[pcchristie]

As a finance guy, this is a massive, massive impediment to me "maining" Linux. Without my long-ingrained Excel shortcuts I'm not getting very far. I was previously planning to investigate a couple of "containerised" ways to run 365 (the names escape me) and I may yet have to in order to be able to use the collab/live edit features of Office, but this is a big step if it does what it says on the tin. Thanks for sharing!

EDIT: On second look, it looks like this might only bring over the native/bespoke hotkeys rather than the "Alt Codes" which are the majority of (my) shortcuts? e.g. Alt + H - I - S for Insert Sheet. Will have to have a look at it properly

[McGlockenshire]

> "Alt Codes" which are the majority of (my) shortcuts? e.g. Alt + H - I - S for Insert Sheet

Alt + H opens whatever menu H stands for, then the subsequent letters hit the appropriate menu items. The menus and their hotkeys would have to match the Office counterparts as well, and that's unlikely in normal free software clones. Not sure if it'll be that case here.

edit: After looking at what this tool does, I actually would not be surprised if you could just rewrite all the menus and their hotkeys...

[pcchristie]

Yeah, I do/did doubt this would port over the Alt Codes, though as you say I'm not sure someone couldn't just long-hand re-write the Alt Codes in either a mod/add-on/config file for any given Office competitor suite.

After all, the majority of the "mappings" are arbitrary/obscure anyway as only one option can "match" the letter (e.g. F is for File, so ForMulas needs to use M. I and D are used for legacy Office Shortcut compatibility so iNsert and dAtA use N and A respectively).

In other words, looking for a logic to these codes even in Office is a hiding to nothing anyway and it's really just a case of building muscle memory (or coming up with a bizarro-logic that helps e.g. "A is for dAtA").

It would be incredible to just be able to install a "365 Mode" or config where the full re-map has been done. I'm semi surprised this hasn't already existed for a long time, even to the point of being shipped built-in.

[snthpy]

This, so much this!

I have the same issue with Google Sheets. Non-experts don't understand how much of an impediment this is.

People need to watch a Shrekli video on YouTube to see how much some of us rely on the keyboard shortcuts.

You wouldn't expect a Vim user to just abandon their muscle memory and just switch to Emacs.

[mananaysiempre]

> You wouldn't expect a Vim user to just abandon their muscle memory and just switch to Emacs.

Expect to just abandon, no. Expect to spend a reasonable time learning and trying out the new interaction paradigm to see if it could (after controlling for unfamilliarity) also suit them, yes. (The ultimate answer may turn out to be negative, like for me in the case of Emacs.)

[Fnoord]

> You wouldn't expect a Vim user to just abandon their muscle memory and just switch to Emacs.

Abandon? Yes, no problem.

Switch back and forth? Now we're talking.

Same with switching from Qwerty to Colemak. That itself is large, but if it is a one way ticket it is doable. Problem is: the world (read: those using US keyboards) is made for Qwerty users.

Although the difference between modal and non-modal is rather large.

A compatibility layer like this, is for people who need to switch back and forth, and for whom it is better to stick with the Microsoft Office keybinds.

[i_am_proteus]

Understanding that it's not a perfect metaphor... plenty of vim users seem happy to switch to helix.

Took me about two weeks and I'm not looking back :)

[tpoacher]

Don't mean to trivialise this problem, but, libreoffice provides full keyboard shortcut customization, which I find very easy and intuitive to work with, including, if you really wanted to, a "bring up menu then functionality from that menu" multi-key sequence shortcut as you describe here. So isn't this something that could be solved relatively easily by reassigning keyboard shortcuts once in your machine?

[pcchristie]

Nah I appreciate that. And you're probably right. Only reason I hadn't looked into it was:

a) I didn't know if it could simulate the "Alt Codes" i.e. Alt + 3 separate keys in quick succession.

b) There's 50-100 I'd need to replicate (and arguably all of them as I pick up a new one every short while and it would be nice to be able to universalise them and be able to go back to Excel any time).

c) Even if a and b were no issue, I haven't "mained" Libre Office ever so I'd want to be sure the juice was worth the squeeze and I didn't find that it was missing some key/edge capability (I believe some of the newer functions released for 365 might be proprietary... at least they aren't on Sheets).

[eisa01]

Was just going to say this!

The macOS version of Office has finally gotten native support for alt+shortcuts, would have been nice if LibreOffice had exploited that neglect by Microsoft :(

[jve]

Speaking of shortcuts... yesterday I noticed that excel online opens in a localized version.. and with grey letters it tells what shortcut to use to jump to search bar: Alt+Ē

Meh... non-ascii chars as hotkeys maybe work in some languages, but not mine where I have to press silent letter (Apostrophe) to make e -> ē, but it doesn't work within shortcuts: ALT + (' + E)