, truly appreciated

I’m not sure I’m understanding this, or maybe the implementation has changed since this note.

When I go to a page, I would like to be able to quick start a new block at the end of the page. For instance, I would like to use keyboard only: g h [some key] and then be able to start typing to add a new block to today’s journal page.

What happens now is I enter “g h”, I’m on the journal page. I hit “up” as indicated here, and I am taken to the last “Linked Reference”, which is selected. I can then hit Enter to edit. This isn’t what is described above, and editing a Linked Reference is not what I would want here.

Is there a current way to move quickly to the last block on a page?

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I’m seeing the same behavior, albeit I’m trying via iPad app and bluetooth keyboard. But other keyboard shortcuts appear to be working fine.

Came here looking for a solution, but there currently seems to be a bug with this behaviour in some cases: Unable to edit via keyboard only after navigating · Issue #9621 · logseq/logseq · GitHub