Accessible Trading Terminal — Keyboard Shortcuts

All shortcuts are sourced from ShortcutManager.InitializeDefaultProfile(). Shortcuts not listed here are not assigned by default. Users can customise bindings via the Sound Designer or by editing the shortcuts profile saved at %LOCALAPPDATA%\AccessibleTrader\shortcuts.json (MAUI heads) or ~/.local/share/AccessibleTrader/shortcuts.json (Linux WebHost).

Host-specific note: WebHost remaps Ctrl+Shift+letter to Alt+Shift+letter

Firefox (and most browsers) reserve several Ctrl+Shift+letter chords at the browser-chrome level — Ctrl+Shift+T reopens a closed tab, Ctrl+Shift+H opens history, Ctrl+Shift+P starts a private window, Ctrl+Shift+J opens the browser console, etc. — and they are NOT cancellable from page-level JavaScript even with preventDefault. So the Linux WebHost rewrites those bindings in-memory at startup: every Ctrl+Shift+letter chord becomes Alt+Shift+letter (Firefox does not reserve Alt+Shift+*). Same letter, same command, different modifier. Two-modifier chords with three modifiers (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N etc.) are untouched.

The remap is purely in-memory and never persisted to shortcuts.json, so the disk profile remains portable between hosts. The Help dialog (F1) reads the live in-memory profile, so each host self-documents its current bindings — you always see the right modifier on the host you're using.

Some reserved chords are not just remapped letter-for-letter — they're single-Ctrl chrome chords the browser handles before any page listener runs, so even capture-phase preventDefault can't stop them. On the WebHost these reserved bindings are removed (so the Help dialog never advertises a chord the browser eats) and the in-app action is rebound to a web-safe equivalent:

• Ctrl+T (AddTab) — opens a browser tab. On the web use Alt+Shift+N (a chord browsers leave alone) or the tab bar's always-visible + button. (Ctrl+T still works on the desktop heads.)
• Ctrl+W (CloseTab) — closes the browser tab. Use a tab's × button, or focus the tab bar (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T) and press Delete.
• Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab (SwitchTabNext/Prev) — switch browser tabs. On the web, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T (FocusTabBar) to move keyboard focus onto the workspace tab switcher bar, then use the arrow keys / Home / End / the number row (1–9 jump to that tab); Delete closes the active tab and Insert / + opens a new one.
• Ctrl+PageUp / Ctrl+PageDown (NavSubPanePrev/Next — jump between indicator sub-panes) — also cycle browser tabs, so on the web they move to Alt+PageUp / Alt+PageDown.

The workspace tab switcher bar (a row of tabs just above the chart) is always visible — even with a single tab open — so the + new-tab button is always reachable by mouse, and the bar is always focusable via Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T.

Time Navigation (X Axis)

Pane and Component Navigation (Y Axis and Series)

Context-Aware Jump Navigation (Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right)

Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right perform a context-sensitive jump whose target depends on what component is currently focused. The behavior is determined by CommandDispatcher.HandleTrendlineCrossJump.

When no further event exists in the scan direction, speech announces: "No more [component name] signals in this direction." (This was silent until 2026-08-03 — boundary feedback carried the message but only played an earcon.)

Chart Formation Navigation (, and .)

Bare comma and period step between chart formations — double tops, head and shoulders, triangles, wedges, flags. They are unmodified keys because this is something you press repeatedly while reading a chart, and they are chart-scoped, so they remain typable everywhere else.

| ; | Choose which overlapping formation leads the readout (press again for the next) | | Shift+; | Stop choosing; go back to largest-first |

They require formation description to be on (Settings → Describe chart patterns). With it off they say so rather than moving you across the chart without explaining why — the announcement that would explain the jump is exactly what the setting disables.

Choosing a formation. When several shapes overlap, the terminal leads with the largest live one and counts the rest. Semicolon overrides that with your own choice — the twelve-bar flag inside the eighty-bar triangle may be exactly what your setup is built on, and the terminal has no business insisting otherwise. The choice sticks per chart until you clear it, and nothing is hidden either way: the others are still counted and Alt+Shift+D still reads them all.

