Rapid Mouseless Workflow Development

[ephij]

I'll admit it, I'm a coder, a keyboard guy, a sublime text typing junkie; but I love Alteryx.  Currently if I open a new workflow and start typing what happens? nothing... Wa wa.  Now lets imagine I'm already pretty familiar with Alteryx and I'm 5 moves ahead of my click and drag. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could click a whitespace and start typing?  Typing would bring up a context menu search with tools found by the search (similar to the "search all tools" in the upper left corner, but next to the cursor, and vertical).  I could continue typing until one tool was left or select a tool using my cursor keys. Hitting 'Enter' would insert the tool where I had originally clicked and open another tool search window, selecting the next tool would automagically connect the two and on down the line (if multiple leg outputs exist for the tool the context menu would appear allowing me to select the leg I want it to connect to, hitting Enter would again bring up the tool search...

Now get this, go back to just after my first search... if instead of Enter I hit the "Tab" key, boom, it would take me to the configuration panel and allow me to fill in/tab through the configuration.  Hit enter again and I'm off to the races with another tool search.

All you click and draggers don't lose any functionality, and we keyboarders can swiftly race through development with ease.  How about that?  (the standard syntax check/path validation would need to be paused to keep development quick until I clicked again on the workflow which would execute the Rapid development mode.)

[oliver_huber]

Completely backing this idea. As for a start, having a shortcut to get to the "seach all tools" would suffice. CTRL+F is sort of useless for me as it only searches for tools already in use on the canvas. Mapping SHIFT+CTRL+F to get to the seach box would be awesome.

[Hollingsworth]

100% in agreement.

Even a review of existing functionality would be beneficial so that when tools already on the canvas are selected, that the first control in the Properties window is active rather than the wrench icon being selected. Or give us a shortcut that toggles between the wrench icon and the first control.

The windows convention of using Alt and then a key to navigate properties windows and other similar controls is well established. Please use that convention or something like it. Also, the use of the TAB key to cycle through controls would also be welcome. I should be able to navigate fluidly throughout a Properties window without ever having to touch the mouse.

Thanks!

[RachelW]

Thanks for adding this idea to the Ideas forum. I can relate to wanting keyboard navigation. We're in active conversations about how to better implement keyboard navigation, so this is helpful feedback. We've been designing with keyboard navigation in mind for new development and will continue to look for ways to make improvements in keyboard navigation. 

[50ld13r]

I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in as I think keyboard entry for rapid workflow development would be an excellent step.  I think one way in which this can be implemented is with the use of short cut keys.

Like with the ctrl+shift+b to enter a browse why not simple allow that to be b.  If i want a select, just type an S.  I think an agreed set of shortcuts would be useful but these should also be allowed to be fully customized.  Potentially you could use a prefix character to denote tool family (preparation)  as part of the entry

For confirmation of the short cut entry simply press the space bar.  This would join on the tool that was last selected if there are multiple end connectors or if only one is available then this makes it easy.  Elements like join would typically join on the inner join output but could again be configured to LOJ as an entry. 

You could chain the tools then go in with the mouse to configure them.