[mhodos]

2 weeks after switching, I'm loving my 15" powerbook.

But, I am missing the amount of keyboard control I had with windows. And, from my searches, this seems to be a common complaint from native mac users and switchers alike.

I have enabled full keyboard access but to hi FN-CNTRL-F2 to use the keyboard for the menu is relatively useless. Why is there such an objection to allowing more keyboard control? Accelerator keys are everywhere in windows and save significant time over a days or weeks compared with moving to the trackpad and back.

Can someone help me translate the way Alt, Ctrl, Home, End, Pg-up and Pg-dwn worked in Windows to how they work on my Powerbook.

In windows:

Holding the ctrl key and pressing an arrow button allowed me to move the cursor one word at a time, adding the shift key selected one word at a time.

Holding the shift key and pressing End selected an entire line, adding the ctrl key selected to the end of the document, and the reverse was true substituting the Home key for the End key.

Home moved the cursor to the beginning of a line, and end moved it to the end of the line. Holding ctrl and home moved to the beginning of the document, and ctrl-end moved to the end of the document.

In windows explorer, holding down the ctrl key and pressing the space bar selected a file, I would then continue to hold down the ctrl key and use the arrow keys to move to a non-contiguous file, and use the spacebar to select it. I could rapidly select a number of files instead of clicking, holding the command key and using the mouse to click each individual file.

Can someone help me with the Mac key combinations that would allow for the same movement and selections? I seem to need to use a different key all the time, sometimes with the FN key and sometimes without. On my powerbook the page up/down, home and end buttons are on the arrow keys and, I believe, need the FN key pressed to access them. I'd like to have a little cheat sheet to remind me until they become ingrained in my muscle memory.

Thanks very much!

Mike

[zachs]

Full Keyboard Access
Go to the "Keyboard & Mouse" preference pane in System Preferences, and select the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab. You can customize the shortcuts for highlighting menus, the Dock, etc. under "Keyboard Navigation".

Text Fields
Option + Arrow keys move the cursor left or right one word. Press the Shift key to highlight one word at a time.

Use Command-Right Arrow to move to the end of the line. Press the Shift key to highlight to the end of the line

Use the same thing as above for moving or highlighting to the end or beginning of the document, except use the Down or Up Arrow keys.

Finder
Begin typing the first few letters of a file's name to select it. Then you can use Shift-Arrow Keys to select adjacent and non-adjecent files.

Those should do what you want.
Let me know if they don't...I may have just misunderstood what you wanted.

[mhodos]

Thank you very much, that's exactly what I needed. I believe I have read it somewhere before, but I couldn't find where.

The only thing that I don't yet understand is selecting non-contiguous files by keyboard. When I hold down the shift key and use the arrows, it only selects contiguous files.

Thank you again,

Mike

[yukon]

Dude, I never noticed Panther had this. Awesome. Used to be a criticism of the MacOS of mine (the tab-focus-default-button thing specifically).

[msuper69]

Originally posted by mhodos:
...

The only thing that I don't yet understand is selecting non-contiguous files by keyboard. When I hold down the shift key and use the arrows, it only selects contiguous files.
...

I don't know of any way of selecting non-contiguous files w/o using the mouse. Maybe someone else can answer that?

Using the keyboard and mouse, hold down the Apple (Command) key and click on the items you want.