5 ms·

If you want better shortcut muscle memory, just unplug your mouse for a couple days. Do this once a year or so. You can thank me later.

by viggity 14y ago

bangbang 14y ago
In OSX, are all dialogue boxes able to be accessed by the keyboard?
- bashzor 14y ago
  Not sure about OSX, but in Windows you can. This is a huge miss in Linux I find (all distributions I've tried so far), you need the mouse to get anything done without resorting to a terminal.
- jasonwebster 14y ago
  Yes, but you have to enable it. It's not on by default. System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts And change the radio at the bottom to "All controls" under Full Keyboard Access.
  - JadeNB 14y ago
    To get to System Preferences, you can use CTRL-F2 to get to the Apple menu, CTRL-F3 to get to the Dock, or—if those shortcuts aren't set up (but I think that they are by default)—CMD-TAB to get to Finder, CMD-A to get to the Applications folder, and type a few letters to get to 'System Preferences.app'. :-) In the System Preferences window, you can start typing to select 'Keyboard' (keyboard focus is in the Spotlight menulet). You can tab to the 'Keyboard' / 'Keyboard Shortcuts' tab bar, then arrow over to 'Keyboard Shortcuts', then tab to the 'Full Keyboard Access' radio buttons. Sadly, these last few steps require that Full Keyboard Access already be turned on! The text below the radio buttons says that you can toggle the setting with CTRL-F7, but that doesn't work for me; I'm not sure if some other keybinding is interfering.
    - m4rkuskk 14y ago
      Event quicker ⌘+space spotlight and type `keyboard` =)
    - daniel02216 14y ago
      Do you have the 'use F1, etc as function keys' unchecked? You'll need to use fn+control+F7 instead.
      - JadeNB 14y ago
        Nope—the machine is a laptop, but I'm using an external keyboard. For example, CTRL-F2 and CTRL-F3 both work fine.
  - philfreo 14y ago
    How do you keyboard navigate the TextEdit save dialog that comes up when you Cmd+w on a window when you don't want to save it? (Can you do better than press tab 5 times then space?)
    - dwich 14y ago
      Prior to Lion, Cmd+D means "don't save" in the dialog. With Lion, it's Cmd+Backspace.
- guns 14y ago
  Working once on a MacBook with a disabled trackpad, I found the only window that I could not focus using the keyboard was the password dialog. I realized later that AppleScript could do the trick: (as root) # ps axo ucomm | grep -q SecurityAgent && osascript -e 'tell application "SecurityAgent" to activate'
- daniel02216 14y ago
  I believe they are if you enable 'Full Keyboard Access' for 'All Controls' in the Keyboard prefpane (under Keyboard Shortcuts tab) Or just hit Control-F7.
- zdw 14y ago
  There's a direct way to do this: Command + first letter button title will activate that option, with a few caveats - Command-C won't work as Cancel, but Command-. will.
kleiba 14y ago
Step 2: undefine the arrow keys.
- farslan 14y ago
  In vim you can do that by putting these lines into ~/.vimrc: map <up> <nop> map <down> <nop> map <left> <nop> map <right> <nop> imap <up> <nop> imap <down> <nop> imap <left> <nop> imap <right> <nop> This will disable the arrow keys in normal and insert mode.
  - dickfickling 14y ago
    I'm not trying to be difficult here, just genuinely curious: why disable the arrow keys? Is it simply the speed boost you get from using hjkl on the home row vs moving your hand to the arrows? I use Colemak, so hjkl is very counter-intuitive for me, whereas the arrow keys make sense and aren't /that/ far away. EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684515 has some good explanations. So does anyone have suggestions for non-QWERTY users? remap the keys that are in the HJKL space, leading to a cascade of keys moved around? Deal with the counter-intuitiveness of actually using HJKL?
    - RegEx 14y ago
      Dvorak users can get away with using hjkl with the dvorak layout - it's not that counter-intuitive. Your Colemak layout, however, looks beyond salvageable in terms of using Colemak hjkl. I think a re-binding is in order there.
    - koenigdavidmj 14y ago
      When I use Vim I barely even use hkjl except to fine-tune larger movement commands. I'll search for a symbol, or move word-by-word, or use f/F/t/T to move to a different character on a line, which gets me in the ballpark. Even if hjkl is faster, I would be optimising for a case that just doesn't show up that much.
- SiVal 14y ago
SuitAndThai 14y ago
This is similar to how I learned the DVORAK layout actually. I switched to DVORAK, made sure that I had a couple of essays pushed off til the last minute, and bam! I knew it like the back of my hand by 3AM.
- RegEx 14y ago
  Dvorak was a long process for me. It took me about 3 months to get to 70 wpm (was 120 qwerty). Online gaming had a lot to do with the delay: switching keybindings for every game was annoying, and I needed to quickly communicate with teammates (or smacktalk opponents ;P)
to3m 14y ago
No need to be so drastic! - just put it on the other side of your desk. I've done this a few times when I've needed the space for taking notes. I'm now pretty good at mousing with either hand - but the key part is not making mousing more annoying, like it was the first time I swapped, but rather just making you realise when you're reaching for it. That gives you a chance to consciously think about what you're about to do. And then you have a chance to decide that you're going to figure out how to do it with the keyboard.
dkersten 14y ago
I'm hoping to get there soon. On linux, I use vim, a keyboard centric window manager and I've recently started using uzbl for my web browsing. Not there yet, but getting there - already I find I don't need to reach for the mouse very often at all!

