Pony: Can we get a keyboard shortcut for adding favorites?

September 6, 2012 2:29 PM

Can we get a keyboard shortcut for adding favorites? I use the j/k and m keyboard shortcuts all the time, but when I want to favorite a post or comment, I need to reach for the mouse. This will not do!

I suggest "a" and/or "+" for adding favorites, avoiding "f" to avoid confusion with "flag" (Though I'm not sure a "flag" shortcut makes much sense since flagging is surely less common than favoriting for most people.)

I know that adding favorites requires an HTTP request to the server, whereas scrolling is an entirely client-side operation, and I'm not sure how the current code would cope with a user who's manually scrolled the page after using j/k keyboard navigation, but I still want my pony.

posted by tonycpsu to Feature Requests at 2:29 PM (26 comments total)

or, in keeping with the google convention, "#". Closer to j/k might be "o".
posted by boo_radley at 2:33 PM on September 6, 2012

This would require highlighting a comment in some way so you know which you have selected at any given time. I don't think we're likely to add something like this, but I bet you could accomplish it with greasemonkey.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:35 PM on September 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wait, m? What does m do?
*reads* m - show more inline comments
???
*goes to random threads, mashes m key*
It didn't do anything...clearly I'm missing something here.

Is this some kind of mefi magic that's going to change my life like j and k did? Please explain, oh wise pb!
posted by phunniemee at 2:42 PM on September 6, 2012

pb: Isn't the one you've selected the one that's at the very top of the page? At least on Firefox, the behavior I see is that the first "j" focuses the post at the top of the browser window, then the second one focuses the first comment, etc. I saw this as analogous to "selecting" those posts, except that the visual indicator is "post or comment is at the top of the page" rather than a highlight or something like that.

I'll look into the Greasemonkey route -- I already use a couple of other mefi GM scripts; maybe the authors of those would consider adding this.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:43 PM on September 6, 2012

phunniemee: In an active thread, when you get the "N new comments, show" prompt, hitting "m" fetches the new comments.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:44 PM on September 6, 2012

Isn't the one you've selected the one that's at the very top of the page?

That's how it works a lot of times, but it's not true 100% of the time. Especially at the bottom of the page. You can hit the bottom with no more room to scroll, and you don't know which comment is selected. So any Greasemonkey script is going to have to do some additional highlighting or it'd be pretty easy to favorite the wrong comment.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:51 PM on September 6, 2012

In an active thread, when you get the "N new comments, show" prompt, hitting "m" fetches the new comments.

Neato! (So the answer is yes, yes it will change my life. Clicking is for suckers.)
posted by phunniemee at 2:53 PM on September 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Fair enough, pb -- thanks for the response.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:56 PM on September 6, 2012

Sorry for the piggybacked question, but the shortcuts haven't worked for me in a while. Chrome, Mac and Windows. I seem to remember it working before, is there a common issue that would block them?
posted by beowulf573 at 3:14 PM on September 6, 2012

...is there a common issue that would block them?

I can't think of one offhand. Are you running any browser extensions that add keyboard shortcuts? Maybe there's a conflict somewhere.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:18 PM on September 6, 2012

None that I can tell, I only have a half-dozen or so installed and none seem to have shortcuts.

This has reminded me how much I miss them, I'll see if I can find time to debug it.
posted by beowulf573 at 3:23 PM on September 6, 2012

And I was wrong, the Pocket (Read it Later) extension is causing the problem. FYI for anyone else using it.
posted by beowulf573 at 3:27 PM on September 6, 2012

If you really want to abandon the mouse for web browsing, try Vimium for Chrome or Vimperator for Firefox. Both allow favoriting of a post (or clicking any link, really) with a few keystrokes via hinting. Bit of a learning curve, but worth it IMO.
posted by Lorin at 3:36 PM on September 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

This will not do!

...

