0020. Tabs take Ctrl+T and Ctrl+W; a terminal takes them with Shift

Date: 2026-10-19

Status

Proposed. The user asked for Super+T to open a tab in every Sector F app, as Cmd+T does on a Mac; the desktop's half is patina-desktop's ADR-0067. The split into two functions is my design.

Context

tabs::keys (ADR-0009) took Ctrl+Shift+T for a new tab, a terminal's key, since Teleprinter's tabs came first. Other apps open a tab with Ctrl+T and close it with Ctrl+W; in a browser Ctrl+Shift+T reopens a closed tab. Files and Reader took Ctrl+T and Ctrl+W themselves, so the Sector F apps already disagreed with each other.

Super never reaches a Patina app on Linux: egui-winit drops it. So the Patina desktop now sends a Super key as Ctrl+key, or as Ctrl+Shift+key to a terminal (patina-desktop ADR-0067), and the apps only need to agree on the Ctrl keys.

Decision

• tabs::keys takes Ctrl+T for TabAction::New and Ctrl+W for Close of the shown tab, only without Shift or Alt. Ctrl+Shift+T is no longer taken by it.
• tabs::terminal_keys is the same with Ctrl+Shift+T and Ctrl+Shift+W, for a terminal, whose Ctrl+T and Ctrl+W are the shell's. Teleprinter calls it.
• TabStrip's + hint says Ctrl+T; a terminal sets its own with new_hint.
• Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown and Alt+1 to Alt+9 are unchanged in both.

Consequences

• Every app with tabs opens and closes them with the same keys, and with Super+T and Super+W on the Patina desktop. Apps drop their own Ctrl+T and Ctrl+W.
• An app whose widgets need Ctrl+W (none yet) can skip keys, as before.
• An app with tabs that can't close (ADR-0014) gets Close from Ctrl+W and ignores it.
• Notebook's Ctrl+Shift+T becomes Ctrl+T, a change for anyone used to it.