Allow entry of "cursor tab" key in chat window

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1

I rebound “Cursor Tab” from Tab a long time ago, to “~”. I then turned it off as it’s suggestions were frequently disruptive. I would like to be able to type “~” in my agent chat window but it doesn’t do anything presumably as it’s being consumed by “Cursor Tab”. Please assist.

So to be clear, using my “Cursor Tab” key in the agent chat does nothing, even though I have cursor tab turned off.

6

Hi Luke,

You’ve got it right: “~” isn’t typing in chat because it’s still bound to “Accept Cursor Tab Suggestion”. Turning Cursor Tab off stops the suggestions, but it doesn’t remove the custom keybinding, so the key is still claimed and gets swallowed by the chat input instead of typed.

Since you’re not using Cursor Tab anymore, just remove that binding:

  1. Open the Command Pallete with Cmd +Shift +P and Run “Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts”
  2. Search for “Accept Cursor Tab Suggestion”, or use the “Record Keys” filter and press your “~” key.
  3. Right-click the entry mapped to “~” (source “User”) and choose “Remove Keybinding”.

After that, “~” will type normally again in chat and everywhere else.

This is a known limitation with the chat input swallowing custom keybindings, which we’ve logged as a backlog item, but removing the binding is the reliable fix today. Let me know if it still doesn’t come through.

8

Fair enough, I’d have liked to have turned it on to try again in the future but this is understandable. Is there an option to not swallow a hotkey for a feature that is turned off? Probably one for the backlog.

9

Hi @Luke3 just circling back on posts. The short answer is that there’s no setting for that today, but I have a small clarification that actually helps with what you want.

The key isn’t swallowed because Cursor Tab is turned off. It gets swallowed because ~ is still bound to a command (Accept Cursor Tab Suggestion). Any time the chat input has focus, that binding is matched and the keystroke gets consumed, whether Cursor Tab is on or off. So even if you turned Cursor Tab back on later, ~ still wouldn’t type in the chat window as long as it’s bound to that action.

If you’d like to keep the option of using Cursor Tab again in the future without losing ~ in chat, the trick is to bind the accept action to a modifier chord rather than a bare character, something you’d never type as literal text (for example a Cmd or Alt combination). Then you can remove the plain ~ binding, ~ will type normally in chat, and you’ll still have a working accept key whenever you re-enable Cursor Tab.

And you’re right that the broader behavior (the chat input consuming custom keybindings) is logged on our backlog, so it should get better over time. The rebind above just lets you have both today.