Obsidian Hotkey Assignment Misinterprets < Key on German Apple Keyboards

[boettges]

New fresh default vault with no community plugins on Obsidian 1.8.9.
German built-in Apple hardware keyboard on macOS Sequoia 15.3.1.

The problem is reproducible on two independent MacBook Pros and a Mac Mini.

Steps to reproduce

In Settings → Hotkeys:

1. Add CMD + < to any command.
2. Add CMD + Shift + < to any command.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Yes

Expected result

1. CMD + < should be recognized as a hotkey for the first command.
2. Respectively, CMD + Shift + < should be recognized for the second command.

Actual result

1. Instead, Obsidian displays CMD + , (comma) for the first command.
2. And CMD + Shift + . (period) for the second command.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.9
Installer version: v1.7.7
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.3.0: Thu Jan 2 20:24:22 PST 2025; root:xnu-11215.81.4~3/RELEASE_ARM64_T6041 24.3.0
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

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Additional information

• This problem persists with any other modifier key (OPT or CTRL), or combination thereof.
  It’s irrelevant whether left or right side modifiers are used.
• Potentially conflicting software (BetterTouchTool, Karabiner, Keyboard Maestro etc.) was disabled to debug.
• The problem above is reproducible on two different MacBooks.
  It also occurs with an older wired Apple keyboard.
• Using the < key with any modifiers works otherwise system-wide fine and in other applications.
• Oddly enough, typing the character works fine in Obsidian.
  Only Obsidian’s hotkey settings will recognize < as a , and Shift + < as Shift + .

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Additional notes

On German (QWERTZ) hardware keyboards the left Shift key is shorter compared to English keyboards and makes room for an additional key. That additional key is used for the < character and its variant. It’s positioned in between the left Shift key and the the y key.

[blue_emperor]

I can reproduce this. The expected result should be as in Russian keyboard ⌘` despite Russian layout doesn’t have backtick in the corresponding key.

The problem occurs in various layouts including

• Danish layout
• Finnish layout
• Icelandic layout
• Norwegian layout
• Swedish layout

In addition this problem was earlier documented by this bug report:

Swedish Layout: Both Physical Hotkeys `⌘ + <` and `⌘ + ,` trigger the same command on MacOS

Steps to reproduce Go to Hotkey settings and try to register ⌘ + < as a hotkey. Expected result ⌘ + < is registered as a hotkey for the selected command. Actual result ⌘ +, is registered as a hotkey for the selected command. see screencast: Environment SYSTEM INFO: Obsidian version: v1.1.16 Installer version: v0.15.9 Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 22.3.0: Mon Jan 30 20:39:35 PST 2023; root:xnu-8792.81.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 22.3.0 Login status: not logged in …

[boettges]

Oh, I did not find this thread searching the bug section prior to posting.
Thanks for pointing it out!

It’s exactly the same problem that tophee described in the other thread:

@tophee

But the problem is that although ⌘ + < does seem to work despite it being displayed as ⌘ + ,, the conflict with ⌘ + , is real, i.e. ⌘ + , will now trigger the same command that ⌘ + < was registered for. So this is not merely a matter of the hotkey being displayed wrongly, it also seems to be registered twice (which adds the confusion that the wrong display of the hotkey causes).

So, from what I can see, there are two issues here.

1. Users on non-US keyboards will sometimes see the wrong hotkey displayed. That one is known (I assume the explanation on the help page means something like: “we know this is not ideal, but haven’t managed to fix it yet”).
2. Users of non-US keyboards will register two hotkeys whenever the key in question differs between the US-keyboard layout and the keyboard layout used.