The Cmd-W (or Ctrl-W) keyboard shortcut should close only the editor, not the left dock

[natesilva]

Currently, Cmd-W (on Mac) or Ctrl-W (on Windows) is mapped to several actions including pane: close active item and workspace: close active dock.

It’s been frustrating for me to accidentally close the left dock when I meant to close the visible open document. To reproduce:

1. Single-click a file from the file tree in the left dock.
2. Review the file -- even scrolling it, which doesn’t make it active.
3. Now press Cmd-W or Ctrl-W to close the file.

Expected behavior: The file closes.
Actual behavior: The left panel closes.

In VS Code, Cmd-W/Ctrl-W does not close the file panel. It closes the document.

[dsegovia90]

The amount of times I've closed my left dock because of this. Tried changing settings, but can't seem to make Cmd + W to close the last active tab. I could disable it at least. No more closing accidentally.

[zigpress]

Hope it's OK to add a "me too". I keep clicking a file in the left dock to take a peek at it, then I hit CMD-W intending to close it, but because I never clicked in the editor pane, my left dock closes instead. Infuriating!

[iyansr]

Agree

[austincrim]

This breaks my workflow so often. AFAICT, it's not possible to fix in the key map since editor tabs and docks are both considered "panes" and there is no action for specifically closing editor tabs, only the active pane.

[mirzadelic]

Me too, one of the things that I still can't switch fully to Zed.

[dcog989]

It took me a second to realise this is a discussion, not a ticket / issue. It needs to be a raised issue, it's one of the key issues stopping me from switching from VS Code. It's fundamental UX.

I did a couple of searches of issues but nothing popped up....

EDIT: #34865

[elijh]

I also find this extremely frustrating. This keymap worked for me (from comments on #34865):

  {
    "context": "ProjectPanel",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "ctrl-k ctrl-right ctrl-w"]
    }
  }

This sends "workspace: activate pane right, pane: close active item" when the project panel receives ctrl-w

[jonas-jonas]

Another option is to disable all CMD+W keybinds, except in the Editor context. This will prevent CMD+W from closing anything, unless the focused item is an unpinned text editor.

  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-w": [
        "pane::CloseActiveItem",
        {
          "close_pinned": false
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Pane",
    "unbind": {
      "cmd-w": [
        "pane::CloseActiveItem",
        {
          "close_pinned": false
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "RulesLibrary",
    "unbind": {
      "cmd-w": "workspace::CloseWindow"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Workspace",
    "unbind": {
      "cmd-w": "workspace::CloseActiveDock"
    }
  }

[Closery]

This is life saver, thanks a lot

[FloppyDisco]

This should be fixed.

#46421

[dcog989]

This should be fixed.

#46421

I don't understand your fix. Could you clarify settings needed? I want Ctrl-W to always close active workspace document. Here's what I have:

[dcog989]

@jonas-jonas - your config did not work for me, still closing side panels on Ctrl+W. This does work for me - left and right panels:

// Zed keymap
// https://zed.dev/docs/key-bindings
// default key bindings: `zed: open default keymap`
//
[
  {
    "context": "AgentPanel||ProjectPanel",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "ctrl-k ctrl-right ctrl-w"]
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "GitPanel||OutlinePanel||CollabPanel",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "ctrl-k ctrl-left ctrl-w"]
    }
  }
]

[FloppyDisco]

By default cmd-w is set for 2 different actions based on the context:

 {
    "context": "Pane",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-w": ["pane::CloseActiveItem", { "close_pinned": false }],
   }
},
{
    "context": "Workspace",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-w": "workspace::CloseActiveDock",
    }
}

This means that when you are focused on a Pane, cmd-w will close that pane; but if you are focused on a UI element that does not have any Panes (like a dock) it runs workspace::CloseActiveDock.

if you change the "workspace" action to "pane::CloseActiveItem" it will close the active editor pane even if you are focused on a dock.

{
    "context": "Workspace",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-w": "pane::CloseActiveItem",
    }
}

if this does not work for you then try setting the keybinding at the global level

{
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-w": "pane::CloseActiveItem",
    }
}

[dcog989]

Thanks, but neither of those worked for me on their own. This did:

  {
    "context": "Workspace",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-w": "pane::CloseActiveItem"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Workspace",
    "unbind": {
      "ctrl-w": "workspace::CloseActiveDock"
    }
  }

But that makes the binding redundant as the unbind alone achieves the same effect - i.e. nothing happens when I Ctrl-W a focused dock.

