AstroWatch doesn't have a menu-bar shortcut scheme — there's no Ctrl+N, no Ctrl+S, no Ctrl+P anywhere in the app. Every keyboard shortcut it wires up lives in one of three places: the Live Sky Timeline's time-travel mode, which works the same way on the Dashboard and the Expanded Chart View; a pair of Expanded-Chart-only additions for stepping through Planet Returns and the Lunar Journey; and Escape-to-close on three specific dialogs.
The Timeline's keyboard mode
This is the core scheme, and it's identical on the Dashboard and the Expanded Chart View. The Left and Right arrow keys always step the Timeline — exactly like its ◀ / ▶ buttons — as long as focus isn't sitting in a text box, search field, combo box or slider. For everything else, press T to arm a sticky keyboard mode — a small "T" badge lights up next to the Now button while it's active — and then:
| Key | Effect |
|---|---|
| D | Step size: Day |
| H | Step size: Hour |
| M | Step size: Minute |
| S | Step size: Second |
| W | Step size: Week |
| N | Step size: Month |
| Y | Step size: Year |
| ← / → | Step back / forward by one unit |
| 0 | Reset to Now (or Birth, on the Natal tab) |
| T or Esc | Exit keyboard mode |
Picking a step-size letter resets the offset to zero and re-renders at the live or base moment for that unit. None of this responds to Shift, Ctrl or Alt — there's no "hold Shift for a bigger step" modifier anywhere in the scheme, on either page.
Two more keys, Expanded Chart View only
The Expanded Chart View carries the identical scheme above, plus two keys that don't exist on the Dashboard at all:
R — arm return-slider mode
Only does anything while a Solar or Lunar Return chart is loaded and its vertical return slider is visible. Arming it disarms Timeline keyboard mode if that was active — the two modes are mutually exclusive, so Up/Down and 0 are never ambiguous about which one they're steering.
Up / Down — context-dependent stepping
With R-mode armed, Up steps to the next (later) return and Down to the previous (earlier) one. Otherwise, if the Lunar Journey side panel is open, the same two keys step to the next or previous Moon-phase row instead, loading each one exactly like a tap. With neither R-mode armed nor the Lunar Journey panel open, Up/Down do nothing.
With R-mode armed, 0 resets the return slider to its default index — the latest Solar Return — rather than resetting the Timeline to Now. Which behavior 0 gives you depends entirely on whether T-mode or R-mode is the one currently armed.
- 1R badge — lit while return-slider mode is armed; Up/Down step between available returns, 0 resets to the latest.
With this panel open (and R-mode not armed), Up/Down step the highlighted row to the next or previous Moon phase.
Dialogs that respond to Escape
Three dialogs have their own keyboard handling beyond the standard WinUI default; every other dialog in the app — Settings, Written Reports, Export, profile management, all of it — has no custom keyboard wiring of its own at all.
| Dialog | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Aspect Calendar | Esc closes it, unconditionally |
| Moon Movements | Esc closes it, unconditionally |
| Graphic Ephemeris | Esc closes it — unless focus is currently in a text or number field, in which case it commits that field's value and moves focus to the Play button instead of closing |
What's next
That's every shortcut AstroWatch wires up. From here, the docs wrap up with Frequently Asked Questions — data, backups, licensing, and where to get help.