Enlarge / For the first time since their 2011 launch, ChromeOS devices are seemingly going to allow custom keyboard shortcuts for navigation, browsing, and other functions. (credit: Google)

ChromeOS devices have become far more useful since the Cr-48 . With Linux and Android apps, and "web only" being far less of a hindrance these days, they're compelling as a secondary machine. But having to learn a whole separate set of keyboard shortcuts to use them efficiently is always going to be painful.

But help is on the way, if some experimental features in the latest beta ChromeOS release (111) are any indication. As spotted in Kevin Tofel's About Chromebooks blog , an updated version of the shortcut viewer in the Settings app— first seen in October 2022 —has the early makings of a shortcut changing and adding mechanism.

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  ChromeOS' keyboard shortcuts viewer, with experimental flags enabled and showing lock icons next to shortcuts, along with "Reset all shortcuts" button. [credit: Kevin Purdy ]

Clicking on a shortcut brings up a dialogue that allows you to, at the moment, add alternative shortcuts to common shortcuts for manipulating tabs, windows and desktops, system settings, accessibility, and other utilities. A small "lock" icon next to each suggests that you might also be able to unlock these shortcuts to remove or alter their defaults. A "Reset all shortcuts" button offers another hint. Sadly, none of the shortcuts you add seem to work for the moment, though the promise is there.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images / Apple)

Here's the situation: I have a Mac, I need a desktop mail client, and I want it to work as seamlessly as possible with Gmail.

Just a small slice of Gmail's Vim-inspired keyboard shortcuts. (credit: Kevin Purdy)

Gmail has been my primary personal email provider since 2003. I've also had more than a dozen Google Workspace accounts over the years. I understand the issues inherent in an advertising company managing my email and keeping me locked into its ecosystem. But I dig Gmail's Vim-inspired shortcuts , its powerful search capabilities, its advanced filtering , its storage—and, of course, its availability in nearly any browser.

But browsers are often where focus goes to flounder. I want to give email a defined space, a visual context as a place I go to communicate. And, incidentally, I want to avoid Gmail's annoying nudges to use Meet, Spaces, or whatever the messaging focus is this week. So let's see what kind of Mac desktop client works best for someone with Gmail on the brain.