Shortcuts - navigating menus and dialog windows

[thepillow]

Hi all,
I'm a big fan of shortcuts and i'm trying to get to know the mac shortcuts. A few things i can't seem to be able to figure out tho.
In windows I can open the menu of an application by pressing Alt+ first letter of menu item (eg. to open file menu I press Alt-F)
How can I navigate through menus with the keyboard on a mac?

Another thing is that when a dialog box is opened, in windows I can pass through the items by pressing tab. Also, If i press Alt, a letter in each item of the dialog box will be underlined and if i press that letter the focus jumps to that item. How do I navigate in dialog boxes on a Mac?

Thanks in advance for helping!
Cheers.

 

[MisterMe]

A little history--Every Mac ships with a pointing device. In the early days, this meant that every Mac shipped with a mouse. Therefore, many of the Mac's most common menu selections had keyboard shortcuts, but not all. Windows was usually an aftermarket installation. There was no guarantee that a computer running Windows had a mouse or other pointing device. Therefore, every Windows menu selection had a keyboard shortcut. Having keyboard shortcuts for every menu selection is a Windows artifact from an era long gone.

Where does this leave you? Some Mac applications have implicit keyboard shortcuts for each menu selection. Also, the sophisticated user may use a resource editor to add custom keyboard shortcuts for any menu selection in any standard Macintosh application.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

You can focus on the menubar and use the arrow keys to navigate by pressing control-F2.

You can also access the Dock items and other things in a similar fashion, without using the mouse.

http://www.devdaily.com/apple/mac-os-x-menubar-keyboard-keystroke-command-menus

Not precisely the same as under Windows where you can access direct menu commands, but you may find it an acceptable substitute.

 

[thepillow]

Thank for the effort guys, but unfortunately pressing control-f2 doesn't do a thing on my mac....

 

[DeltaMac]

You must have a 'fn' key on your keyboard.
Hold the 'fn' key when you press control-f2

Or, you can open your keyboard preferences, and click the box for "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys". That will then let you use only control-f2 to use keyboard control of the menubar. That preference change will also mean that the printed functions on the f keys will need the fn key pressed - so the use of the fn key is reversed when you make that pref selection.

 

[Giaguara]

A few other useful links for optimizing the shortcuts and productivity
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
http://homepage.mac.com/frakes/MOSXPT/content/keyboard.html