What are cross-browser and cross-OS safe keyboard shortcuts usable for web application?

Question

I am developing a quite large web application, and it is probably a good idea to use hotkeys for some common tasks. However, I discovered that finding safe key combinations is a

Answer 1

As with most lists, it is easier to list (and therefore find) what exists rather than what is available. Depending on how you define "safe hotkey" there are quite a few (the basic ones), or thousands (slightly more advanced ones, like how Gmail uses two letter combinations (hotstrings)).

I think the best you can do is to look at these two comprehensive lists for OS and browser specific hotkeys, and make a list based on those. If you want to take it one step further, here is something that might help you (not tested it myself).

For your specific issue I think you should look at how Gmail, Facebook, Remember the Milk uses hotkeys; as these all have solved your issue elegantly. If you make a list of what they use you might have a list of hotkeys to use there. On a side note, I use Breevy, AutoHotkey, and several other programs that I create the advanced type of hotkeys (43,956 and counting), and because their are the simple kind, there was hardly ever an issue with overlapping hotkeys with their systems.