Shortcut Keys

davstein

Registered
I've been a Mac user since 1989, and love it. I bought the beta the day it came out and look forward to its release.

I've also been a graphics trainer for Investment Banks and am now a trainer at a temporary staffing company. I've had to use PCs and Windows at work for the last five years.

I hate much about Windows, but there is one thing that I teach people to do on Windows that you cannot on the Mac. That is Alt shortcut keys.

For those of you not familiar, Windows puts little underlines under a single letter for each menu option (for instance _F_ile has F underlined. When you see an underline in Windows, that means you can press Alt and the underlined letter to activate that menu, option, checkbox, etc. It is singularly the fastest way to work, as you do not have to take your hands off of the keyboard to reach for the mouse every time you need a menu (this is especially time saving in non graphics (and therefore less mouse driven) programs.

Do you think Apple could come up with a similar shortcut key routine? I know there are many Ctrl key shortcuts, but I can get to ANY menu item via the Alt+key combinations on windows. I can navigate through 5 levels of dialog box without the mouse. It is extremely convenient.

Perhaps a third party could come up with a solution. Thoughts, anyone?

David
 
Dave,

Did you ever find a solution to this Alt key/menu problem.

It's my biggest frustration with the MacOS and Apples "use the mouse" strategy.

Thanks

Paul
 
It´s possible with a stock installation - but not quite as straight forward. You must activate Full keyboard access and use the cursor and tab keys to get around.

-> System prefs -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> check Turn on full keyboard access -> check the boxes for Focus on Menu (and any others you like).

Back in Panther the shortcuts were based on ctrl-M for Menubar ctrl-D for Dock etc. I personally prefer that way to the current function key prefs - but its very easy to change back.

Gabs
 
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