More absolutely strange Google shortcuts

I’m endlessly confounded (as a user) and fascinated (as a designer) when it comes the shortcut conventions in Google’s professional web apps. They seem… bad, but bad in a strange, inexplicable, enthralling way. Previously, we encountered this: The lessons there were, primarily: don’t… do this, and also maybe don’t show it like this. Today’s entrant, from Google Drive, offers a different lesson: Immediately, I have so many questions. Why a sequenced shortcut instead of something simpler, in a space where there aren’t that many shortcuts? Why Control of all things? On a Mac? Why is it so different than Google Docs in every way – don’t you all talk to each other? And why not a proper typographical symbol for Control (^ is not ⌃)? But there is also a mechanical lesson here. I’d encourage you to actually press any of these three shortcuts, and watch your fingers doing that. I bet you will observe one of two ways: ⌃ down, C down, C up, ⌃ up, F down, F up ⌃ down, C down, C up, F down, F up,…