Parent/child and linked card navigation/traversing with a keyboard

I typically find myself using SN in two main modes.

Mode 1: Taking notes, making links between cards, parent/child associations, etc.
Mode 2: Searching through my collection because I know there is a note on something I need or trying to navigate through some relationship tree when reviewing a concept.

This request is for the mode 2 type usage.

Minor: I find the search modal quite small in all directions, with respect to the available viewport. i can only see a few options before having to scroll and titles generally get cut off, meaning I have to ponder if the card is indeed what I am looking for. Let’s say I have two cards that start with the same two words - there have been many times I choose the wrong one based on what I can see in the search modal. Would love for this to be more sizeable (or have customization options).

Major: When I find and choose a card, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to navigate it’s parents and links via a keyboard. A huge part of my love for SN is the fact that you folks are clearly dedicating time and effort to making it a keyboard friendly app and I think there is nothing worse than having to reach for a mouse all the time :grimacing:

While I can use “Shift + space” to pop into a card view (love the ability to do this), I can’t find an easy keyboard friendly way to pop into the parent card of the current card or navigate through cards that are linked in the current card.

Are there any plans or developments underway to add this type of keyboard functionality?

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Hi @fuzzy.beach,

Thanks for the in-depth feature request.

This is definitely something we want to improve on, we’ve tested lots of different prototypes for this, including just having the parent cover just be a card; but haven’t settled on a flow we liked yet. We will make sure to address this soon, and have bumped up the priority of this for you.

In the meantime, using the Universal Search (CMD + K) is a good way to quickly access a parent card, although a dedicated keybinding would be a lot better!

2 Likes

Thanks, glad this is being looked at! I certainly use the search for now, but it adds some overhead to navigating around :+1:

@tobias I missed when this got marked as implemented, What is the keybind to go child to parent and parent to children?

To be honest link traversal remans a huge issue for me, and it feels like a bigger problem than a single keybind can solve.

This thread seems to address my question, though I don’t see the answer. It may be because @fuzzy.beach mentioned two things in the original post. Perhaps “implemented” only refers to the minor issue? I could create a new thread for the other, if it helps.

Q: How best to navigate via keyboard within a noteboard view to the parent card up top? I find myself needing to make adjustments there, based on the edits I’ve made in the cards below. It would be nice to flip between the parent and child cards via keyboard.

I’ve found three ways to do this, but none as simple as the up/down navigation between the child cards below. Here’s what I’ve tried:

  • universal search (seems overkill to reach the card I’m looking at)
  • recent card list (less overkill, but still)
  • link navigation from the top child card, pressing Shift+Tab (my favorite, but clunky)

I seem to be missing something, and this thread is marked “implemented,” so what am I missing?

BTW, as a new SN user gradually applying it to various uses as I learn, I love the work you’ve done, especially on keyboard functionality.