3 ms·

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.

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.