# Leader menus (/features/leader-menus)



<Callout title="Being written">
  This page is a stub.
</Callout>

A shortcut whose action is **Open menu** does not do anything itself. It draws a
cheatsheet over whatever is in front and holds the keyboard until you choose
from it. The steps inside are ordinary shortcut rows keyed by a single bare key,
and a step can open another menu — so <kbd>⌃⌥⌘</kbd><kbd>L</kbd> → <kbd>a</kbd>
→ <kbd>t</kbd> is three keys to something three tiers down.

The point is that only the first key has to be remembered. The panel names
everything else.

While a menu is open:

| Key                          | What it does                                           |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| <kbd>esc</kbd>               | Closes the menu                                        |
| <kbd>←</kbd> or <kbd>⌫</kbd> | Goes up a tier                                         |
| <kbd>→</kbd>                 | Comes back down                                        |
| <kbd>↑</kbd> <kbd>↓</kbd>    | Pages a tier too long to fit                           |
| A click                      | Ends the walk, and still lands on whatever you clicked |

## To write [#to-write]

* Building a menu, and pinning steps to particular applications
* Rolling the opening combination into its own first step
* The grid: column count, paging, and what `Show empty menus` changes
* The timeout