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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

I think shift+enter for new line would be a better choice if you were to highjack an existing shortcut. Probably barely used by anyone and it would be consistent with a line break shortcut in word/powerpoint and elsewhere.

Committing a formula needs to be a simple shortcut because it has to be used by the least technical users. You don't want to create a "how to exit VIM" mess in a retail product.

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You're right, I don't want to change defaults. In fact, this whole back and forth reminded me that AutoHotKey exists, and I'm actually running it already, and I have the power to make this change myself. So I did!

    #if IsExcelFormulaBox()                ; Whenever the formula edit box has focus
    Tab::Send {Space}{Space}{Space}{Space} ; insert four spaces when I hit [Tab]
    $!Enter::Send {Enter}                  ; commit the formula with [Alt]+[Enter]
    $Enter::Send !{Enter}                  ; insert a newline with bare [Enter]
    #if

does what I want, with the helper function:

    IsExcelFormulaBox() {
        ControlGetFocus, F, A
        return (F="EXCEL<1")
    }

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