Arc’s good keyboard shortcuts

As someone who’s been a keyboard shortcut tzar at a few companies, I developed a certain kinship with the unknown and unnamed others who have the same job elsewhere. It’s a fun but weird challenge, rewarding and unrewarding at the same time, a job of maneuvering a little dinghy between the winds of Motor Memory, the waves of Change Management, and the storms of Shortcut Conventions That Came Before You. It’s a job where you quickly learn you can never really win – but at least you can try not to lose very badly. One day I’ll write about some of the proudest and darkest moments in my own keyboard shortcut design history, but today let me instead do a short “game recognize game” post. This one is about Arc, a browser that had at least three shortcuts I found myself nodding vigorously at. In Arc, ⌘S no longer does save, but instead invokes show/​hide sidebar. As far as I can tell, no common shortcut for hiding and showing a sidebar emerged over the last decades, and ⌘S feels like a…

Commenting on Bubbles has been removed. Why? If you want to talk about this post, write to the author, use the comments on their blog if it has them, or reply with a "RE:" post on your own blog. Suggestions? feedback@bubbles.town