WebCull

Bookmark Manager Shortcuts

Our mentality about shortcuts.

We haven't made a big deal out of it because the bottom line is, hey they're just shortcuts right? This is true but for us, shortcuts are one of the most important things about this bookmark manager. We're not going to go crazy marketing shortcuts because they don't interest everyone and they're not a thing on mobile.

Yet those of us who use shortcuts, really love them. We are the people who like to go quick, the ones who think so fast the world is just standing in our way. As developers, it's a big deal to us because we want to get our jobs done and get to the park or pub (whatever you're into). When we think of shortcuts we think of one of the reasons we made this software in the first place.

Gamers get us!

Computer games seem to understand shortcuts, often creating dozens if not hundreds of keyboard shortcuts. Gamers will memorize every single shortcut/combination out there to speed up what they're doing. If you've ever played Counter-Strike or Age of Empires seriously, you'll know exactly what we're talking about. Committing 20 or 30 shortcuts to memory per game is just a basic thing to do. It is a source of frustration for us when software doesn't hold to this same standard.

Why don't bookmark managers give us better keyboard shortcuts?

The simple fact is that it can be a lot faster to navigate with a keyboard than a mouse cursor. For example, with a modern bookmark manager of today if I wanted to navigate to a folder that's few folders deep to get to the 3rd link.

I have to:

1) hit the tab 3 times
2) hit arrow down until I get to the folder I want
3) press enter or right arrow to open the folder
4) arrow down until I get to the folder I want
5) right arrow again
6) arrow down until I get to the folder I want
7) right arrow again
8) press tab to focus on the bookmarks now
9) arrow down until I get to the bookmark I want
10) hit enter to open the URL

Needing to do all this doesn't really speed us up, keyboard shortcuts are supposed to help us go faster, and this is not doing that.

Is there a way to improve this?

Heck ya, this can be improved a lot. What if I told you, you could get all that done in 5 keyboard strokes with good shortcuts? With WebCull whatever folder you're selected on presently, pressing a number on your keyboard will now open the corresponding folder or bookmark. So pressing 3 will open the third folder on the list. Doing the equivalent navigation in the above example in WebCull could be as simple as pressing the numbers 1-2-3-3-3 for example.

This is how it works:

1) Keystroke 1 is to open the first folder on the list.
2) Keystroke 2 is to open the second folder on the list.
3) Keystroke 3 is to open the third folder on the list.
4) Keystroke 3 again is to open the third bookmark on the list.
5) Then pressing 3 again or enter key will indicate that you want to open the bookmark in a new tab.

When you want to navigate back to the root you can either hit backspace 3 times or arrow left 3 times. Then you can hit a new memorized combo to open whatever another site you want.

The result:

This speeds up website navigation up to 10X because we can reach a website with a number combination instead of clunky navigation that would have normally taken up to 15 seconds more in our example. That's significant especially when you consider how many times a day you might open a website.

The average person may only visit 10 to 20 sites a day, which could be a time savings of a few minutes per day. But a content creator or business person of some sort could be visiting hundreds of sites per day and that could mean a lot more time saved.

There are many other shortcuts available within WebCull. You can find the list of them all within the settings menu under Shortcuts. We focused on the feature above because it was the most impactful for us personally as not only owners and creators but also users.

The keyboard shortcuts list that is located in the settings of the WebCull bookmark manager.

Let us know what you think

Hit us up on Twitter to let us know how shortcuts have an impact on your day.
https://twitter.com/WebCull


Learn about other features
Pastel drawing of planet earth with stars and aura behind it
Try it for free!
WebCull is an ad-free, privacy-focused bookmark manager that you can access from any browser or device.
Get started