I want Ctrl-W to always act on the active pane, so I guess that requires my hack:

// Zed keymap
// https://zed.dev/docs/key-bindings
// default key bindings: `zed: open default keymap`
//
[
  {
    "context": "AgentPanel||ProjectPanel",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "ctrl-k ctrl-right ctrl-w"]
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "GitPanel||OutlinePanel||CollabPanel",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "ctrl-k ctrl-left ctrl-w"]
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Workspace",
    "unbind": {
      "ctrl-w": "workspace::CloseActiveDock"
    }
  }
]

[FloppyDisco]

@dcog989
changing cmd-w to pane::CloseActiveItem should be all you need to get cmd-w to do what you are wanting. its possible you may need to unbind workspace::CloseActiveDock based on the default keymap you are using.

can you set just the pane::CloseActiveItem and post a screen shot of you Key Context view when you hit cmd-w
also, try setting your "base_keymap": "None", and seeing if the behavior still persists (to verify that it is a conflict with the base keymap)

sendKeystrokes is a bit fragile because the current implementation here will break if you change which side the dock is on or if you change what bindings move focus to the panes, etc. we should be able to get this to work without using workaround.

[dcog989]

@FloppyDisco

with those set, Ctrl-W closes the dock when focused.

setting "base_keymap": "None" (it was vscode), stopped the dock from closing - although it still does not act on the active / focused pane.

sendKeystrokes is a bit fragile...

I realise that, but I'm not going to move docks left <> right and can adapt if Zed changes things. I'd rather not need the hack, but is there a cleaner solution?

Many thanks for your time here.

[FloppyDisco]

Ok, you're keybininding file shows the keybinding is set to Command-W (MacOS gui key) but in your keymap editor you are searching for Control-W (Windows). i'm assuming you're on windows, because all of the other commands are already set to Ctrl. try changing your keymap to "ctrl-w".

with VSCODE as my basekeymap and this set in my keybindings.json Command-W closes the active editor when focus is on the dock.

if that does not work, open the command palette and run open key context view and post a screen shot of what keybinding is matching when you hit "ctrl-w". hope that fixes it!

[dcog989]

Hi. I'm on Linux. I don't see any reference to Command-W, it's all Ctrl-W - default key map, VS Code key map, and also if I enter a custom key map.

My hack:

No hack:

[semaperepelitsa]

In summary, to fix this you need to unbind workspace::CloseActiveDock and change pane::CloseActiveItem context to be <global> (instead of Pane)

The resulting keymap file looks like this (macOS):

{
  "context": "Workspace",
  "unbind": {
    "cmd-w": "workspace::CloseActiveDock"
  }
},
{
  "bindings": {
    "cmd-w": [
      "pane::CloseActiveItem",
      {
        "close_pinned": false
      }
    ]
  }
}

TBH, this should be the default as the current default is confusing.

[antoineozenne]

Heads up: this config should still hit the crash tracked in zed#61182 (crash when pane::CloseActiveItem is dispatched from a dock with no closable tab). It's functionally equivalent to the config that crashes there:

• CloseActiveItem.close_pinned already defaults to false (pane.rs#L113-L118), so spelling it out changes nothing versus a bare pane::CloseActiveItem.
• A binding's context only controls when the binding is active and its precedence, not where the action is dispatched. pane::CloseActiveItem still travels up the focus chain, which has no Pane when a dock is focused (Workspace > Dock > ProjectPanel), whether the binding sits at Workspace or globally.

So with a dock focused and every center-pane tab pinned, it should dispatch pane::CloseActiveItem from a dock with no closable item and crash the same way. (Confirmed with the Workspace-context variant; not separately run on the global + unbind variant, but they are functionally equivalent for the reasons above.)

A variant that does avoid the crash moves focus into the center pane first, then closes:

[
  { "bindings": { "ctrl-alt-cmd-0": "workspace::FocusCenterPane" } },
  {
    "context": "Dock",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-w": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "ctrl-alt-cmd-0 cmd-w"]
    }
  }
]

FocusCenterPane gives the center Pane real focus, so the trailing cmd-w runs in the well-tested Pane path (a clean no-op on pinned tabs, no crash), and it stays layout-independent. Note: chaining the two actions via action::Sequence does not work: both run in one synchronous pass, before FocusCenterPane's focus change is applied, so the close dispatches from the dock and does nothing.

[dcog989]

@semaperepelitsa - thank you very much. You fixed it for me. No hack needed.

Good, it only took about 7 months!!