I've been struggling for a l-o-n-g time trying to get the Labels pane to open with focus set to the search box. Hert pointed out that the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+L is meant to do exactly that but it doesn't work on my installation. I assume that some other application has hijacked that shortcut and now I've spent hours with my friend ChatGPT to isolate the conflict, to no avail.
However, I just stumbled upon a workaround: "double" press Ctrl+Alt+L. If you press the shortcut two times rapidly, the action works properly. The Labels pane opens with focus set to the search box. This allows easy keyboard-only assignment of labels.
The shortcut Ctrl+Alt+M also fails but that has a duplicate assignment to the F11 key. I've tested most of the General Shortcuts but not others.
I'd love to hear any insight into this problem, as well as suggestions to help PSU become more keyboard-centric. I found that it is very difficult to do a lot without switching back and forth between the keyboard and the mouse.