The keyboard

Sixpack is designed so that it should be very easy to use using only the keyboard. All actions should be possible by using only keys. The menus can be selected by pressing alt- and the first letter of the menu. Following is a list of keystrokes:

key action
up, down, page-up, page-down, end, home Move in the list window among entries
shift-up, shift-down, alt-up, alt-down Move in the list window to the next marked entry
alt-+ mark entry
alt-- unmark entry
alt-a mark all entries
alt-u unmark all entries
alt-enter Start editing an entry (hit alt-enter again in the entry window to finish editing the entry)
alt-insert insert new entry
alt-delete delete current entry.
alt-o Open database (.bref) file
alt-b Open bibtex (.bib) file
alt-s Save current database
alt-x Exit (will not exit if a modified database is open, to force exit,
  use the menu File->Force quit (no save) command )
alt-v View article with external viewer if entry has a 'file' field. See below how to configure external viewers.
alt-l insert citation into lyx
alt-m insert citation into Emacs/XEmacs

Because alt-letter keys also select menus, many commands can be entered using a alt-letter, letter combination. Thus alt-f q will force quit.

The following keys work while editing text:

key action
left/right ctrl-b/ctrl-f move cursor forward/backward, and clear selection
shift-left/shift-right move cursor forward/backward and mark text
ctrl-left/ctrl-right move cursor forward/backward without changing selection
up/down ctrl-p/ctrl-n move cursor up/down, clearing selection
shift-up/shift-down move cursor up/down, extending selection
ctrl-up/ctrl-down move cursor up/down not changing selection
home ctrl-a beginning of line, shift will extend selection to there.
end ctrl-e end of line, shift will extend selection there.
ctrl-k delete to end of line
ctrl-home/ctrl-end move to the beginning /end of text
ctrl-/ select all
ctrl-\ deselect all
ctrl-w cut selection
insert ctrl-y insert selection
ctrl-x delete selection
ctrl-o open a new line in front of cursor
ctrl-t switch the characters before and after the cursor
ctrl-h/backspace delete backward
ctrl-d/delete delete forward