J-walking with Reader
February 7th, 2008 | Published in Google Reader
Google Reader Keyboard (inspiration)
The "j" key (which takes you to the next item) is perhaps the most well-known keyboard shortcut. However, there are many more keys to press, and I was curious to see just how much they were tapped in Google Reader. A quick analysis later, I came up with a simple top-10 list, and I thought it would be fun to share. The units here are "milli-Js", where 1,000 milli-Js are equivalent to all the presses "j" received.
| Key | Description | Presses |
|---|---|---|
| j | next item | 1,000.00 milli-Js |
| n | item scan down | 324.18 milli-Js |
| k | previous item | 139.49 milli-Js |
| m | mark as read/unread | 43.91 milli-Js |
| t | tag item | 37.48 milli-Js |
| p | item scan up | 31.30 milli-Js |
| shift-n | next subscription | 23.09 milli-Js |
| v | view original | 17.98 milli-Js |
| o | expand/collapse item | 16.81 milli-Js |
| s | star item | 15.45 milli-Js |
Of course, Reader has more than the 10 shortcuts listed above -- you can see them all in this list. Additionally, in some ways, the most important shortcut is not "j", but "?" (that is, shift-/). It shows you a cheat-sheet of all the other shortcuts.
Partly based on the data we gathered, and in our quest to make Reader as keyboard-accessible as possible, we've actually added a few more with the latest release. You can use "a" to open up the "Add subscription" form, "g" then "d" to go to the "Discover" page, and "g" then "f" to go your friends' shared items. If you have any other keyboard shortcuts you would like, feel free to mention them in our forums.