Configuration, Settings & Shortcuts

This chapter provides a complete reference across all configuration panels in sshs3, details the 2D Spatial Keyboard Navigation system, and includes an autogenerated reference table of all keyboard shortcuts extracted directly from the application source code.

1. Global Preferences Panels (Ctrl+,)

Access the preferences dialog via the gear icon in the top toolbar or via the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+,.

Instant Settings Filter

The Settings modal features a real-time search filter at the top of the sidebar. Typing a search keyword filters across all 10 settings categories, option titles, and descriptions dynamically, allowing you to jump straight to any configuration option in under two seconds.

1.1 General & Appearance

• Color Theme: Dark (slate dark), Light (clean gray), Breeze (KDE-inspired theme with cyan accents), or System (tracks OS dark/light mode).
• Default Tab Type: Whether opening a blank tab launches a Terminal or a File Manager.
• Confirm Before Quitting: Warns if active terminal sessions or background file transfers are in progress when closing the window.
• Check for Updates Automatically: Checks GitHub Releases in the background every 6 hours; Check now, Download, and Restart and install are explicit actions. Permanently locked off when SSHS3_DISABLE_UPDATES=1 is set.
• Application Logging: Configures log verbosity (Errors only, Warnings, Normal, Debug). Rotated at 5 MB (last 5 kept). PINs, passwords, and private keys are strictly never logged.

1.2 Terminal

• Typography: Configurable font family and font size with live preview render.
• Cursor Style: Block, Underline, or Vertical Bar.
• Scrollback Buffer: Retained history per terminal pane (default 5,000 lines). Searchable with Ctrl+Shift+S.
• Copy on Selection: Automatically stores highlighted text in the encrypted clipboard history. Scope can be Global or Per Host.
• Session End Behavior: Reconnect (Default), Close Tab Immediately, or Keep Open.
• Local Terminal SSH Agent: Selects $SSH_AUTH_SOCK injection for local workstation shell tabs: Auto (AppAgent under Global PIN caching), System Only, or Disabled.
• Keep ~/.ssh/config in Sync: On by default. Maintains a marked block in your local ~/.ssh/config at startup and whenever an SSH profile is saved, deleted or imported, so ssh <profile> works in any external terminal. Only the sshs3 block is touched.

1.3 Performance

• Show Performance Bar Above Terminals: Toggles real-time host telemetry. Select layout (Compact Text, Bars, Sparklines), update interval (2s, 5s, 10s, 30s), and custom metrics.

1.4 Files & Storage

• Show Hidden Files and Dotfiles: Toggles visibility of hidden files (.git, .env).
• Confirm Before Deleting Files and Folders and Verify File Integrity and Size After Transfer: Both on by default.
• Default Conflict Resolution: Automatic policy for filename collisions: Ask (default), Overwrite, Skip, or Rename.
• File Transfer Concurrency: Transfers execute with up to 3 parallel file streams with automatic backpressure management.
• Dotfiles Pool Sync: Opt-in session staging for personal shell configuration files.

1.5 Security & Smartcard

• PIN Caching Policy: Always Prompt (Default), Once Per Terminal Connection, or Global (App Lifetime). Under Global, all unlocked smartcards and FIDO2 keys reside in a single app-wide ssh-agent (AppAgent).
• Detected PKCS#11 Libraries: Scans system libraries (p11-kit, opensc, libykcs11, Net iD) with 1-click Rescan.

1.6 Kubernetes & Debug

• Red Hat OpenShift support toggle, default diagnostic container presets for kubectl debug (Netshoot, RHEL Support Tools, BusyBox, Curl, Ubuntu).

2. 2D Spatial Keyboard Navigation & Mouse-Free Ergonomics

The application is engineered to be fully operable without a mouse:

Spatial Focus Navigation (Ctrl+Shift+Arrows)

• Shifts focus spatially in the direction of the pressed arrow across split panes, tabs, dual file manager panes, menus, and dialogs.
• Tab Bar Escape: Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Up from the top row of splits moves focus directly into the Tab Bar (where Left/Right switches active tabs, and Down or Enter returns focus into the active tab).
• In Dialogs & Modals: Ctrl+Shift+Arrows moves focus between fields, dropdowns, and buttons even while typing inside a text input field!

Universal Keyboard Actions

• Open / Execute (Enter): Activates whatever element is currently focused: enters folders, connects profiles, toggles checkboxes, and clicks focused buttons.
• Dismiss / Back (Escape): Closes open menus, popups, and modal dialogs, cleanly restoring keyboard focus back to the exact element or terminal pane you came from.
• Tab Navigation (Ctrl+1…Ctrl+8, Ctrl+9 for last tab): Direct jumping to open workspace tabs.

Technical Architecture: 2D Geometric Spatial Scoring

spatialNavigation.ts reads the bounding boxes (getBoundingClientRect) of all candidate focusable elements. For the pressed arrow, it scores each candidate in that direction by its gap along the axis plus a weighted orthogonal offset (candidates that do not overlap the current element are penalized). The candidate with the lowest geometric score wins focus.

3. Keyboard Shortcuts Reference Table

4. Troubleshooting & Diagnostics