Editor Reference

Editor Reference

This page covers keyboard shortcuts, text mechanics, and editing behaviour in the Lectern's Edit view.

---

Row navigation

Key	Action
Tab	Commit the current row and move focus to the next row
Shift+Tab	Commit the current row and move focus to the previous row
Enter	Commit the current row and insert a new empty task directly below it
Shift+Enter	Insert a hard line break within the current row (row grows to fit)
Esc	Commit the current row and close the Lectern

Enter on an already-empty row does nothing — it won't stack a second empty task.

---

Caret movement

Key	Action
Arrow keys	Move the caret one character / line
Alt / Option + ←/→	Skip by whole word
Cmd + ←/→ (macOS)	Jump to line start / end
Ctrl + ←/→ (Windows)	Skip by whole word
Home / End	Jump to line start / end
Shift + any movement key	Extend the text selection

---

Selection and clipboard

Key	Action
Cmd/Ctrl+A	Select all text in the focused field
Cmd/Ctrl+C	Copy selection
Cmd/Ctrl+X	Cut selection
Cmd/Ctrl+V	Paste
Type while selected	Replace the selection with typed text

---

Empty task behaviour

When you move focus away from a task row (by pressing Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Esc, or clicking elsewhere), the row is committed:

• If the row has text, it is saved and any trailing blank lines or trailing whitespace are trimmed. Interior line breaks (from Shift+Enter) are preserved.
• If the row is empty or contains only whitespace, it is automatically deleted. Focus moves to the row above. This keeps the document free of blank rows without needing a separate delete action.

An empty row that is still focused is not deleted — only on commit (focus leaving the row).

---

Adding tasks

• New Task button — always visible at the bottom of the editor; adds a new empty task and focuses it.
• Enter — inserts a new empty task directly below the current row and focuses it. Faster than reaching for the button when you're mid-list.

Both methods create the task empty so you can type immediately with no placeholder text to clear first.

---

Text sections vs. task rows

Text/note sections (freeform blocks, not tasks) behave the same way for caret movement and clipboard shortcuts. The differences:

• Text sections have no checkbox.
• Text sections are never auto-deleted when empty — an empty note section is valid and is kept.
• Text sections have a higher character limit (10,000 characters vs. 1,000 for task rows).
• Enter in a text section inserts a line break rather than creating a new row.