20250406

I've been pulling my hair out trying to find the right key modifier for link shortcuts. I wanted to use ALT on Windows/Linux and OPTION on Mac. Alas, it's not to be.

ALT on Linux/Windows is used as a menu shortcut in Swing apps so ALT+F opens the File menu, ALT+H opens the Help menu and so on.

MacOS is where it gets problematic. Certain keys are considered "DEAD KEYS" when using the OPTION modifier (Mac has no ALT). If you press OPTION+E, the keyboard handler doesn't fire the same way it would for, say, OPTION+D. Instead, the OS expects a follow-up key press to complete the sequence for some special character. Ugh, as they say.

What I landed on works fine. CONTROL+SHIFT or COMMAND+SHIFT are pressed to display the shortcut characters next to the visible links on a Gemini page. Press the corresponding key while holding down the modifiers and the link is clicked. No mouse.

Unfortunately, this meant re-assigning existing shortcuts in the app. Hopefully no one was too inconvenienced. I mean, wouldn't it be great if someone was actually inconvenienced? Anyway, back to our dystopian hellscape.