Docs

Quick Navigation

Jump between projects, files, editor frames, and settings using the keyboard.

Quick Navigation is made for the keyboard: switching between projects, files, frames, and settings never needs the mouse.

Double-tap Shift to open it from anywhere in CoCalc AI, including inside an editor or terminal. (Double-Shift is the default; it can be changed or disabled, see below.) The search field has focus immediately.
Type a few letters, use Up/Down to select a result, and press Enter to open it.
Press Tab to move to the frame preview of the selected file, then a digit 1–9 to open that frame, or 0 for its chat.
Press Escape to close and return to where you were.

The dialog searches the projects in your project list, the editors open in projects you have opened in this browser session, starred files, files you recently used in this browser and tabs remembered for closed projects, recent files from project history already loaded in this browser, project panels such as Files or Log, the pages of the top navigation bar (Projects, Compute, Notifications, and Admin for administrators), and account settings. Each file appears once; its frames are chosen in the preview on the right. This is not a search of every file on disk. The shortcut is ignored while another dialog is open.

Search and switch

Type words or fragments separated by spaces. Each part can match a different part of the destination: algebra notes finds a notes file in the Algebra project, dark finds Appearance settings, and key short finds Keyboard preferences. Matches are highlighted in the name and in its project or path.

Exact names rank first, followed by word prefixes and substrings. Matching ignores case and accents. If nothing matches, a typo-tolerant pass accepts one swapped, wrong, missing, or extra character (two in long words) as long as the first letter is right: rwn still finds rnw.rnw. Among similarly matching destinations, open projects come before closed projects, and bookmarked closed projects come before other closed projects. Within the current project, files come before the project entry itself: open files first, most recently used first, then starred and recently opened files. With an empty search this is the order you see.

Enter opens the selected result; an editor opens at its last active frame. Escape closes the dialog and restores your previous focus.

Select a frame

The preview on the right shows the arrangement of frames inside an editor, including tabbed frames, numbered 1–9. When the dialog opens it shows the current editor; while you move through results it shows the editor of the selected result, and it stays blank for results without frames.

Shift, Shift → 2 immediately opens frame 2 of the current editor. No Enter is needed.
Digits are commands only while the search is empty and a preview is shown. To search for a number, press Space first: Shift, Shift → Space → 2 searches for 2. Text such as chapter2 searches directly, and pasted text is always a search.
After selecting a result with Up/Down, press Tab to move to its frame preview, then 1–9 to open that frame, or Enter for the frame that was last active. Frames beyond 9 can be clicked in the preview.
0 goes to the file's chat: it focuses an existing chat frame, or opens the side chat first when the layout has none.
Tab cycles only through the dialog's own controls: search, preview, Configure, and Help. Shift-Tab cycles backwards and returns from the preview to the search, keeping your query and selection.

The hint line under the search field names the file and frame the keys act on. CodeMirror source frames receive their text cursor, including LaTeX source frames that show an included file.

Preference searches also match the names of the controls on each settings page. For example, pre font or pref size finds Preferences → Editor, where font size is configured. Result subtitles show only the settings group.

Configure or disable the shortcut

Select Configure in the title bar to open a separate settings dialog; Escape or Done closes it and returns you to Quick Navigation. Choose double-Shift, an alternate shortcut, or Disabled. For double-Shift, set the maximum interval between taps (150–1000 milliseconds, 400 by default) and focus the test button to try it. The alternate shortcuts are Ctrl+Shift+Space and Ctrl+K (Command instead of Ctrl on macOS). Ctrl+K takes precedence over editor keymaps that use it, such as Emacs kill-line and Sublime chords.

These settings are also in Account settings → Preferences → Keyboard. That page has an Open Quick Navigation button that works even when the shortcut is disabled. Both locations edit the same saved preferences.

Help in the title bar closes the dialog and opens this guide in the integrated documentation, in the project's Docs panel when a project is active.