Nesting. A formation inside a larger one says so — "…Inside a larger double bottom that began 12 March." The container's start date is given rather than just its name, because that is what lets you go and find it.

Quick Trade (from the chart, no dashboard)

Size a position from your risk budget and place it without leaving the chart.

The stop comes before the size, and that is not a formality. A risk percentage is a cash budget; it becomes a quantity only once the distance to your stop is known, because that distance is what one unit can lose. So arming a percentage puts the system in "stop needed" and it refuses to place until you have set one. What you get in return is the arithmetic a sighted trader does in a position-size calculator — equity, risk, stop distance, quantity — spoken in one sentence at the moment of the decision:

"Armed 1 percent. $1,000.00 at risk, stop 42,100, long 0.625 units, entry 43,700."

Direction is inferred, not asked. A stop below the current price can only be protecting a long; above it, a short.

You are told you are armed on every bar you move to — "Armed 1 percent, ready." Forgetting is the failure this feature is designed against, so the reminder is short and unconditional. Escape always cancels, and takes precedence over cancelling a half-placed drawing.

The stop is always sent with the entry. The size was derived from the stop distance, so a position placed without it would have a quantity justified by protection that does not exist.

The stops are edges, not formations. Each one contributes two: the bar its structure first became knowable, and the bar its story ended — the break, or the point it aged out unconfirmed. Landing on those two bars walks you through the same narrative arrow-key navigation gives you, so the jump keys and the arrow keys always agree about what is worth saying.

There is no equivalent for candle patterns, deliberately. Dojis, spinning tops and small-bodied bars occur on a large share of every chart, so "jump to the next candle pattern" would usually mean "move one bar right" — a key that does nothing you could not do with the right arrow, while consuming a binding. Candle patterns are already read on the bar you are standing on, which is the right place for something that common.

What you hear

Formation narration is opt-in (Settings → Describe chart patterns) and is edge-triggered: a formation speaks twice over its whole life, not once per bar.

Three properties are worth knowing, because each is a deliberate choice:

• The edge is named, and it describes the BAR rather than your direction of travel. A formation's first bar says "Start of" whether you arrowed onto it going left or right; its last bar says "End of" either way. If the word changed with direction, the same bar would describe itself differently depending on how you reached it, and no picture of the chart could be built by moving around in it.
• An outcome is stated as what price did, never as a verdict. The word "completed" is never spoken: it could not tell you whether the pattern worked or failed, and it never meant either — only that price closed through a line. So the narration names the side and the level instead.
• Nothing is ever called bullish or bearish. The measured target is spoken because it is arithmetic on numbers already on screen, and it is always framed as the measured target, conditional on if it breaks. It has never been tested here — see ALPHA_LEDGER.md, where every price-derived pattern claim tested so far has come back null.

Bar Replay

Reveals loaded history one bar at a time so you can practise reading a market forward, without hindsight. Live updates are suspended while replay runs and the full series is restored when you stop.

Also on the toolbar's second row as Replay, which shows its own pressed state.

On the WebHost, use Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P rather than F11 — browsers own F11 for fullscreen and page-level preventDefault on it is not reliable.

Split View

Renders a second tab beside (or below) the active chart. The second pane is a read-only reference view — keyboard navigation, speech, sonification and trading all continue to address the active tab. Falls back to a single full-size chart when there is no second tab or the window is too narrow to divide.

Mouse pointing is correct in split view: pointer coordinates are mapped into the ACTIVE pane, and a click over the divider or over the read-only second chart is ignored rather than applied to the chart you are working in.

Also on the toolbar's second row as Split, which shows its own pressed state.

Playback

Speech and Sonification

Volume Controls

Indicator Visibility and Mute

H and M respect the last interaction context. If you last pressed Up/Down (component navigation), they apply to the focused component. If you last pressed Left/Right (bar navigation), they apply to the whole series.

