Custom Keyboard Shortcuts for Extensions – A New Chrome Feature

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts for Extensions – A New Chrome Feature

Current dev channel of Chrome has a really useful feature for those who love keyboard shortcuts. You can set up custom keyboard shortcuts for extensions.

This is not just for making things faster, there are other uses too. If your toolbar is filled with extensions, this is a good way to get rid of some of them.

Instead of clicking on an icon to do an action, set up a keyboard shortcut, and start using the keyboard shortcut instead of the icon. To hide an icon that you will no longer need, right click on it and select hide icon.

The current dev channel version is 22 and it will be pushed to stable channel in coming weeks. So, get ready and learn how to use this cool feature.

How To Set Up Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

1. Open Settings > Tool > Extensions
2. Scroll down to the bottom and select Configure Commands
3. A popup box displays extensions that support this feature. (developers, you have an API to set this up, read on)
4. Enter a keyboard combination in the box against each extension and click ok when you are ready!

Some shortcuts that work: Ctrl+Letter, Ctrl+Digit, Ctrl+Shift+Letter, Ctrl+Shift+Digit.

Easy, uh? So, now, go ahead and try your newly created keyboard shortcut!

For Developers, An API

There’s an experimental Chrome API for extension developers to add this feature to their extensions. If you like this idea, get on it and be ready before Chrome version 22 hits the stable channel! I am sure there will be a lot of takers for this.

ps: If the Chrome extension developer for Pocket is reading this, please add this feature soon 

So, what’s the new keyboard shortcut you added today? You can even override standard shortcuts like Ctrl+T, Ctrl+C or Ctrl+P but I am sure you won’t be doing those, to avoid confusion!