keyboard-shortcuts.md

Keyboard Shortcuts

Polaris Studio is designed to be keyboard-first. Every action is reachable via shortcut. When you forget one, press Ctrl+P (the command palette) and start typing.

Conventions: Ctrl on Windows/Linux, Cmd on macOS. The platform key is implied; use whichever your system uses.

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File operations

| Shortcut | Action | |---|---|---| | Ctrl+N | New pipeline (in a new tab) | | Ctrl+O | Open .polaris file | | Ctrl+S | Save current pipeline | | Ctrl+Shift+S | Save As | | Ctrl+W | Close current tab | | Ctrl+Q | Quit Polaris | | Ctrl+Shift+C | Import CSV | | Ctrl+Shift+X | Import Excel | | Ctrl+Shift+P | Import Parquet | | Ctrl+Shift+J | Import JSON |

History

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Y	Redo
Ctrl+Shift+Z	Redo (alternative)

Clipboard

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+X	Cut selected nodes
Ctrl+C	Copy selected nodes
Ctrl+V	Paste
Ctrl+D	Duplicate selected nodes
Delete	Delete selected nodes

Selection

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+A	Select all nodes
Escape	Clear selection
Shift+Click	Add to selection
Ctrl+Click	Toggle in selection
Drag with mouse	Box-select

Navigation

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+P	Command palette
Ctrl+F	Open search panel
Ctrl+G	Toggle grid snap
Ctrl+,	Open settings
F1	Switch to Spreadsheet mode
F2	Switch to Graph mode
F3	Switch to Split mode
F4	Toggle Chart panel
F11	Toggle fullscreen

Canvas navigation

Shortcut	Action
F	Fit to screen
Ctrl+0	Fit to screen
Ctrl+1	Zoom 100%
Ctrl++	Zoom in
Ctrl+-	Zoom out
Ctrl+Scroll	Zoom with mouse
Middle-drag	Pan
Space + drag	Pan (alternative)

Running

Shortcut	Action
F5	Execute all
Shift+F5	Execute up to selected node
Esc	Cancel running pipeline

Layout

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+L	Auto-layout
Ctrl+G	Group selected nodes
Ctrl+Shift+G	Ungroup

AI assistant

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+A	Open AI panel
Enter	Send message
Shift+Enter	Newline in input
Alt+Enter	In formula bar: switch to NLP mode

Tabs

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+T	New tab
Ctrl+Tab	Next tab
Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Previous tab
Ctrl+1 ... Ctrl+9	Switch to tab N

Spreadsheet

Shortcut	Action
Arrow keys	Move cell selection
Enter / F2	Edit cell
Escape	Cancel edit
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V	Copy / paste cell
Delete	Clear cell
Ctrl+Z	Undo cell edit
Tab	Move right
Shift+Tab	Move left
Home	First cell in row
Ctrl+Home	First cell in grid
End	Last cell in row
Ctrl+End	Last cell in grid
Page Up / Page Down	Scroll one page
Ctrl+Scroll	Zoom cell font size
Click column header	Sort by that column
Shift+Click column header	Add secondary sort
Drag column header	Reorder column
Right-click column header	Column context menu
Right-click row number	Row context menu

Help

Shortcut	Action
F1	Documentation
Shift+?	In-app shortcut reference
Ctrl+/	Toggle dev tools (if enabled)

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The fastest shortcut: Ctrl+P

If you remember nothing else, remember Ctrl+P. It opens the command palette. Start typing what you want to do - "save", "execute", "ai", "zoom", "delete" - and Polaris will show you the matching commands. Press Enter to run.

Examples:

Type	What runs
exec	Execute All
layout	Auto Layout
csv	Add Node → CSV Reader
pane	Toggle panels
theme	Theme settings
key	Keyboard shortcut reference

This is the single fastest way to use Polaris. Once you build the muscle memory of "Ctrl+P, type, Enter" you'll rarely need the mouse.