A Tale of Shortcuts for Android Studio & A Quick Pull Request

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@ wajahatkarim3 Wajahat Karim 🇵🇰 📱 Android Developer . 💻 Open Source Contributor . 📝Writer . 🎤 Speaker . 👶 Father - 🌐 Check my

A story of a pull request about shortcuts which improved my android development productivity

Picture from Shortcuts.design Webpage

We, the developers, are always looking for shortest ways to complete our work, or fix that annoying bug, or finish that feature development, and so on. And these shortest ways eventually become shortcuts. For every kind of coding IDE from desktop software to mobile apps to websites to embedded software for IoT devices, there are lots of shortcuts to perform certain actions quickly.

Its the speed and a way of using any IDE, which tells a great coder from a good coder.

I have been coding and programming for last 7 years, and I have used lots of different IDEs and compilers for different kind of software such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex Builder, Microsoft Visual Studio, Eclipse, Android Studio etc. When I install any new IDE, the first thing I do is search about the shortcuts of that software. My keyboard usage is usually more than the mouse usage. And my writing habit makes sure of that. Sometimes, I successfully find the shortcuts of IDEs and compilers and sometimes I don’t.

Stumbling upon Shortcuts.design

Keeping track of the most useful shortcuts is hard. In order to boost your productivity and quickly perform actions, you need to atleast remember most common shortcuts. And for that, you need some place to look for. There was no centralized website for shortcuts until Michel van Heest created Shortcuts.design. The website went on to become #1 product on Product Hunt. Michel also shared his experience of how he created it recently.

I stumbled upon it through Product Hunt. And this was exactly what I was looking for. I liked the beautiful and minimal design of the website with amazing use of bright colors. Good Job Michel 👍

But unfortunately, there was no page for Android Studio shortcuts there. I was a little upset, but then I saw that Michel has open sourced his website and is looking for contributions. And being a open source lover, I just couldn’t resist this opportunity and a free pull request to be merged. 😃

A Pull Request for Android Studio Shortcuts

Yes, there are already plenty of pages of shortcuts list for Android Studio. Even, Google has put a page of Android Studio shortcuts on their website. But, this was an opportunity to do something simple and making an impact on a very tiny audience. The website was all about being a one-stop place for any kind of shortcuts. So, why should Android Studio be behind on this, I thought.

So, without wasting much time, I forked the original shortcuts.design repository and guideline was very clear and easy. All I had to do was create a simple HTML file with all the shortcuts in a given format and create pull request. I grabbed few websites with Android Studio shortcuts and started adding it whenever I got time. It was very repetitive and boring work, but I was motivated enough to finish it and so I was done in 2 days. Then I created a pull request and was hoping to be merged. I was a little confused as to how this repository data will be shown on this beautiful website, but I didn’t give it much thought.

The Moments Of Gratitude and Appreciation

The open source community is all about love and sharing. So, showing some gratitude and appreciating the contributors and creators is a great way to spread love and increase sharing. So, I went to twitter and looked for the Michel there and sent him a tweet about the pull request.

And, after few days, Michel merged the pull request and the Android Studio shortcuts were available on the website. It feels very good to see the page and think that you have contributed in that beautiful work.

Thank You Michel ven Heest

Thank you Michel for creating the Shortcuts.design website and helping all the developers and designers around the world boost their productivity. It might seem a silly or stupid website with few shortcuts list, but it can save the creators lots of hours. Sometimes, these little things can make a butterfly effect.

Thank you Michel for merging my pull requests. As an open source lover and contributor, this is the best feeling any developer can have when his/her pull request is merged in any other developer’s repository. This makes the collaboration and sharing very easy to achieve and bring positivity in the community.

Wajahat Karim is an experienced android developer, an active open source contributor, and co-author of two books Learning Android Intents and Mastering Android Game Development with Unity. In his spare time, he likes to spend time with his family or do experiments on coding and open source, and loves to write about lots of things. Follow him on Twitter and Medium to get more updates about his work in Writing, Android and Open Source.

Also, if you have any questions you’d like him to answer, contact him through his website at wajahatkarim.com with DEAR WAJAHAT in the subject line.

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