The Main Window

The window has three panes and a status bar:

1. Repositories, on the left: the repository list, with Favorites, Activity, Starred Repositories, Watched Repositories, Notifications, My Work and your saved searches at the top. See The Repository List.
2. The item list, top right: whatever the current view shows, such as issues and pull requests, branches, or releases. Its label, and the name your screen reader announces for it, is the name of the view, for example “Issues”, “Branches” or “Release Assets”, so you hear where you are as you move into it.
3. Details, bottom right: everything about the item you are on in the list, as read-only text you can move through line by line. See The Details Panel and Comment Navigation.
4. The status bar, at the bottom: what the view is showing, the keys that work in it, and anything GHManage has just done.

The window title names the view and the repository, and the branch, release, run or label when you have drilled into one, for example “Commits — main — owner/name”.

Moving between panes

F6 moves to the next pane: repository list, item list, details panel, status bar, and round to the repository list again. Shift+F6 goes the other way. On a Mac keyboard press fn+F6 and fn+Shift+F6, unless you have set the function keys to work as standard keys.

Tab and Shift+Tab move between the repository list, the item list and the details panel, as they always have. They never stop on the status bar, so the three panes stay one keystroke apart.

Views

Each repository has several views. Ctrl and a number jumps straight to one from anywhere in the window, and the numbers follow the order of View → View Mode, so you can read them off the menu. On a Mac use Cmd instead of Ctrl, here and in every other menu shortcut.

Starred Repositories and Watched Repositories are on the same menu, after Activity.

Favorites, Notifications, My Work, Activity, Starred Repositories, Watched Repositories, Shared With Me, an organization’s repositories and search results are not about one repository, so they work at any time. Every other view needs a repository: with none chosen, the status bar says “Select a repository first.” and the view stays as it was.

Several views lead into others. Enter on a branch shows its commits, on a release its files, on a workflow run its artifacts, on a label the issues that carry it. Backspace steps back up to where you came from.

When a view loads, the status bar names it and the repository, for example “Loading Branches for owner/name…”, and then says what arrived.

The status bar

The status bar is split into items:

• The message: what the view is showing, or the last thing GHManage told you.
• Keys: the keys that work in the current view, for example “Ctrl++=view more R=refresh Ctrl+F=filter Enter=list assets”.
• Filter: the quick filter and how many rows it matches, while one is set.
• Mode: Quick mode or Full mode.
• Update: an update ready to install, when one has been found.

F6 puts you on the first item. Left and Right then move from one item to the next, wrapping round at either end. Items with nothing to say are not on the bar, so every stop has something on it. Your screen reader’s own command for reading the status bar (Insert+Page Down in JAWS, Insert+End in NVDA) still reads the whole bar.

The message is where GHManage announces things: what loaded, what was opened, what failed and why. It is worth reading whenever a key seems not to have done anything.

Loading more

Lists load 100 items to begin with. Ctrl++ (File → View More) loads the next 100, and the status bar says how many are showing. R in the list, or Ctrl+R from anywhere (File → Refresh), reloads the view from GitHub and goes back to the first 100.

Menus

Help → User Guide (F1, or fn+F1 on a Mac) opens this guide in your web browser.

Keyboard Shortcuts and the Command Palette

Help → Keyboard Shortcuts (Ctrl+F1) lists every key in GHManage in a table of key, command and where it works: the single-letter keys in the lists as well as every menu shortcut. Type in Filter to narrow it, for example “delete” or “ctrl+shift”; the list’s name says how many match, for example “Shortcuts, 4 matching”. What it found is shown under Filter when you pause typing, for example “4 shortcuts.”, and NVDA reads it. Escape closes it.

Help → Command Palette… (Ctrl+Shift+P) finds a command by name and runs it, so you don’t need to know which menu it is on or what its shortcut is. Type a few letters of the command, for example “branches” or “copy link”, then Down Arrow to move into the list, and Enter to run the one you are on. Enter in the box runs the first match, and Up Arrow on the first command goes back to the box. As you type, GHManage says how many commands match and which one Enter would run, for example “2 commands. Enter runs Branches, Ctrl+2.” It is said when you pause, so it doesn’t talk over your typing, and it is also shown under the box. NVDA reads it as the box’s description; on a Mac it is only on screen for now. The list’s name says how many match too. The command runs as if you had chosen it from its menu, on whatever you were on before you opened the palette. It lists only the commands that apply where you are, each with its shortcut and the menu it is on, so it also teaches you the shortcut for next time.