Home › Blogs › Merlin's blog ›

Full keyboard access and Finder shortcuts

Submitted by Merlin on September 16, 2004 - 1:58am.

Depending on how and how much you like to use your keyboard for getting around, you might consider going to “System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts” and enabling “Turn on full keyboard access”. Among many things, this lets you tab through drop down menus on web pages. (You’d already given up all hope, hadn’t you?)

That “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab is also the place to enable or re-assign a bunch of key commands you may not know were even available in the Finder (did you know you can jump to the Dock using your keyboard?).

in

I don’t conceptually disagree at...

Submitted by Merlin on September 16, 2004 - 5:06am.

I don’t conceptually disagree at all, John, but, in my experience, new to average users aren’t even aware most keyboard commannds exist. In my observations, they tend to learn one way of accomplishing a task, then stick with it for life unless deterred or educated (see also: the 3 years my sainted mother thought you had to enter URLs in the Yahoo! search box).

I think, as you say, that the true ninja learns when to use each appropriately, but as long as people are using their mouse as the only way they know how to bold text, go back one page, or switch applications, I’m staying “pedal to the metal” on keyboard evangelism. :)