Keyboard Shortcuts

In thinkorswim, you are provided with a number of default keyboard shortcuts that enable you to navigate between components or perform tasks without using a pointing device. To make your thinkorswim experience even more convenient, you can customize the list of key combinations to be used for certain commands.

To customize the keyboard shortcuts:

  1. Press Setup in the top right corner of the window and choose Application Settings... from the menu.
  2. In the dialog window, choose the Hot keys tab.
  3. In the Hot keys dialog, you will see the list of commands split up into the following categories: General, Active Trader, WatchList, Chart, and thinkScript Editor.  Each of these categories shows a number of commands you can create or customize shortcuts for.
  4. Click on the command you would like to customize the shortcut for. In the pane to the right, you will see the description of the command and the shortcut assigned to it (if any).
  5. To add or change the shortcut, choose Custom and specify the base key(s) for the combination: Ctrl, Alt, and/or Shift. Then select an additional key from the dropdown. If the combination you specified is already assigned to another command, you will see a notification. Clicking Reassign in this notification will discard the former hot key combination and assign it to the selected command.
  6. To remove the shortcut, choose None. You can also disable all shortcuts for a category by un-checking Enabled in its title.
  7. You can also restore default values for all hot keys by clicking Set all to defaults.
  8. When you have finished customizing your hot key combinations, click Apply settings.

You can also view tooltips for hot keys directly in the application. Pressing any of the base keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift) will display tooltips with additional keys next to components that are assigned a shortcut. Pressing the base key(s) with the additional one will redirect you to the corresponding component. Note that in order to view the hot key tooltips, you need to activate them in the Hot keys dialog first.