I’m kinda amazed it took this long, but valve finally added:
Added in-game keyboard shortcuts to open the Main Menu and Quick Access Menu.
Default Main Menu hotkey: Shift+Tab
Default Quick Access Menu hotkey: Ctrl+Shift+Tab
Customizable in Settings->In Game
Wait a minute… I never used Steam Deck with a keyboard. There was no way to activate the menu via the keyboard? If so, how did people do it? Was there a need for always a controller on the side, when using Steam Deck with a keyboard?
Kind of. You could only open the menus IIRC when you were not in a game, can’t recall the exact key bind though. At least, this was the case when I tried replicating the gaming mode session on my PC (I haven’t actually used a keyboard on my deck either). It was quite strange.
I think it was supported really early on (or was supposed to be supported), but it hasn’t worked for basically the entire time I’ve had my Deck. I don’t play with keyboard very often so it never impacted me, but I know I’ve heard people complain about it.