The new Twitter revamp is nice, but one of the features that most piqued our interest—and would make us consider giving its web interface another chance—are the new keyboard shortcuts. Here's how they work.


Hit '?' to Get Started




First, like Gmail, Google Reader, or any good webapp these days with keyboard shortcuts, the only shortcut you ever really need to remember is '?' (the question mark). Hit it, and you'll see a list of nearly every keyboard shortcut at your disposal. (We actually noticed that a few important shortcuts—like Enter to view a tweet—are missing, so we've included all we found below.)

UPDATE (9/20/2010): Twitter updated their shortcuts for more navigation features—again, very much like Gmail/Google Reader's navigation shortcuts (e.g., g for go, then the first letter of the place you want to go). We've updated the help image (above) and added the new shortcuts (below).

The Full List

/:16

Note: the video above is missing the new timeline navigation shortcuts, which are highlighted below.


Beyond that, if you're familiar with Gmail's keyboard shortcuts (which are based loosely on shortcuts in the popular-among-geeks text editor, Vi), the new Twitter shortcuts are happily similar, and they look like this:

Navigation

j/k to move between the next and previous tweets

to move between the next and previous tweets Enter to drill down into or close a selected tweet

to drill down into or close a selected tweet space to page down

to page down Shift+space to page up

to page up / to jump to the search box

to jump to the search box . to refresh and jump back to the top

Navigating Timelines

g then h to go home

to go home g then r to go to your replies/mentions

to go to your replies/mentions g then p to go to your profile

to go to your profile g then f to go to your favorites

to go to your favorites g then m to go to your direct messages

to go to your direct messages g then u then search to view any user's timeline

Actions for Individual Tweets

f to f avorite a tweet

to avorite a tweet r to r eply to a tweet

to eply to a tweet t to re t weet

to re weet m to send a direct m essage

to send a direct essage n to compose a n ew tweet

to compose a ew tweet Escape to cancel a compose window, dismiss the help window

And that's all you need to know. There may be a few hidden gems we didn't find (the Enter, Shift+space, and Escape shortcuts I mentioned above were missing from the help menu), so if you find a handy one, be sure to share it in the comments.