This entry was posted on Sunday, May 20th, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under keyboard shortcuts, macbook pro, osx, windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
5 Responses to “familiarity breeds efficiency. on my pc at least.”
ummm. command + ` or use F10 to deal with the windows on an application. about the only valid gripe with apple shortcuts, once you get past trying to treat your mac like its windows, is that the screenshot shortcuts are rather obfuscated, and the home and end keys dont work consistently throughout all applications (especially on the laptops).
@devians: The window handling shortcuts don’t cope with tabbed browsers. command-` moves between tabs. apple-tab moves between apps. but there is no way move between the multiple windows of the tabbed browser – for example if your banking site has popped a new window.
I discovered that the browser had been loading my bank’s login screen in the background for several sessions, *behind* the main window. There was no system interface cue to let me know it was happening, until by chance I clicked the “window” menu and noticed the extra window down the bottom. On Windows, there would have been an extra instance in the taskbar – clearly visible and simple to understand.
Expose is an entirely different interface feature; so although that can act as a crutch, it would have made more sense to me to let the pre-existing keyboard shortcuts handle all windows. Plus I haven’t been using expose on the mbp since the function keys are mapped to hardware features.
I hadn’t ever realised you could use the keyboard to get around expose either – I’d only ever seen people click the windows. I only just found the keyboard shortcuts by trying it on the testbed mac mini at work.
meh, the mbp has so many modifier keys i can’t remember which is which when it’s not in front of me. besides, with keystrokes you don’t really think about them, you just press.
it annoys people so much when i call the apple key “inbred hash” or “pretzel”…
besides it’s not like osx is consistent anyway – “you know how there are symbols and letters down there on the keyboard? well up here in the menus we’re going to use DIFFERENT symbols! hahahaha! aren’t we brilliant? and they said we were mad, MAD!” ;)
haha, good point. the old mac keyboards used to mirror the symbols on their keys. for some reason apple stopped this practice. it befuddles me at the best of times.
June 12, 2007 at 3:29 pm
ummm. command + ` or use F10 to deal with the windows on an application. about the only valid gripe with apple shortcuts, once you get past trying to treat your mac like its windows, is that the screenshot shortcuts are rather obfuscated, and the home and end keys dont work consistently throughout all applications (especially on the laptops).
June 13, 2007 at 11:45 am
@devians: The window handling shortcuts don’t cope with tabbed browsers. command-` moves between tabs. apple-tab moves between apps. but there is no way move between the multiple windows of the tabbed browser – for example if your banking site has popped a new window.
I discovered that the browser had been loading my bank’s login screen in the background for several sessions, *behind* the main window. There was no system interface cue to let me know it was happening, until by chance I clicked the “window” menu and noticed the extra window down the bottom. On Windows, there would have been an extra instance in the taskbar – clearly visible and simple to understand.
Expose is an entirely different interface feature; so although that can act as a crutch, it would have made more sense to me to let the pre-existing keyboard shortcuts handle all windows. Plus I haven’t been using expose on the mbp since the function keys are mapped to hardware features.
I hadn’t ever realised you could use the keyboard to get around expose either – I’d only ever seen people click the windows. I only just found the keyboard shortcuts by trying it on the testbed mac mini at work.
June 13, 2007 at 2:51 pm
command is apple. that little key with the apple on it? its called command. :)
control is the one with ctrl on it :)
you can also swap the handling in the system preferences so the F keys are f keys first and system functions second.
June 13, 2007 at 3:11 pm
meh, the mbp has so many modifier keys i can’t remember which is which when it’s not in front of me. besides, with keystrokes you don’t really think about them, you just press.
it annoys people so much when i call the apple key “inbred hash” or “pretzel”…
besides it’s not like osx is consistent anyway – “you know how there are symbols and letters down there on the keyboard? well up here in the menus we’re going to use DIFFERENT symbols! hahahaha! aren’t we brilliant? and they said we were mad, MAD!” ;)
June 14, 2007 at 11:19 am
haha, good point. the old mac keyboards used to mirror the symbols on their keys. for some reason apple stopped this practice. it befuddles me at the best of times.