In favour of ↩ over ⏎ or ↵ or ⮐ or ↲ or…

[vitor]

When writing workflow instructions, it helps to enumerate what the various modifiers do. For example, you may write:

• ↩ Open file.

• ⌘↩ Copy file path to clipboard.
• ⌥↩ Reveal file in the Finder.
• ⌃↩ Delete file.
• ⇧↩ Upload file.

Command, Option, Control, and Shift all have obvious symbols to pick. But what about Return? There are a litany of symbols to choose from which look like they could all do the job, including:

• ↩ Leftwards Arrow with Hook
• ⏎ Return Symbol
• ↵ Downwards Arrow with Corner Leftwards
• ⮐ Return Left
• ↲ Downwards Arrow with Tip Leftwards

For Alfred workflows (anything macOS, really) I recommend sticking to the first one, Leftwards Arrow with Hook. The second, Return Symbol, is acceptable though suboptimal. All others should be actively avoided. I have personally agonised over this choice more than anyone should over the years and will present you with the rationale for what I currently feel is the best choice, along with some caveats.

The simplest argument for using ↩ to represent the Return key on macOS software is “that’s what Apple does”. To verify, navigate to System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts… and search for or set any shortcut that includes Return. The weight of this point will be clear to anyone who has spent any significant amount of time developing for Apple platforms and has dealt with the inevitable frustration of trying to deviate from their path.

A stronger argument is accessibilty. Apple’s operating systems include a capable screen reader called VoiceOver which is tremendously useful for people with vision impairments. Let’s see how it handles the different symbols with modifiers. You can enable VoiceOver in System Settings → Accessibility → VoiceOver and select each line to have it spoken back, or watch the screen recording I made. Here’s how each group is read, with added commentary.

• ⌘⌥↩ Command Option Return. Perfect.
• ⌘⌥⏎ Command Option Return Symbol. Return Symbol makes it weird and suboptimal.
• ⌘⌥↵ Command Option Downwards Arrow with Corner Leftwards. Awful and confusing.
• ⌘⌥⮐ Command Option. Doesn’t even read the symbol. 
• ⌘⌥↲ Command Option Downwards Arrow with Tip Leftwards. Awful and confusing.

As you can attest, the symbol Apple uses for their interfaces sounds the best when read by VoiceOver. No surprise there.

Nevertheless, there are caveats.

If a user highlights just the ↩, VoiceOver reads it as Right Arrow Curving Left. Not great. In that case even Return Symbol would be preferable. But that’s an outlier case, and because ↩ is favoured by Apple it has a better chance of getting attention and being improved.

Another minor issue is that on iOS the symbol can be rendered as an emoji, which is arguably a bit uglier. But it remains perfectly readable and in situations where some HTML is rendered (including GitHub READMEs) you can force it to show as text by using the Unicode Variation Selector-15. In other words, by writing it as ↩︎ (yes, it looks like a mess, but you won’t see it when it’s rendered).

Are those deal breakers? That’s everyone’s individual choice to make. I would argue they are not and that the inclusivity is worth it.

I mentioned at the top that the Return Symbol ⏎ is also acceptable though suboptimal. I can make a couple of arguments in its favour, but ultimately can also formulate resposes to them:

• “It’s called Return Symbol, it’s in its name”. Yeah, but ⌘ is truly Place of Interest Sign, ⌃ is Up Arrowhead, and ⇧ is Upwards White Arrow. Only ⌥ is Option Key. Interestingly, it’s Option Key but Return Symbol. If it were Return Key there would be a stronger argument in favour of this symbol.
• “In the San Francisco font, Apple made it look exactly like the Return key printed on its keyboards”. Yeah, and I agree it looks good in that specific case, but everywhere else it looks chunky, heavy, a different family from the other icons. It’s a similar tradeoff to the emoji situation.

Like so many things in life and computing, there isn’t one perfect solution. But there are a few which stand out above the alternatives, and the best coice may depend on context and careful consideration of the tradeoffs. For describing macOS software, including Alfred workflows, I have settled on ↩. At least for now.