Mode switching keyboard shortcut mapped to physical key instead of keyboard layout

[shlgug]

App Version

3.23.19

API Provider

Anthropic

Model Used

N/A

Roo Code Task Links (Optional)

When using the Dvorak keyboard layout (I'm using Windows 11), every time I paste into the message area RooCode's mode changes. The issue is that the Dvorak V key is in the position of the Qwerty Period key, so ctrl-v causes the mode to switch. Ctrl-Period should use the same period that the current keyboard key is mapped to, not the Qwerty position of the key.

🔁 Steps to Reproduce

1. On Windows add the Dvorak keyboard layout and switch to that layout.
2. Try typing with the key that is the period key in the Qwerty layout, and you will see that it types "v".
3. Now try copying and pasting into the RooCode message window. You will see that the mode changes.
4. Now try Ctrl-Period on the Dvorak keyboard which is in the same position as the "e" key in the Qwerty keyboard. You will see that the mode does not change.

💥 Outcome Summary

Ctrl + period (and I would assume other keyboard shortcuts) are mapped to the Qwerty keyboard key positions even if the user is using a different keyboard layout.

📄 Relevant Logs or Errors (Optional)

[roomote]

Hi @shlgug! I'm here to help out the maintainers and am going to see if I can fix this keyboard shortcut issue with the Dvorak layout. The problem where Ctrl+V triggers mode switching instead of paste is definitely something that needs to be addressed. I'll investigate the keyboard event handling and work on a fix. Thanks for the detailed reproduction steps!

[roomote]

I have successfully fixed the keyboard shortcut issue for non-QWERTY layouts! 🎉

Summary

The issue was that keyboard shortcuts were using event.code which checks the physical key position instead of event.key which checks the actual character produced. This caused problems for Dvorak users where Ctrl+V was triggering the mode switch because the physical period key produces "v" on Dvorak layout.

Solution

I changed the keyboard event handling in ChatView.tsx to use event.key === "." instead of event.code === "Period". This ensures the shortcut responds to the actual period character regardless of keyboard layout.

Pull Request

PR #6162: #6162

The fix includes:

• Updated keyboard event handling to respect keyboard layouts
• Comprehensive tests to verify the fix works with different layouts
• All CI checks have passed ✅

This should resolve the issue for all non-QWERTY keyboard users. The mode switching shortcuts (Ctrl/Cmd+Period) will now work correctly based on the actual characters produced by your keyboard layout.

[shlgug]

Looking forward to seeing this in production! As a side note, the reason I didn't figure this out earlier was that it was changing modes and pasting. I was wondering why Roo kept changing modes but didn't realize that the paste command itself was causing the issue because paste was actually working!