Keyboard

You can work the whole board without a mouse, and it takes one press of Tab to get there.

Getting to the board

A board with forty cards on it has one tab stop, not forty. The cursor card is the tab stop; every other card is skipped. Tab once and you are on the board; Tab again and you have left it.

The cursor starts on the top card of the first column that has one. Clicking a card moves the cursor there too — focus is the cursor, so the two can never disagree.

Moving the cursor

Key	What it does
Tab	Reach the board. One stop, not forty.
↑ ↓	Up and down inside the column. No wrapping — the ends are ends.
← →	To the nearest column in that direction that has cards, keeping your place down the column. Empty columns are stepped over, and so are folded ones — a strip draws no cards to land on. Below 560 px, where the board draws one column, the board pages to the column the cursor lands in.
Home	The first card in this column.
End	The last card in this column.
Enter	Open the card the cursor is on. The focus goes to its title.
Space	Pick the card up.
x	Select the card for a bulk change, or deselect it. The checks on the cards are not tab stops, because the board keeps one.

The cursor scrolls itself into view by hand — nearest in both directions — because plain focus scrolls too much and never scrolls a board sideways.

Moving a card

Press Space and the card is lifted. The arrow keys now belong to the drag, and the cursor does not move; that is the whole reason they can be trusted here.

Key while lifted	What it does
↑ ↓	Move the card within its column. Nothing while the board is sorted: the place a card has in a sorted column is the sort’s, not the drag’s.
← →	Move the card one column at a time — into an empty or folded column as readily as a full one. A card put down on a folded column goes to its end. These keep working under a sort, because a column writes a value and not a rank.
Space or Enter	Put it down.
Escape	Cancel. The card goes back.

Why the empty column needed its own answer

The obvious keyboard drag asks the library which sortable is nearest and gets an answer weighted by distance between rectangles — which an empty column, being as tall as the board, always loses. So the sideways keys work the columns out themselves: the nearest column that fully clears the card, whether or not anything is in it, keeping the height the card was already at.

Two halves had to hold. Where a drop lands is one decision; where a key puts the card is another. A fix to only the first one reads as fixed and is not.

A list

A list is the same idea with one axis instead of two, and it walks the same code — so everything above holds, minus the sideways.

Key	What it does
Tab	Reach the list. One stop, not two thousand.
↑ ↓	Up and down the rows. Nothing wraps.
← →	Nothing. A list has no sideways, so the keys are left alone and a wide list still scrolls with them.
Home End	First row, last row.
Enter	Open the row’s task.
Space	Pick the row up; press it again to put it down. ↑ ↓ move it, Escape cancels. Does nothing while the list is sorted.
x	Select the row for a bulk change, or deselect it. The checks in the gutter are not tab stops, because the list keeps one.

A list does not need the board's answer, and must not take it

The sideways keys above are worked out by hand because an empty column is as tall as the board and loses every distance contest. A list has one column of equal rows and no such container, so it uses the library’s own answer, which is correct there. Unifying the two would break the board.

The task panel

A task opens with the focus on its title, so a screen reader reads its name first. When the panel closes, the focus goes back to the board’s cursor, on the card that was open. There is one exception: on a phone the title does not take the focus, because the keyboard would cover the panel.

Key	What it does
Escape	Closes the panel while the focus is still where the panel put it. After you click or type in the title, the first Escape leaves the title and reverts what you typed, and the second Escape closes the panel.
Tab	The next field. Each field is read with the name of its property, for example “Status, Todo”.
Enter Space	Open a menu. ↑ ↓ move in it, Enter picks, and Escape closes it and goes back to the field.
← → Home End	On the Comments, Activity and Agent tabs, go to the next tab and open it. The three tabs are one tab stop.

An error toast is read at once. Any other toast waits until the screen reader finishes.

Everywhere else

Key	Where	What it does
n	the board, a list	Opens the composer for a new task: at the top of the column the cursor is in, or the first column; at the end of a list. Not when you are typing in a field, and not in the task panel.
/	the board	Puts the cursor in the search box. If any card is selected, the press clears the selection first: a search wins over a selection, and on a narrow window the selection bar had taken the box off the top bar. Not when you are typing in a field — there it is a slash.
↑ ↓ Enter	the search box	Move down the hits (it wraps) and open one.
↑ ↓ Enter Escape	the waiting list	Move down the questions (it wraps), open one with the cursor in the answer box, or put the list away. Tab reaches N waiting, and Enter opens it.
↑ ↓ Enter Escape	the project name	Enter or ↓ opens the switcher; the arrows walk it (it wraps), Enter opens the project, Escape closes it and the focus goes back to the name.
Escape	the board, a list	Puts away one thing, nearest first: an open panel, then the task, then the question Archive is asking, then every selected card. Only when you are not typing in a field.
Enter	a title	Saves and leaves the field.
Escape	any field	Reverts it.
⌘Enter or CtrlEnter	description, comment	Saves or sends. The hint under the box names the key your machine has: ⌘ on a Mac, Ctrl everywhere else. Both keys work on both.
Enter	the task composer	Adds the task. ShiftEnter is a newline.
Enter	a checklist box	Adds the item and keeps the box open for the next one.
↑ ↓ Enter	the filter panel	Move the highlight (it wraps) and pick.
Backspace	an empty filter box	Goes back to the property list.

Nothing in Ushabti has a Save button, so leaving a field is how you save it. That is one rule for every field on every page, which is worth more than a shortcut for each.

FiltersEvery rule has to pass, and “is not” keeps the tasks that hold nothing.