Tutorial 2: Own the keyboard

Goal: move anywhere in QUILL without the mouse, and bend the keymap to your hands.

1. The QUILL key (prefix commands)

QUILL has more commands than convenient key combinations, so it uses a prefix: press the QUILL key (Ctrl+Shift+Grave by default — the tilde key), then one more key.

Try these:

1. QUILL key, then S — insert a snippet.
2. QUILL key, then X — open the Copy Tray (a twelve-slot clipboard).
3. QUILL key, then Shift+M — the remote sites manager.

Press the QUILL key twice and Browse Mode locks on: letters and arrows act as navigation commands until you press Escape — the same idea as a screen reader's virtual cursor. One press arms exactly one command (Quick Nav); two presses lock the mode.

2. Deep navigation

• Jump by heading in Markdown documents; move by section; set and jump to named marks (palette > mark).
• Bookmarks are per-document and survive restarts, and QUILL reopens every saved file at your last cursor position.
• Ctrl+Tab cycles document tabs; the tab name is announced on switch.

3. The Keymap Editor

Preferences > Keyboard opens the editor. Three things to try:

1. Reverse lookup. In the search box, type a shortcut — ctrl+alt+m, or even Control + Shift + K (spelling and order are forgiving). QUILL tells you which command owns it, or that it is free.
2. Record Keys. Select a command, choose Record Keys, press the chord. Done. If the key is taken, QUILL names the owner by its friendly title and offers to move the key — informed, one step, no silent clobbering.
3. Run Diagnostics. Audits the whole keymap: duplicates, bindings to commands that no longer exist, unreadable entries, keys that are assigned but inert. Heal fixes the repairable ones in one click.

Export your keymap as a .kqp keyboard pack to share it or carry it between machines.

4. Ask, don't wait: status queries

Instead of QUILL deciding what to announce, ask on demand (all in the palette): Where am I?, What changed?, Speak Status, and Describe Formatting at Cursor ("Arial, 14 point, centered, bold").

5. Exercise

1. Rebind GLOW Audit Current Document to a key of your choice.
2. Use reverse lookup to find out what Ctrl+Shift+Z does.
3. Enter Browse Mode (QUILL key twice), navigate a long document by heading, press Escape.
4. Open the Spoken Echo (Alt+Shift+E) and review what all of that announced.

Next: Rescue a scanned PDF.