January 27, 2009 5:01 PM PST
What are your favorite shortcuts?
My love of keyboard shortcuts dates back to CTRL-right arrow in Word. My greatest love was Windows+D to show desktop. I have a library of others OI lean upon, sometimes forgetting their even shortcuts. CTRL-V? CTRL-C? How are there people who still don't use you? I'll never understand.
If you love shortcuts like we do, please share the love. Respond to our post with a few of your favorites. The most helpful ones will be for programs or operating systems that many people use, but hey, we'll take all comers.
Listen to next week's episode where we'll share some of our favorites and some of yours.
Tom Merritt appears on CNET TV and loves to dive into technology and help consumers fight fear, uncertainty, and doubt with technology.
Rafe Needleman is editor of Webware.com, CNET's blog about Web applications. He lives to discover great new online apps – and to rip apart bad ones.
Alt+Print Screen takes a snapshot only of the active window, so you don't have to crop out the window in your favourite editor afterwards.
Why should I have to go all the way to the file menu to close a program when I can do it with one two-fingered motion.
Alt-F4 to close an application.
Ctrl-T: new tab, in many applications, including Firefox
Ctrl-W: close tab, in many applications, including Firefox
Ctrl-Tab: next tab, in many applications, including Firefox
Kudos to asking for input via RSS. ;-)
CTRL+SHIFT+ESC for the task manager
WindowsKey+M - Minimize
WindowsKey+L - Lock Computer
WindowsKey+R - bring up the Run Box
WindowsKey+Tab - Swtich between Taskbar Buttons, or in vista, activates windows sideshow
I think the most under used keyboard short cuts are the most simple and straight forward! The following keys are ones that i use fairly regularly... but find that almost no one else uses.
Home
End
Page Up
Page Down
* I love Ctrl-left- and right-arrow for quick movement to a certain word, and relatedly, Ctrl-Shift+left- or right-arrow to select words at a time instead of just characters.
* I don't know if this one counts since you need to download a program to use it, but Humanized's Enso (http://humanized.com/enso/) is something that's pretty cool to use. It's a program that takes over your Caps Lock so when you hold it down, the prompt comes up and you type a command like "open firefox," then let go of the Caps Lock key, and it opens up Firefox. That's Launcher (it does lots more, but I don't want to write a novel here, just a novella :) ). Words does things like spellcheck, uppercase (in case you were hoping for that function back ;) ), etc.
* 'k, last one! 'Ctrl+scroll wheel' to zoom in and out works in several programs I use.
Looking forward to the episode. Keep up on the great de-FUD-ing!
Space -- to page down
Shift-Space - to page up
F6 - to jump to the address bar
- Fn + Backspace on a Macbook will do a Delete instead of Backspace. This is very usefull.
- Then there's dashboard and expose keys that I use all time.
- Ctrl + Arrow Keys for Spaces! It can be changed inside System Prefs.
- Command + Esc to call FrontRow (even though it loses the purpose of FrontRow to watch for your sofa... since there's no Apple Remote with the Macbooks anymore... It's a good one when you want to show the Macbook for your friends.. hehehe).
- Command + N for new windows everywhere (Finder, Safari, Firefox...)
I hate Command + Shift + 3 for PrintScreen on a Mac. Why there's not a button for that?! I mean... there's a key for volume up, another for volume down, and one more for mute! Why not a key for screenshots?
Well, the rest everyone said already.
Love the show!
- Fabio Fiss
In windows Vista, you can shift-RightClick on files and folders to get access to additional options. So for instance if you right click on an excel document, you get a series of options, if you Shift-RightClick on that same file, you also get options to Copy as Path, Open as Read Only, Add to Quick Launch and Pin to Start Menu.
To me, Copy as Path is extremely useful! Depending on what item you use this on will determine what additional options are available.
In Server 2003, this just brings you the Pin to Start Menu Option, so i'm assuming that is the same for XP.
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/windowsxp_tips.htm#no_to_all
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449
Quick and easy access to the quick launch toolbar from the keyboard. by using WindowsKey+ a number. So for for me it is:
WindowsKey+1 Show Desktop
WindowsKey+2 Flip 3D
WindowsKey+3 Internet Explorer
WindowsKey+4 Chrome
WindowsKey+5 Outlook
Very handy tool that not many people realize.
ctrl+t for a new tab in almost any browser
ctrl+c for coppy
ctrl+v for paste
In Linux, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace will terminate the X server. I usually use it to logout and log back in.
Otherwise, I'm a big user of Alt-Tab (Cmd-Tab on Mac) and going to the ends & beginnings of lines with Cmd-arrow. And who can live without Ctrl-A to select all, Ctrl-C to copy, Ctrl-V to paste, and Ctrl-Z to undo?
Other Mac notes: I switch F11 and F12 with each other on my Macs. F12 by default takes you to the Dashboard, but I don't use widgets much, so I remap it to take me to my desktop, which is ordinarily F11. I find F12 easier to hit.
I also use but have a hard time remembering the keyboard shortcuts for screen capture on Mac. It's something like Cmd-Option-3 and Cmd-Option-4 for capturing the whole screen or just a part of it, but I usually have to take a few stabs at it before I get the right keystroke combination. Could be Option-Shift-4 or something, I forget.
Thrilled to learn about Cmd-Q!! I use Ctrl-F4 all the time in Windows to close docs, but I guess I never looked for the Mac equivalent.
It's actually really hard to remember what the keyboard shortcuts actually are. It's my fingers that know them, not my brain.
I find it useful when browsing because websites such as Facebook places the text insertion point in the password field automatically when you open the site. So when say i come to log in and my girlfriend has her email in the user name box, i can SHIFT-TAB to change it.
I came across this shortcut by chance when mucking about so it would be interesting to see how many people use it.
Other than these, Ctrl-K for the search box in Firefox, Ctrl-{+,-,scroll} for zooming and Ctrl-Tab for switching workspaces (virtual desktops) also come to mind.
For a really obscure set, the extremely versatile key bindings in a little editor called ViM.
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by Datheron
February 2, 2009 3:27 PM PST
- Hey, I just registered this account to post here. =)
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (24 Comments)Some browser keyboard shortcuts [for Macs]:
SHIFT + (alt+tab) [SHIFT+Cmd+tab] - Go back an app
SHIFT + (control+tab) [SHIFT+Ctrl+tab] - Go to a previous tab in Firefox
SHIFT + (Ctrl+T) [SHIFT + Cmd+tab] - Undo close tab
Ctrl + Pageup/down [Cmd+Opt+Left/right arrow] - Move left/right in tabs
Alt+D/Ctrl+L [Cmd+L] - Go to the URL bar
Ctrl+K [Cmd+K] - Go to the search box in Firefox
For Windows:
Win + (num. 1-5) - Opens up the app. in that position in your Quick Launch bar, in Vista and Windows 7
Win, U, U - Shut down a Windows XP system
Ctrl+Shift+Esc - Bring up task manager
Win + R - Run dialog
Alt+F2 - Open context menu (right-click menu)
For Macs:
Cmd+{ or } - Move left/right through most tab-based nav.'s, including Terminal, Safari, etc.
Ctrl+A/E - Move to the beginning/end of line, when Cmd + arrow keys are overridden by something else (e.g., Firefox uses Cmd+arrows to go back/forward a webpage)
And for something slightly diff., I'd suggest trying a shortcut-based app. launcher over the Dock, Quick Launch bar, or unsightly desktop shortcuts. For Windows, give Launchy a shot; for OSX, Quicksilver is an excellent app launcher. (you can of course stick w/ the Vista start menu search bar or OSX's spotlight as well)