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Focusing the menubar with Control-F2. You can then navigate by arrow keys or typing. Space bar activates the highlighted menu/submenu. It makes life so much b

Focusing the menubar with Control-F2. You can then navigate by arrow keys or typing. Space bar activates the highlighted menu/submenu. It makes life so much better. Control-F2 itself was slightly broken in 10.14 (IIRC), so I hacked up a dumb workaround in my Hammerspoon config: https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f781df3a17c15c5c4b4bba51/src/.hammerspoon/init.lua#L44 https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f78...

donatj 6y ago
Command-Shift-? is the better version of this imho, directly opens the help menu and you can just type the name of the menu item and hit enter. Way quicker than navigating to it.
- hobs 6y ago
  Yep this is what I came to say - OSX's help menu automatically searches all menu commands and if you hover over them it will open up the menu, show you the location, and if you hit enter just use it for you. This is also something you can generally call from Applescript as well, if you want to automate application behaviors.
  - IggleSniggle 6y ago
    Mind sharing an example AppleScript of that? Every time I’ve dug in there, it’s never had quite what I wanted. But this seems like an especially leverage-able idea.
    - hobs 6y ago
      It's been about 10 years since I touched that code, so apologies if these are all things you know. I am pretty sure most of the work was just extending the documentation in https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/AutomatetheUserInterface.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La... with looking up application "dictionaries" (iirc, a box of supported commands) and all menu items being accessible by default. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/conceptual/ASLR_about_handlers.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40000983-CH206-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap...
- NateEag 6y ago
  Very cool. Thanks for sharing!
clairity 6y ago
note that ctrl-F1 by default toggles keyboard access, which breaks (some of) the other ctrl-Fn bindings (which i just found out by testing this). you can disable this in keyboard shortcuts of course.
wosc 6y ago
Thanks so much, it has been a constant annoyance for me that _sometimes_ Ctrl+F2 just doesn't do anything. It did not occur to me to check if that's a known issue, I just wrote it off as a glitch in the matrix. Your workaround is going to make my daily menu usage go much more smoothly, thanks!

donatj 6y ago

Command-Shift-? is the better version of this imho, directly opens the help menu and you can just type the name of the menu item and hit enter. Way quicker than navigating to it.

hobs 6y ago
Yep this is what I came to say - OSX's help menu automatically searches all menu commands and if you hover over them it will open up the menu, show you the location, and if you hit enter just use it for you. This is also something you can generally call from Applescript as well, if you want to automate application behaviors.
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  Mind sharing an example AppleScript of that? Every time I’ve dug in there, it’s never had quite what I wanted. But this seems like an especially leverage-able idea.
  - hobs 6y ago
    It's been about 10 years since I touched that code, so apologies if these are all things you know. I am pretty sure most of the work was just extending the documentation in https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/AutomatetheUserInterface.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La... with looking up application "dictionaries" (iirc, a box of supported commands) and all menu items being accessible by default. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/conceptual/ASLR_about_handlers.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40000983-CH206-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap...
NateEag 6y ago
Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

clairity 6y ago

note that ctrl-F1 by default toggles keyboard access, which breaks (some of) the other ctrl-Fn bindings (which i just found out by testing this). you can disable this in keyboard shortcuts of course.

wosc 6y ago

Thanks so much, it has been a constant annoyance for me that _sometimes_ Ctrl+F2 just doesn't do anything. It did not occur to me to check if that's a known issue, I just wrote it off as a glitch in the matrix. Your workaround is going to make my daily menu usage go much more smoothly, thanks!