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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-15T22:05:52+00:00

I am developing a quite large web application, and it is probably a good

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I am developing a quite large web application, and it is probably a good idea to use hotkeys for some common tasks. However, I discovered that finding safe key combinations is a problem, regarding all different browsers and OSes.

For example, Chrome has such a long list of hotkeys that trying to use some kind of logical hotkeys scheme for my web application is impossible – e.g. Ctrl + 1, Ctrl + 2, Ctrl + 3, etc.

Do you have some cheat sheet of safe hotkeys which can be used in a web application and not worry about some browser or OS interference?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I wouldn’t count on it. It’s probably okay to listen for shortcuts that use the Alt modifier, but there’s still no way to be sure a keyboard shortcut is free. Users can always install programs that listen for keyboard shortcuts, or use a browser you didn’t expect.

    If the shortcuts can be used only when the user is not typing in a textbox or something, it might be a better idea to just listen for keys pressed without a modifier key.

    If no textbox or other GUI element is focused, then document.activeElement == document.body should be true (somebody correct me if I’m wrong).

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