1551057 - Use Ctrl+J for downloads and Shift+Ctrl+Y as the alternative search shortcut on Linux

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, enhancement, P3)

Description

[gianni]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0

Steps to reproduce:

Shortcuts are different across different OSes

http://7is7.com/software/firefox/shortcuts.html#f7

In windows ctrl-j opens the download history, but not on linux

Actual results:

It focused the Select Search Bar.

In windows the search bar is focused using both
Ctrl+K
Ctrl+E

In linux the search bar is focused by both:
Ctrl+K
Ctrl+J

So I'd assign ctrl+k to the search bar, and assig ctrl+j to the download history in both OSes.

Expected results:

It shouls have opened the download file list history, like it happens on windows.

Comment 1

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Bug 374189 has some context explaining the current situation, in particular bug 374189 comment 17 says we have Ctrl+J as an alternative search shortcut because emacs keybindings. I guess we could instead use Shift+Ctrl+Y as the alternative search shortcut and use Ctrl+J for downloads...

Comment 2

[Peter Lyons Kehl]

Mozilla,

please stop reserving so many available shortcuts. Ctrl+Shift+Y used to be available to extensions (on Linux).

Especially so across various meta key combinations (Ctrl+Alt, Ctrl+Shift).
For example, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/yawas-web-and-pdf-highlighter needs four shortcuts, ending with letters Y, R, B or G (for colors Yellow, Red, Blue, Green). But Firefox doesn't leave almost any practical space:
Ctrl+Shift+Y is taken, Ctrl+Alt+R is taken....

Could Mozilla keep just one of Ctrl+Alt or Ctrl+Shift?

Comment 3

[gianni]

Why is this bug still unassigned? Can we do something about it? thanks

Comment 4

[gianni]

Why is this bug still unassigned? Can we do something about it? thanks

Comment 5

[Gingerbread Man]

Reporter, please stop messing with the bug report fields.

• Version should stay the version the report was filed for. As long as the report is open, it's assumed it's still applicable to the latest version. In case of uncertainty, a developer or QA team member may request confirmation.
• You're requesting a change in intended behavior. That makes this an enhancement not a defect.
• This is not 64-bit specific.

Comment 6

[lucasfbustamante]

FWIW, I just switched from Brave to Firefox on Linux, and it bugs me a lot that Ctrl+J does not open the "Downloads" window, as in all other browsers. This issue has been opened for 15 years. Can we please get a position, even if it's a "Won't Fix"?

Comment 7

[lucasfbustamante]

By "opened for 15 years" I refer to this https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=374189#c17

Comment 8

[japm]

Just a friendly bump.
What is the current situation regarding this issue?
Is it possible to rebind Ctrl+J to open downloads (as in Windows or as in Chrome)? Not even with an extension? Is there a plan to address this?

Comment 9

[Martin Z]

I just hit this bug too. If forcing the issue isn't possible, a "settings for" picker would be nice, like "I'm from a Windows background and I'd like to keep Windows-style shortcuts" option.

Comment 10

[japm]

Unfortunately about:keyboard does not help here yet... hopefully, the "version 2" of the feature might solve this.

For more context:

• The hardcoded shortcuts come from this file:
  https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/locales/en-US/browser/browserSets.ftl
  (search for search-focus-shortcut-alt and downloads-shortcut)
• v2 discussion:
  https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/customizable-hotkeys-is-live-please-help-us-scope-version-2/td-p/116793

Comment 11

[japm]

I created this workaround script to patch an installation on Ubuntu (caveat: AI-generated, but tried to revise it thoroughly):
https://gist.github.com/japm48/9f09f8e19f7d473e56b662568eb93989
Note that this will not work on snaps (tested only on a mozillateam PPA Firefox installation on Ubuntu 24.04), but should not be too hard to port.

In the end it was the contents of this file that can be modified so that the Ctrl+J shortcut points to Downloads:
https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/base/content/browser-sets.inc.xhtml
It gets included by this file, which is the one that actually gets patched:
https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/base/content/browser.xhtml
This, in turn, is stored into the browser/omni.ja archive.