CALL THE SCHOOLMASTER!
posted by tomboko at 4:22 PM on September 6, 2012

tonycpsu: "when you get the "N new comments, show" prompt, hitting "m" fetches the new comments"

Look Marge, I've tripled my productivity!
posted by arcticseal at 6:53 PM on September 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

j ... k ...

mind blown
posted by ead at 12:08 AM on September 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

The real question here is: why won't MetaFilter establish a central marketplace for favorites, promoting the economic efficiencies that would arise from buying and selling favorites and derivative products?

In these troubled economic times, our only hope for growth is in liberalisation of the tightly regulated favorite sector - in order to attract new investment, and allow individual users to leverage their assets. The "command and control" regime of the moderators is simply failing MeFi, and urgent regulatory reform is both a moral and economic imperative.

For example, there are posts and comments on this site that have received many hundreds of favorites. Surely some of those surplus favorites could be sold on to other, less successful post and comments - creating value for both buyer and seller. Similarly, favorite hedging products could be used by controversial MeFites to level out the popularity peaks and troughs of their commentary model. This would result in more stable comment-popularity overall, reducing the mods' workload in moderating inefficient commentary.

To take another example, look at me: I'm nobody's favorite, on account of my foul body-odour and my disgusting attitudes towards child labour. Also I am addicted to Cheez Whiz. God, I love that cheesy, whizzy shit. But allowing me to purchase favorites from others would dilute my relative disgustingness by making you all complicit in it, and in return you would all receive Cheez-Whiz. Not a lot of Cheez Whiz, mind you - my addiction is extremely severe. Thank God I have child-slaves to steal Cheez Whiz for me. Anyway, add one favorite to this comment and I will Cheez you up somethin' fierce.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:05 AM on September 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

I've never been able to get j & k working. Space and shift-space on the other hand works fine.
posted by Acey at 3:43 AM on September 7, 2012

You could also try a comma and period. If you have a browser extension that's claiming j and k it might not be remapping . and ,. We have both as options.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:15 AM on September 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

This will not do!
...
CALL THE SCHOOLMASTER!

You little shit, you're in it now. I hope they throw away the key...
posted by terrapin at 11:51 AM on September 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Do pgup and pgdn not work for other people? Or do those keys not exist on your keyboards?
posted by davejay at 3:29 PM on September 7, 2012

davejay: "Do pgup and pgdn not work for other people? Or do those keys not exist on your keyboards?"

There's scrolling, and there's scrolling. j/k let me scroll exactly one comment down, which lets me quickly get through pages and pages of them. I can easily skip one that started good but got a bit long-winded, etc. Doing it with the mouse or the page up/down keys just doesn't work as well for me.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:30 PM on September 7, 2012

Pony: keyboard shortcuts for j/k
posted by infini at 3:20 AM on September 8, 2012

The real question here is: why won't MetaFilter establish a central marketplace for favorites, promoting the economic efficiencies that would arise from buying and selling favorites and derivative products?

The mods had considered something along those lines, but a number of MeFites got upset over the limits on what favorites could be redeemed for:

AT&T minutes in some regions (but no tethering without a new data plan)

United Airlines and Lufthansa flights (coach only)

5% off purchases at Barnes & Noble (remainder titles only)

5% off purchases at any Exxon, Mobil or Hess station (antifreeze and steering wheel fluid only)

15% discount at any participating Apple Store (monitor wipes and mousepads only)

Since then, it was decided nobody was going to be truly happy with any of the choices, and the project was quietly killed.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:06 PM on September 8, 2012

Using Chrome with Pocket installed. j,k,period, coma don't work. Space, shift-space work. But it just feels wrong not to scroll.
posted by escabeche at 6:32 AM on September 10, 2012

Looks like Pocket knows about this issue. It's not a keyboard shortcut conflict because Pocket only has one keyboard shortcut and disabling doesn't fix the issue. The extension must disable our keyboard shortcut code somehow.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:51 AM on September 10, 2012