keyboard-shortcuts on S Anand

Rofi vs Kanata

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 15:25:48 +0800

Kanata might be the most useful tool I can’t find a use for.

It’s a cross-platform keyboard mapper. Some cool features:

Make any key a modifier. Ctrl, Shift, Alt, etc. are modifiers. But we can make it so that pressing Space + I/J/K/L maps to Up/Left/Down/Right.
Chords. You can map any sequence of keys to anything else. For example, Alt + G, then C can type git commit -m"Experimenting" [ENTER]. Ctrl + M, then Down, can reduce the music volume by 10%.
Toggles. Double-clicking Caps Lock activates capitalization for the current word, and once you type a non-letter, it turns off. Or double-clicking Ctrl can turn on “gaming mode” where WASD becomes arrow keys, and double-clicking again turns it off.
Tap Dance. Double-clicking left-shift can turn on Caps Lock. Triple-clicking turns it off. Quadruple-clicking …

… and there’s lots more.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a single use in practice. My main bottleneck is that I don’t remember the shortcuts. So, instead, I use rofi.

Rofi is a programmable menu launcher. The great thing is that I don’t need to remember stuff. When I map it to keyboard shortcuts, it pops up a menu and I pick what I need.

I use it to:

#1: Open any file or browser tab with Ctrl + Alt + F. This is my most used shortcut. It replaces Everything for files, and Chrome Search Tab with a single shortcut.

#2: Paste any prompt fragment with Ctrl + Alt + P.

This is especially useful when adding a prompt fragment, like Expert Lens in the middle of a prompt, or analyzing call recordings a dozen times a day.

#3: Edit the clipboard with Ctrl + Alt + M (for Markdown).

This is a killer feature. I often use it to:

Copy from email/chat and paste it in ChatGPT as Markdown
Copy from ChatGPT and remove the em-dashes and non-ASCII characters
Convert Markdown to Unicode for LinkedIn
Convert Markdown to rich test for pasting in emails or chat
Creating a ChatGPT / Claude / Google AI mode link from a piece of text
…

I’m still keen to find a use for Kanata, but for now, my use of Rofi will continue to grow.

19 Mar 2026: The Compose key is meant to combine two keystrokes to create a new character - which Kanata offers as a feature with any key.

Things I Learned - 11 Jan 2026

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This week, I learned:

Software Heritage is a non-profit that archives software. You can submit any Git repo for archival. Over 400 million projects have been archived so far.
Everything Bad Is Good For You by Steven Johnson (2005) argues that pop culture isn’t all bad. But it isn’t all good either, unlike the book’s claims. Claude
- Popular culture formats (e.g. video games, manga, soap operas, game shows) are steadily more cognitively demanding, complex.
- They provide a dopamine kick from problem-solving.
- These may have led to the Flynn Effect (rising IQs in 1990s-2000s). Or it may be due to nutrition, smaller families, education, etc.
- Action games correlate with visual-spatial skills. Strategy games correlate with memory, planning. But is it causation? It doesn’t always translate to real-world skills.
- Also, side effects are real and bad: screen-time, addiction, misinformation, etc.
The purpose of a featured image in a blog post is to help readers decide whether to read it. Share the article’s output/focus (e.g. for data stories, products). Else a visual summary (e.g. sketchnote, comic capturing the essence). Else skip. Avoid stock photos. #
NFLSavant.com has play-by-play data for NFL games.
Ten of the least well known psychology / sociology research findings. ChatGPT
- Learning styles are a myth. People might prefer visual / audio / … learning but it doesn’t help learning. Mix learning modes. NotebookLM can help.
- Casual acquaintances help find new information or jobs much more than close friends, since they’re in different social circles. Nurture weak ties. Use a relationship architect.
- Tell a lie often enough and people mistake familiarity for truth. Fact-check habitually.
- The more you see / hear something the more you like it. (Exposure effect.) Expose to good things.
- When others mess up, we blame them. When we mess up, we blame the situation. (Attribution error.) Pause before judging.
- Sometimes, rewarding people makes them like doing it less. (Overjustification effect.)
- People who know less over-estimate their knowledge. (Dunning-Kruger effect.) Habitualize calibration via feedback and tests.
- People do worse when they’re afraid their failure will reflect on their stereotype. (Stereotype threat.) Practice emotional resets.
- Higher expectations lead to better performance. (Pygmalion effect.) Engineer positive expectations.
- Benevolent sexism (e.g. protective paternalism) can be harmful too. Scan for well-meaning bias.
Liberalism => economic growth, peace and expanding rights. Also colonial violence, exclusions (women, slavery, …), and eroding community. It is vulnerable to authoritarianism (e.g. emergency powers, recessions). Since 2006, democracy has consecutively declined, reversing half the progress since WW2. But alternatives are unclear. Claude
Notes from The Periodic Table by Primo Levi.
- Pure Zinc does not dissolve easily in sulphuric acid. An impurity like Copper Sulphate pulls electrons from Zinc and offers them to Hydrogen ions, speeding up the reaction. Impurities, foreign bodies, etc. have a purpose, too.
- Discomfort = Information. Overcoming discomfort = Capability. Capability = Freedom. Therefore: Seeking discomfort (carefully, purposefully) = Building freedom.
- Simple != Easy. Simple = Clear. Clear = Actionable.
- Indifference often feels like malice.
- ⭐ Analogies have limits. (The Map is not the Territory.) When using analogies, always explore where, when and why they will break. Pay close attention near where they break.
- ⭐ Knowledge vanishes with people unless written down. Write “Do X. Because of Y. Unless Z changes.” The last two are critical.
- I could NOT have read the book without a Randall Munroe re-styling. I cried anyway.
“There’s about 300-400 that were corporate assets. One watched them all the time. These are people who in 15 years could be CEO. There’s something about them that caught your fancy when you were in a meeting… brilliant ideas that challenged your thinking… We called them “Corporate Assets” and tracked them, to make sure we game-planned them, give them the right assignments.” Indra Nooyi, The Knowledge Project
The accesskey attribute works a bit like magic. Adding an accesskey="h" on a home page link, or an accesskey="t" on a theme toggle button automatically enables keyboard shortcuts Alt+H or Alt+T to activate them. (Varies by browser and OS, but hovering shows the shortcut!)
Familiarity and recency feel like learning but they’re not. Instead: Take tests. Review (spaced repetition). Interleave learning. That’s what helps. Claude

