Command Palette

MUST in every app. One palette per window, opened by M-x in the Emacs keymaps and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P in the others. It lists every registered command, so a command that exists is a command people can find. Reference: Editora’s ui/CommandPalette.java; the pure parts (FuzzyMatch, MatchText, PaletteKeys, TextInputKeys) are shared verbatim with Termina, Torrenta and Mirada.

Anatomy

1M-xgit2

4Git: PullC-x v S-=5

Git: PushC-x v S-p

Git: Fetch

3Git: Commit…C-x g

Git: Pull (Rebase)

6Git: Continue Merge / Rebase / Cherry-Pick

Unavailable — no merge, rebase, cherry-pick or revert is in progress.

Git: Stage All Changes

Git: Switch Branch…

7 Pull and merge changes from the remote.

8 ↑↓ / C-n C-p move · ↵ run · C-h docs · Esc / C-g cancel

1. 1Opener chip. The chord that opened the palette, read from the active keymap. No chip when the user has unbound it, never a wrong one.
2. 2Query field. The first row is the input; there is no title. Prompt "Run command…". Emacs caret keys work inside it.
3. 3Match highlight. The characters the fuzzy matcher scored, bold in the accent colour. The highlight and the ranking come from the same call, so they never disagree.
4. 4Selected row. Tinted background plus a 2 px accent bar on its inside edge. The bar is what makes the selection readable in a long list.
5. 5Key chip. The command's binding in the active keymap, in the keyboard colour (brace periwinkle). Absent when unbound.
6. 6Unavailable command. Listed, greyed, never selected and inert to clicks. Its tooltip says why and what to do ("Unavailable — no merge, rebase, cherry-pick or revert is in progress.").
7. 7Description. The selected command's command.<id>.desc, one line with an ellipsis, always one line tall so the card never jumps.
8. 8Key legend. The palette's own keys, rendered from the active keymap.

Spec

Property	Value	Reference
Kind	In-scene overlay in the window’s root StackPane, over a faint scrim. Not a javafx.stage.Popup: on Windows a popup does not reliably take keyboard focus.	OverlayHost
Width	620 px	content.setPrefWidth(620)
Rows	36 px high, 8 visible before the list scrolls	ROW_HEIGHT, VISIBLE_ROWS
Card	-color-bg-overlay, 1 px -color-border-default, radius 12, padding 6, one wide drop shadow	.command-palette in app.css
Row text	12.5 px; padding 7 × 16	.command-palette .list-cell
Scrim	rgba(0,0,0,0.18); a click on it closes the palette	.overlay-backdrop
Content	Every registered command: title from command.<id>, description from command.<id>.desc	CommandRegistry, MessagesTest
Ranking	Fuzzy score over title, id and description; a query that names a title outranks a fuzzy hit	FuzzyMatch, titlePhraseScore

Behaviour

• Open: the palette.show command, from its chord or a menu item. The query starts empty and lists every command.
• Type to filter; the first enabled match is selected.
• Move: ↑ ↓, C-n C-p, Page Up/Down. Run: Enter, or a click on an enabled row. The palette closes first, then the command runs.
• Cancel: Esc, C-g, or a click on the scrim. Focus returns to where it was.
• Docs: C-h (or the first free chord of C-h, F1, Shift+F1 in the active keymap) opens the selected command’s page on the website, for the running version.
• A live keymap switch re-renders the chips, the opener and the legend.

Copy

Key	English
palette.prompt	Run command…
palette.disabled.<reason>	Unavailable — what is missing. What to do first.

In the apps

Editora.

Torrenta.

Termina.