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Actions & Keyboard Shortcuts

You can use Power Menu Actions and Keyboard Shortcuts to quickly perform tasks or navigate from view to view.

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Overview

The Pieces Desktop App provides two primary ways to quickly perform actions and navigate around the app:

1. Power Menu Actions: A context-aware command palette that surfaces different options depending on the view you’re in (e.g., Pieces Drive or Pieces Copilot).

2. Keyboard Shortcuts: System or app-level keyboard shortcuts that let you instantly perform common tasks without opening any menus.

Context-Aware Power Menu

When you open the Power Menu, the actions you see can change based on your current location in the app.

Here are some examples:

• Pieces Drive Actions: Creating, editing, and organizing saved materials, etc.

• Pieces Copilot Actions: Generative AI-related features like analyzing or refactoring code, starting new chats, etc.

• Global/App Actions: Account management, backup and restore, settings, etc.

Because these commands depend on the active View, you’ll only see and be able to search for relevant options in that moment.

When to Use the Power Menu

There are plenty of use cases for using the Power Menu—here are a couple:

• Discoverability: If you’re unsure which action you need or want to browse available commands, simply open the menu and type a keyword.

• Context-Specific Actions: The Power Menu dynamically shows commands that make sense in your current view (e.g., Pieces Drive vs. Copilot).

Keyboard Shortcuts

For a detailed list of all possible shortcuts and their descriptions, visit the Keyboard Shortcuts page for multi-platform shortcut tables and action titles.

When to Use Shortcuts

Shortcuts are a time-tested and often-preferred method of accomplishing individual tasks or processes for developers, creatives, and knowledge-workers alike.

Here are some examples:

• Speed & Muscle Memory: If you already know a shortcut (like ⌘+S to save), it’s the fastest way to perform routine tasks.

• Consistent, Regardless of View: Many shortcuts (e.g., toggling edit mode or saving a snippet) work across multiple views, even though some may be view-specific.

Actions vs Shortcuts

The Pieces Desktop App provides the best of both worlds—a wealth of actions accessible from the Power Menu and plenty of keyboard shortcuts to boot.

You might want to try getting familiar with both, and here are two reasons why:

• Invocation: Shortcuts are pressed, while Power Menu commands are typed and then selected.

• Scope: Shortcuts typically work globally or in a specific view, while Power Menu commands are always context-aware and only appear if they’re relevant to the current workspace.

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