No to all in Windows

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Windows has a “Yes to all” in some of its dialogs – for example when replacing files. Here’s how you can simulate a “No to all”. (Just shift-click the “No” button).

HTML keyboard shortcuts

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:00:00 +0000

HTML keyboard shortcuts using the “accesskey” attribute.

Excel - Never use the mouse

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:00:00 +0000

I spend a lot of time building models on Excel. I have 4 rules that help me get things done fast.

Never use the mouse. The keyboard is much faster.
Never type in data. You can always import it.
Avoid manual labour. Use Excel to automate the task.
Make your data visually obvious.

Let’s look at Rule #1: Never use the mouse.

Using the keyboard can be 10 times faster than the mouse. It takes time to move one hand from the keyboard to the mouse, locate the item you want to click at, move the mouse there, adjust it finely so it’s pointing at the exact spot, and then click it. For example, to insert text without formatting, I’d just go Alt-E, S, enter. It takes half a second. It took me 5 seconds with a mouse. (I timed 10 continuous attempts in both cases.)

A factor of 10 speed advantage like that is good for two reasons: it saves you time, and it doesn’t distract you from what you’re doing (provided the keyboard shortcuts have become a habit.)

For newbies: To use menus using keyboard shortcuts, first go to Start - Settings - Control Panel - Display - Appearance tab - Effects button - Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key. Make sure it is turned off. To use a menu, let’s say “Insert - Row”. look for the underlined letter on the menu bar (the “I” on “Insert”), press Alt and the underlined letter (Alt-I in this case), and look for the underlined letter on the next menu item (“R” on the “Rows” in this case) and press that letter. So, Alt-I-R is the shortcut to insert a row. Now, just practice Alt-I-R, Alt-I-R, Alt-I-R repeatedly.

Shortcuts next to the menu are quicker, where they exist. For example, the Ctrl-C next to the Edit-Copy menu.

