Can we disable or change the immediate-action "Assign to me" keyboard shortcut?

[Brian Latimer]

I love using the various keyboard shortcuts which are made available to us in Jira, for quick navigation/editing of an open ticket.

However, one is particularly problematic: The "i" shortcut which immediately performs an "assign to me" action.

All other shortcuts avaialble will result in non-destructive actions - such as navigating between tickets, opening a dialog for further edits, etc. - or otherwise result in an action which must be confirmed before it is committed. However, this one particular shorcut does not: If the user accidentally hits the "i" key when not in a text-entry field, they immediately have the open bug assigned to them - which may not be as desired, and may result in unexpected notifications, as well as being a bit involved to recover from.

In addition, there is already an "Assign" shorcut ("a") which brings up an edit dialog, and the "Assign to me" action is a simple click (or sometimes, tap of the Enter key) away. This means that the general "Assign" shortcut ("a") - versus the "Assign to me" shortcut ("i") - avoids the potential for unexpected actions, is arguably more powerful/flexible, and is only slightly more-involved to perform.

The problems due to such mistaken keypresses are certainly PEBKAC issues - but it seems that there are manyopportunities for mistakes to impact users, which could be obviated if this action were to be slightly changed, and made a bit "safer".

It would be wonderful if the repeatedly-problematic "Assign to me" shortcut could be disabled, separate from disabling all other shortcuts. Else, perhaps this particular shortcut could be changed to require a combination of modifier keys to be performed (similar to "Submit a form = Ctrl + Alt + s"). Perhaps "Ctrl + Alt + a", to build upon and retain the mnemonic for "Assign"?

A simple change such as this could result in a much-better user experience, and avoid the potential for undesired mistakes.

[Rachel Wright]

Hi @Brian Latimer , I know exactly what you mean!  At least once a day I change something in Jira by mistake because I've typed something that triggers a shortcut.  I wait in fear while the page reloads to see what damage I've caused.  ;)

I know this is not exactly what you're after, but for other readers, I found this information about disabling shortcuts on a profile level.  https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/using-keyboard-shortcuts-939938977.html area.  Here's what the on/off toggle looks like in Jira Cloud and how to access it.

Beyond this, I'd suggest submitting your idea as a feature request for Atlassian.  You can do that here: https://jira.atlassian.com/  It would be great if there was more flexibility in the shortcuts area.

Have a great day!

Rachel Wright
Author, Jira Strategy Admin Workbook

[Brian Latimer]

Thanks, @Rachel Wright !  Yes, I didn't necessarily want to disable ALL shortcuts - as most are incredibly useful.

But this particular one, usually does (much) more harm, than good. If such "immediate action" shortcuts were a bit more secure behind a multiple-modifier keypress, it wouldn't be an issue.

Per your recommendation, I've gone ahead and logged: JSWSERVER-20994  Here's to hoping it might gain some traction!

[Brian Latimer]

Is there any other action which can be pursued, with this?  I cannot even add comments to the JSWSERVER-20994 ticket any longer. Can others comment / up-vote / etc.?

How else can we get this concern in front of the development team, and have them prioritize a near-term fix? It really seems that a small change in this regard (just change the keyboard shortcut) could have a HUGE quality-of-life impact for users.

[Shannon]

This is a VERY obnoxious feature!!!! I hope it gets fixed! 

[Brian Latimer]

Updated JSWSERVER-20994 with a request for the latest status. I really hope this can be addressed in the near future; the instances where a assignment action must be UNdone, due to it being performed unexpectedly, have been far too prevalent.