Does Etherpad have shortcuts for other actions than bold, italics, and underlining (hit, marker point, ...)?

Question

Well, almost everything is in the title: are there shortcuts for doing something other than text in bold, italics, or underlined? Or any plugin that allows you to do this?

According to my colleague, the source code does not seem to contain such things, but maybe we missed something?

Answer 1

Etherpad contains a built-in rich text editor called ACE2 (originally the AppJet code editor), which appears to be responsible for managing keyboard shortcuts.

The ace.js file, built-in by default, is used to minimize and therefore is difficult to read in the old version of Etherpad, but you can read the source files directly into the infrastructure/ace part of the source code from which the mini version is made. For more information about this, see ACE2 README . In later versions (at least on etherpad.org), there seems to be a regular ACE2 JS source.

The keyboard shortcut handling code is in ace2_inner.js , inside the handleKeyEvent() function. Based on this, it seems that the shortcuts supported by the ready-made keys are as follows (at the top of the browser shortcuts, such as Cut / Copy / Paste):

• Enter - Relay Emblem Return
• Tab or Shift + Tab - lists of indents or indents for indents
• Ctrl + Z - special cancel EPSpad
• Ctrl + Y - special ether for reprinting
• Ctrl + B - Bold
• Ctrl + I - Italics
• Ctrl + U - underline
• Ctrl + H - delete
• Ctrl + S - Save Changes

Nothing for strikethrough lists or bullet lists, and nothing that looks like a simple extension mechanism for shortcuts, so you might need to clean your hands ;-)

If you have your own Etherpad deployment, the easiest way is to modify the ACE2 source code to handle additional shortcuts, and then re-build the smaller version of ace2.js (as instructed in the README ) if necessary. Here is an example of how to use the Ctrl + S shortcut to switch strikethrough and Ctrl + L to switch the list of markers. A crossed out shortcut disables the built-in browser Save As ... a shortcut that I consider a bonus, but if you do not like it, you can always choose a different key than S.
Paste the following snippet into ace2_inner.js between similar blocks that handle other labels around line 3200:

 /* Ctrl+S toggles striketrough, and prevents triggering the browser Save dialog */ if ((!specialHandled) && isTypeForCmdKey && String.fromCharCode(which).toLowerCase() == "s" && (evt.metaKey || evt.ctrlKey)) { // ctrl/cmd-s (strikethrough toggle) fastIncorp(13); // don't ask me ;-) evt.preventDefault(); toggleAttributeOnSelection('strikethrough'); specialHandled = true; } if ((!specialHandled) && isTypeForCmdKey && String.fromCharCode(which).toLowerCase() == "l" && (evt.ctrlKey)) { // ctrl/cmd-L (bullet list toggle) fastIncorp(9); // seriously, don't ask me ;-) evt.preventDefault(); doInsertUnorderedList(); specialHandled = true; } 

If you cannot rebuild the mini version, you can also try to fix it directly using the shortened names. Here is the version of the above snippet for me, although YMMV, I did not check if minimalism is stable and uses the same shortened names each time. Search for "y" (with quotes) to find the shortened version of handleKeyEvent() inside ace.js :

 if ((!Cp)&&Cu&&String.fromCharCode(Ct).toLowerCase()=="s"&&(i.metaKey || i.ctrlKey)){G(13);\\ni.preventDefault();c("strikethrough");Cp=true;}if((!Cp)&&Cu&&String.fromCharCode(Ct).toLowerCase()=="l"&&(i.metaKey||i.ctrlKey)){G(9);\\ni.preventDefault();As();Cp=true;} 

Finally, if you do not control the deployment of etherpad, you can implement something similar using the GreaseMonkey script built-in browser that fixes the default function handleKeyEvent() . As a starting point for connecting to the editor, try checking out window.pad* objects, such as window.padeditor . For example, select the text in the editor and try in the console:

 > window.padeditor.ace.execCommand('bold') > window.padeditor.ace.execCommand('insertunorderedlist')