Option to Show Default Key Bindings in the Footer

[DaXor-0]

Feature Request: Include Default Key Bindings in the Footer

Currently, the Footer widget only displays key bindings that are explicitly declared in App.BINDINGS or bound manually via self.bind(). However, many keys such as Tab, Shift+Tab, arrow keys, etc., have default functionality (e.g., focus movement) that users may not be aware of unless documented separately.

Proposal

Introduce a configurable option or parameter to Footer (or a global app setting) that allows the display of default/built-in key bindings alongside user-defined bindings.

Possible Implementations:

• A keyword argument in Footer, e.g.:

  Footer(show_default_bindings=True)

• Or an App-level flag:

  class MyApp(App):
      SHOW_DEFAULT_BINDINGS = True

• Default bindings could be labeled with a tag like [default], shown in a different color, or styled subtly to distinguish them from app-specific bindings.

Use Case

When building user-facing TUIs, developers want to reduce onboarding friction. Showing helpful default keys like Tab for navigation directly in the footer would improve usability without requiring explicit redefinition.

Benefits

• Improved discoverability of built-in interactions.
• Cleaner developer experience.
• Consistency across apps that use common Textual idioms.

[github-actions[bot]]

We found the following entry in the FAQ which you may find helpful:

• Why do some key combinations never make it to my app?

Feel free to close this issue if you found an answer in the FAQ. Otherwise, please give us a little time to review.

This is an automated reply, generated by FAQtory

[willmcgugan]

There are a lot of default bindings. If the footer showed them all, there wouldn't be much or any room left for custom bindings.

If you select "Show keys and help panel" via the command palette, it will show you all the keys in a more readable format.

[DaXor-0]

Thanks for the quick response!

Totally understand that showing all default bindings in the footer by default would clutter it — that's definitely not what I'm asking for.

What I’d love is the option to selectively include default bindings in the footer (without manually rewriting them). For example, being able to opt-in specific default bindings like "tab" or "shift+tab" with just a label — similar to how custom bindings are defined — but without needing to override or rebind their existing behavior.

[willmcgugan]

If that’s what you want, then you can go ahead and copy the bindings you wish to see, but set show=True.

[github-actions[bot]]

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