Chart Display Toggles

Indicator Management

Market Structure

The Market Structure overlay (HH/HL/LH/LL) is added to new OHLCV charts by default. Turn it off in Settings, or delete the series from the Object Tree (Alt+O) to drop it for the session. Navigate to its Structure State component and press Shift+F1 (context summary) for the full structural read: current state, last swing high and low, and where price sits between them.

Analysis

Tabs and Workspaces

The tab switcher bar (a row of tabs just above the chart) is always visible, even with a single tab open, so the + new-tab button is always there. When the bar has focus (via Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T, or by clicking it): ←/→ (or ↑/↓) switch tabs, Home/End jump to the first/last tab, the number row 1–9 jumps to that tab, Insert / + opens a new tab, and Delete closes the active tab. It is an ARIA tablist — your screen reader announces the newly selected tab as you move.

Drawing Tools — Sequential Anchoring

All drawing shortcuts use sequential anchoring: there is no separate "mode" and no Enter key. Each anchor is set by pressing the same tool shortcut again at the current cursor bar. The DrawingInteractionManager state machine advances one anchor per press.

1. Navigate to the first bar with the Left/Right arrows.
2. Press the tool shortcut (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+T) to set anchor 1 at the current bar. Speech announces the price and timestamp and prompts: "Navigate to next point and press the shortcut again."
3. Navigate to the next bar.
4. Press the same shortcut again to set anchor 2. For two-anchor tools this completes the drawing and speech confirms placement.
5. For three-anchor tools (Fibonacci extension, Risk/Reward, Andrews' pitchfork), press the shortcut once more for anchor 3.
6. Press Escape at any time to cancel the in-progress placement.

Single-anchor tools (horizontal line, vertical line, text label, anchored VWAP) complete on the first press.

The default profile also keeps a mouse path (click/drag to place, drag a handle to reposition), but the keyboard re-press flow above is the canonical accessible path. Enter/Return is not used for drawing — the ConfirmCoordinateEntry command is reserved/unused and has no key binding or dispatch handler.

Modals and Panels

Journal Modal (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+J)

The Journal is the persistent review surface for everything the application has spoken or alerted on during the current session. It is the primary tool for reviewing setups that scrolled past in speech.

• The modal is a console-style text area (monospace, screen-reader friendly). Tab into it to read or copy any line.
• Filter buttons partition the buffer by category: All / Speech / Alerts / Setups / Errors / Backtests.
• "Copy visible" puts the currently filtered view onto the clipboard.
• "Clear" empties the in-memory ring buffer.
• The buffer holds up to 2000 entries. Newest entries are at the bottom.
• Composite-strategy setups appear with their full reasoned rationale: side, score, stop price, first target, R:R, and stop placement notes — exactly the form needed to review why a setup fired.

Mouse and touch equivalents

Every mouse or touch action routes into the same store the keyboard navigates, so speech and sonification fire identically for all three. The keyboard remains the canonical path; the other columns show the parity actions.

With VoiceOver or TalkBack running, the screen reader owns the touchscreen, so use the Bar navigator slider (flick up/down to step through bars; TalkBack steps one bar, iOS VoiceOver ~10% of the chart per flick) and the touch toolbar below the chart (Previous/Next bar, Previous/Next component, Play, Chart menu — swipe to a button, double-tap to press).

Notes

• Tab is not a shortcut in this application. Series switching uses Page Up / Page Down.
• Ctrl+I is not assigned. The Add Indicator dialog is Alt+A.
• Ctrl+Shift+C opens a Price Channel drawing — it is not a trendline shortcut. Trendlines use Ctrl+Shift+T.
• The P key opens indicator properties regardless of whether you use it alone or as Shift+F12. Both route to the same OpenProperties command.
• Drawing tools use sequential anchoring: press the tool shortcut once per anchor (navigate, re-press the same shortcut). There is no Enter-to-confirm and no Coordinate Entry mode — Enter/Return is not bound to drawing.