Keyboard Shortcut.

Fair warning: All these API are unstable and can change at any time.

Through javascript you can access the keyboard manager.

The keyboard manager maps (some) shortcuts in command and edit mode to actions.

A shortcut is a string that represents a sequence of multiple key presses at the same time. Commas separate each step of the sequence and dashes represent keys that have to be pressed together.

For example a,b,c,d represents the succession of pressing the letter A, B, C and D without modifier. Shift-a,b,c,d will have only A key pressed with shift modifier, and Shift-a,Shift-b,Shift-c,Shift-d represents holding shift and pressing a,b,c,d in order.

Bind some existing action in command mode, in javascript console (where > and < are in and out prompt):

> IPython.keyboard_manager.command_shortcuts.add_shortcut('Shift-k','ipython.move-selected-cell-up')
< undefined

> IPython.keyboard_manager.command_shortcuts.add_shortcut('Shift-j','ipython.move-selected-cell-down')
< undefined

To see the list of available actions, you can issue the following in the developer console:

> $.map(
     IPython.keyboard_manager.command_shortcuts.actions._actions,
     function(k,v){return v}
     )

< ["ipython.run-select-next",
"ipython.execute-in-place",
"ipython.execute-and-insert-after",
"ipython.go-to-command-mode",
...
"ipython.move-cursor-down-or-next-cell",
"ipython.scroll-down", "ipython.scroll-up",
"ipython.save-notebook"]

Actions

In the previous section what you actually did is bind a keyboard shortcut to an action.

You most likely to want the same behavior as other users and/or to have buttons or menus to do the same things than keyboard shortcut.

Also, if like me you are not a huge fan of Javascript, you prefer to avoid rewriting anonymous function in your config file.

An action is, in its simplest form, a name given to a sequence of API calls done in the notebook frontend. Some actions are already pre-defined in Jupyter/IPython, and we prefix their name by ipython. Extensions can also register their own action to be used. The API and naming of actions is still in flux so what you read here is still approximate.

As of this writing, an action is a combination of a handler, an icon and a help_text. The handler is a JavaScript function that would be called in the right context when the action is triggered. The help_text, and icon are extra meta-data that are used in various contexts. For example, if you add an action to a toolbar then a button will be created. The icon will automatically be applied to the button, and the help text will appear on hover. Actions also have the capacity to call sub-actions. This makes the combination of multiple repetitive tasks easy to customize.

The quickest way to bind a function to a shortcut is to use an anonymous action:

IPython.keyboard_manager.command_shortcuts.add_shortcut(
    'Ctrl-C,Meta-C,Meta-b,u,t,t,e,r,f,l,y',
    {
        handler:function(){
          window.open('https://xkcd.com/378/')
        }
    }
)

This is a bit hard to type quickly enough, but a Real Programmer should probably understand how to use this.

Defining an action.

IPython.keyboard_manager.actions.register

Choose icons from Font Awesome. Names should avoid spaces.

var clear_all_cell_restart = {
    help: 'Clear all cell and restart kernel without confirmations',
    icon : 'fa-recycle',
    help_index : '',
    handler : function (env) {
        var on_success = undefined;
        var on_error = undefined;
        env.notebook.clear_all_output();
        env.notebook.kernel(on_succes, on_error);
    }
}

IPython.keyboard_manager.actions.register(clear_all_cell_restart, 'clear-all-cells-restart', 'scipy-2015')