ADR 0068: Freeing Ctrl+O and Ctrl+I

Status

Accepted

Context

ADR 0067 shipped go-to-definition and named the gap it created: no way to jump back. Vim puts that on Ctrl+O, with Ctrl+I to jump forward — and this editor had both: Ctrl+O opened a file, Ctrl+I opened the About panel. ADR 0046 flagged the collision when it deferred the jumplist, and ADR 0059 had already shown the shape of the workaround: scope the override to Normal and Visual, as Ctrl+D does.

That workaround is wrong here. Ctrl+D's override was safe because multi-cursor editing happens while typing, so the override landed in a mode where nobody used the old meaning. Normal mode is where you spend your life, and opening a file is a fundamental action — taking it away there is a real loss, not a technicality.

Decision

Move the two panels instead. A panel opened a few times a session can afford an unusual binding; a navigation key used constantly cannot.

action	was	now
Keyboard shortcuts	Ctrl+/	F1
About	Ctrl+I	Alt+I
Open file	Ctrl+O	Alt+O
Jump back / forward	—	Ctrl+O / Ctrl+I (ADR 0070)

F1 is not a consolation prize: it is the help key, the one people press without being told, and the panel should have been there from the start. Ctrl+/ was a fine mnemonic and the wrong key — and leaving it unbound keeps it free for toggle-comment, which is what Ctrl+/ means in most editors.

About and Open move to Alt, together, so it is one rule rather than two exceptions.

Two proposals were declined:

• About on F2. F2 is the conventional rename key, and LSP rename is on the roadmap as part of the navigation half go-to-definition started. Spending it on the least-used panel in the app means either moving About twice or giving up the conventional key for a real feature.
• Find moving to Ctrl+/. Ctrl+F is the most universally known shortcut there is, and nothing is competing for it. Moving it costs muscle memory and frees nothing.

Ctrl+Shift+O still toggles the output panel, and Ctrl+P (ADR 0065) is unaffected — in practice it is the opener people reach for anyway, which is part of why moving Ctrl+O costs less than it would have a week ago.

Consequences

The rebinding lands on its own, before the jumplist that motivates it, so that if Alt+O turns out to be awkward — tiling window managers often claim Alt — it can be reverted without unpicking a feature. Verified on this machine's WM: F1 opens the shortcuts panel, Alt+O the file browser, Alt+I About, and Ctrl+O now does nothing at all, which is exactly the state the jumplist needs (ADR 0070).

The welcome screen and the shortcut reference both list the new keys; they were the two places that would otherwise teach the old ones.

This is the first time a binding has been taken away rather than added. ADR 0026's "keybindings are compile-time constants" still holds, and this is the cost of that: a rebinding is a code change and a documented decision rather than a line in a config file. Keybindings as data remains the Tier 2 roadmap item it has been since then, and this ADR is one more argument for it.