Customize keymaps

Note

Declarative Custom Keymaps is a provisional feature with unstable API which is not guaranteed to be kept in future versions of the notebook, and can be removed or changed without warnings.

The notebook shortcuts that are defined by jupyter both in edit mode and command mode are configurable in the frontend configuration file ~/.jupyter/nbconfig/notebook.json. The modification of keyboard shortcuts suffers from several limitations, mainly that your Browser and OS might prevent certain shortcuts from working correctly. If this is the case, there is unfortunately not much that can be done. The second issue can arise with keyboards that have a layout different than US English. Again, even if we are aware of the issue, there is not much that can be done.

Shortcuts are also limited by the underlying library that handles code and text editing: CodeMirror. If some keyboard shortcuts are conflicting, the method described below might not work to create new keyboard shortcuts, especially in the edit mode of the notebook.

The 4 sections of interest in ~/.jupyter/nbconfig/notebook.json are the following:

  • keys.command.unbind

  • keys.edit.unbind

  • keys.command.bind

  • keys.edit.bind

The first two sections describe which default keyboard shortcuts not to register at notebook startup time. These are mostly useful if you need to unbind a default keyboard shortcut before binding it to a new command.

The first two sections apply respectively to the command and edit mode of the notebook. They take a list of shortcuts to unbind.

For example, to unbind the shortcut to split a cell at the position of the cursor (Ctrl-Shift-Minus) use the following:

// file ~/.jupyter/nbconfig/notebook.json

{
  "keys": {
    "edit": {
      "unbind": [
        "Ctrl-Shift-Minus"
      ]
    },
  },
}

The last two sections describe which new keyboard shortcuts to register at notebook startup time and which actions they trigger.

The last two sections apply respectively to the command and edit mode of the notebook. They take a dictionary with shortcuts as keys and commands name as value.

For example, to bind the shortcut G,G,G (Press G three time in a row) in command mode to the command that restarts the kernel and runs all cells, use the following:

// file ~/.jupyter/nbconfig/notebook.json

{
  "keys": {
    "command": {
        "bind": {
            "G,G,G":"jupyter-notebook:restart-kernel-and-run-all-cells"
        }
    }
  },
}

The name of the available commands can be find by hovering over the right end of a row in the command palette.