If you want better shortcut muscle memory, just unplug your mouse for a couple days. Do this once a year or so. You can thank me later.

by viggity 14y ago

If you want better shortcut muscle memory, just unplug your mouse for a couple days. Do this once a year or so. You can thank me later.

bangbang 14y ago

In OSX, are all dialogue boxes able to be accessed by the keyboard?

bashzor 14y ago
Not sure about OSX, but in Windows you can. This is a huge miss in Linux I find (all distributions I've tried so far), you need the mouse to get anything done without resorting to a terminal.
jasonwebster 14y ago
Yes, but you have to enable it. It's not on by default. System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts And change the radio at the bottom to "All controls" under Full Keyboard Access.
- JadeNB 14y ago
  To get to System Preferences, you can use CTRL-F2 to get to the Apple menu, CTRL-F3 to get to the Dock, or—if those shortcuts aren't set up (but I think that they are by default)—CMD-TAB to get to Finder, CMD-A to get to the Applications folder, and type a few letters to get to 'System Preferences.app'. :-) In the System Preferences window, you can start typing to select 'Keyboard' (keyboard focus is in the Spotlight menulet). You can tab to the 'Keyboard' / 'Keyboard Shortcuts' tab bar, then arrow over to 'Keyboard Shortcuts', then tab to the 'Full Keyboard Access' radio buttons. Sadly, these last few steps require that Full Keyboard Access already be turned on! The text below the radio buttons says that you can toggle the setting with CTRL-F7, but that doesn't work for me; I'm not sure if some other keybinding is interfering.
  - m4rkuskk 14y ago
    Event quicker ⌘+space spotlight and type `keyboard` =)
  - daniel02216 14y ago
    Do you have the 'use F1, etc as function keys' unchecked? You'll need to use fn+control+F7 instead.
    - JadeNB 14y ago
      Nope—the machine is a laptop, but I'm using an external keyboard. For example, CTRL-F2 and CTRL-F3 both work fine.
- philfreo 14y ago
  How do you keyboard navigate the TextEdit save dialog that comes up when you Cmd+w on a window when you don't want to save it? (Can you do better than press tab 5 times then space?)
  - dwich 14y ago
    Prior to Lion, Cmd+D means "don't save" in the dialog. With Lion, it's Cmd+Backspace.
guns 14y ago
Working once on a MacBook with a disabled trackpad, I found the only window that I could not focus using the keyboard was the password dialog. I realized later that AppleScript could do the trick: (as root) # ps axo ucomm | grep -q SecurityAgent && osascript -e 'tell application "SecurityAgent" to activate'
daniel02216 14y ago
I believe they are if you enable 'Full Keyboard Access' for 'All Controls' in the Keyboard prefpane (under Keyboard Shortcuts tab) Or just hit Control-F7.
zdw 14y ago
There's a direct way to do this: Command + first letter button title will activate that option, with a few caveats - Command-C won't work as Cancel, but Command-. will.

kleiba 14y ago

Step 2: undefine the arrow keys.

farslan 14y ago
In vim you can do that by putting these lines into ~/.vimrc: map <up> <nop> map <down> <nop> map <left> <nop> map <right> <nop> imap <up> <nop> imap <down> <nop> imap <left> <nop> imap <right> <nop> This will disable the arrow keys in normal and insert mode.
- dickfickling 14y ago
  I'm not trying to be difficult here, just genuinely curious: why disable the arrow keys? Is it simply the speed boost you get from using hjkl on the home row vs moving your hand to the arrows? I use Colemak, so hjkl is very counter-intuitive for me, whereas the arrow keys make sense and aren't /that/ far away. EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684515 has some good explanations. So does anyone have suggestions for non-QWERTY users? remap the keys that are in the HJKL space, leading to a cascade of keys moved around? Deal with the counter-intuitiveness of actually using HJKL?
  - RegEx 14y ago
    Dvorak users can get away with using hjkl with the dvorak layout - it's not that counter-intuitive. Your Colemak layout, however, looks beyond salvageable in terms of using Colemak hjkl. I think a re-binding is in order there.
  - koenigdavidmj 14y ago
    When I use Vim I barely even use hkjl except to fine-tune larger movement commands. I'll search for a symbol, or move word-by-word, or use f/F/t/T to move to a different character on a line, which gets me in the ballpark. Even if hjkl is faster, I would be optimising for a case that just doesn't show up that much.
SiVal 14y ago

SuitAndThai 14y ago

This is similar to how I learned the DVORAK layout actually. I switched to DVORAK, made sure that I had a couple of essays pushed off til the last minute, and bam! I knew it like the back of my hand by 3AM.

RegEx 14y ago
Dvorak was a long process for me. It took me about 3 months to get to 70 wpm (was 120 qwerty). Online gaming had a lot to do with the delay: switching keybindings for every game was annoying, and I needed to quickly communicate with teammates (or smacktalk opponents ;P)

to3m 14y ago

No need to be so drastic! - just put it on the other side of your desk. I've done this a few times when I've needed the space for taking notes. I'm now pretty good at mousing with either hand - but the key part is not making mousing more annoying, like it was the first time I swapped, but rather just making you realise when you're reaching for it. That gives you a chance to consciously think about what you're about to do. And then you have a chance to decide that you're going to figure out how to do it with the keyboard.

dkersten 14y ago

I'm hoping to get there soon. On linux, I use vim, a keyboard centric window manager and I've recently started using uzbl for my web browsing. Not there yet, but getting there - already I find I don't need to reach for the mouse very often at all!