Opening another vault with keyboard only?

[samueldee]

I would like to open another vault using my keyboard only, no mouse. I’m on a Mac.

Right now, I have defined a keyboard shortcut to “open another vault” (cmd-option-P), and this opens a modal window for choosing another vault. But once in this modal window, how do I select another vault using my keyboard only?

Right now, I have to use my mouse to select another vault.

Ideally, the first vault would be selected already, and I would just need to hit enter, or use the arrow keys to select another one.

Things I have tried

I tried using Tab, but this doesn’t select the other vaults. It only switches between the three buttons and the dropdown menu in the modal window.

I tried typing the first letter of the other vault, and using arrow keys. Doesn’t work either.

What I’m trying to do

[ryanjamurphy]

If you’re willing to use other software, something like Keyboard Maestro (KM) would let you achieve this easily via Obsidian’s URL scheme.

https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/

https://help.obsidian.md/Advanced+topics/Using+obsidian+URI

Set up a macro in KM to open an Obsidian URL, then trigger it with your desired keyboard shortcut.

[rigmarole]

There are related feature requests to support navigation in the app with keyboard. This seems like a relevant point to add to the discussion there, if vault-switching wasn’t already mentioned there.

Keyboard navigation and searching in 'Settings'

Use case or problem When in ‘Settings’ I do not want to use the mouse. I can enter the settings section, with keyboard shortcut, then I also want to navigate and search without having to use the mouse. Currently I have to navigate with my mouse and when searching I have to select the ‘search’, or ‘Filter’ box in the page, before I can start typing. Proposed solution By having keyboard navigation to move through the Settings items and having the Search / Filter box active by default, I can navi…

Accessibility: Keyboard navigation and shortcuts for dialogs and pop-up modals

I would like to be able to interact with dialog/confirmation modals with hotkeys. For example, when I want to delete a note, and I get the confirmation, I want to use the keyboard to continue. Perhaps enter to continue and esc to cancel.

Yeah it would be nice to be able to just type a vault name right in the command, like Quick Switcher. This could be an interesting feature request for GitHub - darlal/obsidian-switcher-plus: Enhanced Quick Switcher plugin for Obsidian.md too, maybe?

[samueldee]

Thanks for the suggestion. I’m not using Keyboard Maestro (or Alfred). Inspired by the idea, I did try a work-around using built-in Mac apps:

1. creating an Automator service to launch an Obsidian vault - this works: Automator > new service; add block Get specified URL, select “no input”, “any application”, add the obsidian url (in my case obsidian://open?vault=Notes), add block Display webpages, save.
2. adding a shortcut to this service, in mac preferences > keyboard > shortcuts > services. This almost works - The shortcut works when I’m in Finder, or in Firefox, but not when I’m in Obsidian itself… so close… I suppose this is because Obsidian (Electron) ignores mac services.

[samueldee]

@rigmarole Yes, it seems to be a more general problem.

I added a feature request to Switcher-plus. Thanks.

[Felipe]

@samueldee

adding a shortcut to this service, in mac preferences > keyboard > shortcuts > services. This almost works - The shortcut works when I’m in Finder, or in Firefox, but not when I’m in Obsidian itself… so close… I suppose this is because Obsidian (Electron) ignores mac services.

Hello @samueldee!

Take a look at the plugin Shell Commands from the fantastic @jare.

• Shell commands plugin
• GitHub - Taitava/obsidian-shellcommands: Execute system commands via hotkeys or command palette in Obsidian (https://obsidian.md). Some automated events are also supported, and execution via URI links.

You can create a command to open this Obsidian URI and define a hotkey

• open “obsidian://open?vault=Notes”

This way you can open a vault inside Obsidian using the keyboard.

I hope it helps!