print(datetime.now().strftime('%I:%M:%S %p'))
audrey.feldroy.com
The experimental notebooks of Audrey M. Roy Greenfeld. This website and all its notebooks are open-source at github.com/audreyfeldroy/audrey.feldroy.com
# NBClassic Keyboard Shortcuts: Command and Dual-Mode
by Audrey M. Roy Greenfeld | Sat, Jan 11, 2025
I'm taking inventory of all the Command Mode and dual-mode nbclassic keyboard shortcuts on macOS, with my random musings about each. This is part of my deliberate practice to master all of the useful ones, and will serve as a reference for myself later.
From Command Mode
Press Esc
to get out of editing a cell (Edit Mode), then:
p
: Open the Command Palette
This opens the little dialog with commands. Then you can press up or down arrows to select commands.
- There's a scroll bug so when you go down past the bottom edge, the whole window doesn't scroll. When I go past the bottom edge, I can only see command names and not their shortcuts. It basically means the commands not shown by default are hardly usable unless I already know them. The ones shown by default are also not that useful: I rarely want to press number keys to convert a cell to a heading when Markdown
#
is so easy. - It would be nice if this dialog took up the whole screen. So much wasted space where I wish I could just see more commands. Beyond taking up the whole screen, it would be nice if it were multi-column so you could see tons of commands all at once.
- Oh! I can rename a notebook from here without using my mouse! That's game-changing for me.
Change cell type:
M
: Markdown. I use it often.Y
: Code. I use it often, but I usually accidentally type C instead of Y. Y on the other hand feels like it should yank, which is sort of what C does.R
: Raw. I've never used this. Let's try it now. Oh, that's a good one.- Probably useful for frontmatter in blog apps that require it. This may actually be one of the key pieces that ends up converting me over to the frontmatter side.
- Occasionally I have other code that I want to stick into a notebook without it being interpreted, and I use fenced no-syntax code blocks within Markdown to do it. Advent of Code puzzle inputs come to mind, stuff like:
aa bb cc d e e
f
: Find and replace. I've never used this. I always use Cmd F and use Chrome or Firefox's search. I'm trying it. That's cool that it can take regular expressions! I tried \w+
and that was fun. To get those to work, I had to toggle the button off and then on again.
k
or Up arrow
: Select previous cell
j
or Down arrow
: Select next cell
- I always use the arrows, never
k
andj
, but I'll try them since they're nice Vim workalikes.
Shift
k
or Shift
Up arrow
: Add previous cell to selection
Shift
j
or Shift
Down arrow
: Add next cell to selection
- I use
Shift
with up and down arrows sometimes. I didn't know I could use those withk
andj
. I'll try to use those. - "Extend selected cells" in the docs didn't make sense to me until I tried it.
Cmd
a
: Select all cells. I never use this and it seems not very useful. Could I be wrong? Copy-pasting cells between notebook browser tabs doesn't work for me, and it may be related to that use case.
a
/ b
: Insert cell above/below. I use this often.
Copy-pasting:
x
/c
/v
: Cut/copy/paste selected cells. I use this often.Shift
v
: Paste above current cell. I never use this but it feels incredibly useful.Cmd
v
: Dialog for paste from system clipboard. Sometimes I accidentally press this. I never use this deliberately, because pasting from my system clipboard into Edit Mode works fine. Would I want to paste in Command Mode? I'll look out for the opportunity. Oh wait, this looks like it would be useful in conjunction withCmd
a
to bring a whole notebook over into a new one.
d
then d
again: Delete cell. I mostly use x
instead of this, out of muscle memory not intentionality.
z
: Undo cell deletion. This usually doesn't work for me because I press x
. I can press Shift
v
when that happens, I now know.
Shift
m
: Merge cells. I occasionally do this by accident.
- Every time that happens, I think, "Oh, that's useful, I should do that on purpose sometimes." Then I try to undo with
z
and it doesn't work, becausez
only undoesdd
. Then I re-split the cells withCtrl
Shift
-
. - But I never actually do it on purpose. My need to merge cells these days is rare enough that I don't remember this. I suppose with imports maybe it'll be good.
- That's cool that if you have only 1 cell selected, it'll merge with the next cell.
s
or Ctrl
s
: Save and checkpoint. I use Ctrl
s
often. I didn't realize s
does the same exact thing. That saves my pinky a bit.
l
: Toggle line numbers. I rarely use this other than when Danny asks me to turn the line numbers on.
o
: Toggle output of selected cells. I never use this, but I'll try it now on the time cell. Okay, I could see that being useful if a cell's output is huge, I can't truncate it, and the output iframe doesn't turn on, which happens occasionally for me.
Shift
o
: Toggle output scrolling of selected cells. I never use this. Maybe it'll solve my pain point of not being able to see the full version via keyboard of an iframe-truncated output. Oh, wow, I'll use this all the time now that I know about it. Wow, this would have saved me a lot of trackpad scrolling pain yesterday.
Kernel problem sequences:
i
theni
: Interrupt the kernel. I never use this but plan to. But AI tells me it's essential to stop deep learning training runs early, or to stop overfitting as soon as I see it happening. Yeah, I'll try that then.0
then0
: Restart the kernel. I rarely use this but should do it more.
Commands I don't understand, or that are broken for me, possibly due to my customizations or nbextensions:
Esc
orq
from Command Mode to "Close the pager". Does that mean to close Command Palette? If I have Command Palette open, that's what it does. If I have regular Command Mode open, it doesn't seem to do anything.h
: The docs say it'll "show keyboard shortcuts", but nothing shows for me.
From Both Modes
Running cells:
Shift
Enter
: Run the current cell and create a new one below, or select the existing one below. I use this often. "Run cell, select below" in the docs isn't quite right.Cmd
Enter
orCtrl
Enter
: Run the current cell, keep it selected, and switch to Command Mode if not already there. I never use this.- I sort of like it better than my current habit of
Esc
thenShift
Enter
, so I'll start using it. - Oh, that's also cool that you can multi-select cells via keyboard and run them all. After you do that, the last cell gets selected.
- I sort of like it better than my current habit of
Cells for Testing
Here I print the time in a test cell. That way I can see if the cell is actually run.
[i for i in range(1000)]
Here's a cell with long output, to test Shift
o
.
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