Dvorak Evernote enhancement Ste4a מאת

It's a small improvement for a tiny subset of Evernote users: Dvorak keyboardists who want to use standard underline or italic keyboard shortcuts, which currently do not work as expected in Evernote with the Dvorak keyboard layout:

- Press Ctrl+I (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+I (Mac): toggle italic text
- Press Ctrl+U (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+U (Mac): toggle underlined text

This extension addresses a specific minor issue in Evernote, in the unlikely event that you're editing notes on Evernote.com using a Dvorak keyboard and using keyboard shortcuts to toggle underline or italic formatting.


Why should I care?
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Almost certainly, you don't. No matter how large the number of Evernote users, those who use a Dvorak layout are just a tiny fraction. Of that tiny fraction, the number that want to use shortcuts for underlining or italics is even smaller. Rounding up, there are probably only three people in the whole world who would use this extension. However, one of the three has enough automation experience and interest in building it.

Evernote has excellent keyboard shortcut support for text formatting, but the italic and underline shortcuts have been broken on Dvorak layouts for years, and it seems unlikely to be fixed any time soon. That's because the number of Evernote users typing with a Dvorak layout is vanishingly small. Unfortunately, on modern software development teams, low-priority tasks can languish indefinitely because there's always something more important for the team to work on. Here are links to discussions about the non-functional shortcuts on Dvorak layouts from the Evernote community forums:

- October, 2020: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/130012-keyboard-shortcut-issues-when-using-dvorak/
- March, 2021: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/134735-keyboard-shortcuts-unavailable-with-dvorak-keyboard-layout/
- February, 2022: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/140930-ctrl-i-does-not-work-on-dvorak-keyboard-layout/
- June, 2022: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/142275-dvorak-keyboard-text-shortcuts-do-not-all-work/
- September, 2023: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/147970-keyboard-shortcuts-not-working/

We have no way of knowing how many requests have been received by Evernote Support. When the author of this extension reported the problem to Evernote, the issue was acknowledged, but closed automatically when the next version of Evernote released, with the expectation that a new issue would be opened if the problem persisted.

However, Evernote is a web application (even the desktop build of Evernote, which runs inside a lightweight browser named Electron), and web browsers are extensible. Meaning you can change things if you know how.


How does this extension work?
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This extension does not change Evernote or your notes. It's a browser automation that activates when you edit notes on Evernote.com and press `Ctrl+I` (`Cmd+I`) to make text italic or `Ctrl+U` (`Cmd+U`) to make text underlined. This extension simply clicks the underline or italic buttons on the Evernote toolbar for you when you press either keyboard shortcut.

This additional link between the keyboard and toolbar is what makes the keyboard shortcuts for underline and italic work as expected.

It's a certainly a kludge, but it's a simple workaround that works.

For more information, see https://github.com/Ste4s/DvEnEnhancement