Apart from the arrow keys, Ctrl-S, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, the keys I use frequently are:

F2: edit the current cell
F4: repeat the last action (very useful)
Ctrl-Z, Ctrl-Y: Undo, Redo
Ctrl-1: Format cells
Ctrl-Shift-down arrow: Select all filled cells below selection (also works with other arrow keys)
Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn: Shift between tabs
Ctrl-Home/End: Go to top-left, or bottom-right of the sheet (or cell, if you’re editing a cell)
Ctrl-`: Show formulae
Shift-Space, Ctrl-Space: Select row, select column
Alt-Enter: To create a new line while you’re typing in a cell
Alt-E-I-S-Enter: Select a set of cells and fill a continuous series of numbers in it
Alt-E-S-Enter: Paste unformatted text
Alt-D-G-G: Group a set of rows (use Alt-D-G-U for ungroup)
Alt-D-G-S: Show a collapsed group (use Alt-D-G-H to collapse a group)
Alt-O-D: Conditional formatting
Alt-F8: Macros

Comments

bluski 1 Nov 2005 12:00 pm: wqo
Nametest 1 Nov 2005 12:00 pm: Test
Jayant 3 Nov 2005 2:44 am: Thanks Anand. Good set of tips. Ofcourse, one can always go to microsoft page and download the entire set of shortcuts.
bluski 8 Nov 2005 2:35 am: rules 2,3,4??
bluski 8 Nov 2005 2:36 am: ignore the one above…just testing
Aditya 11 Nov 2005 5:40 am: Good Post! Really useful.
Sathish 15 Nov 2005 5:56 pm: How will this be displayed if I don’t type my name?
ANIA 13 Feb 2007 8:33 am: HOW TO CALUCATE SIMPLE INTEREST IN EXCEL?HELP ME
vic 8 Mar 2007 6:05 pm: F4 seems to have changed! Used to be able to keep on pressing F4 multiple times to repeat. Now it only works once or twice. Why?
E R Suresh Narain 1 Nov 2005 12:00 pm: very useful
afreen 1 Nov 2005 12:00 pm: how to arrange all cells alphabetically without modify any thing , like date ,amount & other things For e.g. Dt Party name Amount 12.03.08 Tema 2000 13.03.08 L& T 6000 It is arrange alphabetically Party wise
yowan 2 Jan 2009 9:17 am: thanks for the excel tips and song search engine
Subramanian S 30 Mar 2009 5:50 am: VEry useful tips Anand. Helps me a lot at work.
Payal 22 Sep 2009 12:21 pm: Hey can any1 help me with how to go to other spreadsheet (ie. from sheet1 to sheet 2) without the use of mouse?
Ian 17 Nov 2009 3:44 pm: Change sheets with keyboard? Ctrl-Pgup/Ctrl-PgDn
Kalevi 26 Nov 2010 10:32 pm: Shift+F8 allows you to select cells from different parts of the document.
remove keys 9 Mar 2011 7:08 pm: remove the f1, caps, left windows keys. maybe numlock.
Vinnie 22 Aug 2012 8:52 pm: I came up with article on citehr where they show how you can work without any formula. This was a good article How you can work in Excel without knowing any formulas
1. How to change CASE in Excel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2JdQuybKjU&feature=plcp
2. How to Convert Columnar Data into Tabular Form http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbHh41qMsHQ&feature=plcp
3. How to COLOUR Duplicate Rows in Excel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRckmKTRbYE&feature=plcp
4. How to Change UPPER & lower Case in Excel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ6Ud8MgrfY&feature=plcp
5. How to Remove all DUPLICATES in Excel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh-8D_AklwM&feature=plcp
6. How to REMOVE Extra SPACES in Excel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7lh1tX7EeY&feature=plcp
7. How to Remove NUMBERS & ALPHABETS in Excel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMj89gqizzA&feature=plcp
8. How to CLEAN Data in Excel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhFroHy8tqw&feature=plcp Hope this helps and this is from a tool from http://exceladdins.net
J.V.SSUBBARAO 26 Oct 2012 7:39 am: Dragging The lines of Tables margins without mouse support
Laura 2 Feb 2013 12:18 am: For the new Excel 2010, how do we create and modify a Pivot table without using the mouse? We know that we hit ALT + D, P to get the Pivot table and then select through the Pivot wizard. However, once the pivot is created and becomes time to select the criteria, we cannot figure out how to get onto the selection panel without using a mouse. Suggestions?
Saleem Ullah 18 Dec 2015 11:30 am: how can i coloured a text in excel without touching the keyboard…. plz resolve my problem thanks
Saleem Ullah 18 Dec 2015 11:31 am: plz ignore my first mail, how can i coloured a text in excel without touching the mouse…. plz resolve my problem Thanks
Jennifer 6 Feb 2018 9:51 pm: Thanks for the useful tips!
Pranav Sukumaran 9 Apr 2017 7:15 am: Usefulllllllll
Abhik 17 May 2016 5:33 am: How Draw Formula With out mouse

Excel shortcuts

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Excel shortcut keys via AutomateExcel