OS specific keyboard bindings

[MarkZ3]

Some keybindings need to be adjusted depending on the OS. It can depend on reserved keys, etc. In Eclipse we would often have a keybinding for Windows/Linux and a separate different one for macOS. I don't believe this is possible in Theia right now.

[kittaakos]

It's possible.
https://github.com/theia-ide/theia/blob/d711f201af71e8039ab49a27d4d00310ac38c2da/packages/editor/src/browser/editor-keybinding.ts#L27-L34

Edit: updated the snippet.

[kittaakos]

I would go even further; we could have simplified keybindings for electron. No need to press an extra Alt or Shift just because simpler bindings are odd in the browser.

[paul-marechal]

I think it should be explicit and that we shouldn't automatically alter the bindings like this. It should also be correctly handled in the keymaps.json file too, where we cannot rely on TS/JS constructs (isOSX ? 'a' : 'b').

I also think that keybindings overall would need some more love. I'm trying to wrap my head around what would need to be done, because the current issue could be addressed in different ways.

For instance, should we allow VSCode keymap files and inspire ourselves from their design?

[paul-marechal]

Looking at it, we could have multiple entries with different contexts, for each OS:

[
    {
        "keybinding": "shift+ctrl+p", "command": "outline.toggle",
    },
    {
        "keybinding": "shift+ctrlcmd+p", "command": "outline.toggle",
        "context": "isMac"
    },
]

Just food for thoughts (also it seems like this is kind of what vscode already does).

[svenefftinge]

Not sure what this ticket is about, as the initial request is already support?

[paul-marechal]

@svenefftinge how does one define OS dependent bindings?

Is it only at the extension contribution level (like @kittaakos was mentioning)?

[svenefftinge]

Yes, that is the only hook we have for keybindings atm. I haven't looked closely at the plug-in system, but I guess there we need to support the same format that vs code has.

[paul-marechal]

There is a ~/.theia/keymap.json that is supposed to be user configurable, but the OS specific bindings aren't possible at this place, that's part of my concern.

[MarkZ3]

There is a ~/.theia/keymap.json that is supposed to be user configurable, but the OS specific bindings aren't possible at this place, that's part of my concern.

Maybe the title of the issue should be updated to reflect this concern? The original issue I had is not really a problem for now.

[paul-marechal]

Thinking about it, in the case of user-defined keybindings, unless they use a remote Theia and switch back/forth between two workstations, one Windows and one OSX for example, it shouldn't be a big issue.

If you often use a Mac, you will write your custom keybindings for that platform. It might not work if you change to Windows later, and you won't be able to share a keymap set this way, but it should still be usable.

Currently things are very personalized let's say.