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Comment by fasola | Hacker News Reader

I would love for Apple to move from Return to Enter as the default label, indeed.

How would that work for all the software that distinguishes between them? The standard (see e.g. Mathematica) is for `return` to create a new line in a multi-line text field, and `enter` (`fn+return` on a keyboard without a dedicated key) to execute/evaluate/commit the field.

But Return and Enter are still functionally different keys on macOS. Return inserts a new line, Enter (and cmd-Return) submits forms (which works for Reddit comments, but not here for some reason).

Except in many apps Return submits forms and Shift+Return inserts a new line, and in many other places Return and Enter do the same thing, showing to me that those labels are already pretty meaningless. It feels like a transition a good design team could figure out, keeping the distinction for those who want it, but simplifying for the rest. I believe Windows calls these Enter and Numpad Enter, or something like that? That feels better to me.

AFAIK those are not different keys, it's the literal keyboard combination Cmd+Return that is interpreted as submission in those contexts. Ctrl often works just as well on Windows for that purpose as well.

Numpad Enter is definitely a distinct key though, but I've never seen it treated differently than Return (except for randomly not working in some contexts that accept Return)

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