Keyboard tip: tab all controls
If you know anything about me by now it’s that I use keyboard shortcuts; lots of them. I try to make full use of the keyboard any chance I get. I find mouse movements too slow despite my extreme mouse acceleration (courtesy of SteerMouse) and I find using the keyboard save wear and tear on my mousing shoulder. Even the fastest mouse can’t get from one corner of a 23″ screen to another without some major motor function taking place in the shoulder.
Even when I do mouse a lot I still tend to have my left hand poised at the ready to strike hot keys with lighting speed; cmd+esc (QuickSilver), cmd+F1 (Radial menu), cmd+tab (app switcher), alt+tab (witch), cmd+space (spotlight), cmd+q/w/a/s/z/x/c/v/b/i/n… (you know what these do), and the list goes on.
So you can argue that there is a critical flaw in my keyboardian idealogy; what do I do when I am presented with a dialog box with buttons? For instance, “Do you want to save the changes you made in the document “untitledâ€?” Well there is a little known feature (from what I can tell) in OS X that you can turn on in the keyboard settings. It’s called “Full keyboard access – All controls”. By selecting this option you will be visually cued to whichever button is hot and whichever button are active. Hot button in solid blue is the one that responds when you hit enter or return and the “active” button is the one that will now have a little blue halo around it. Hit tab (or shift+tab depending on the direction you wish to go) and you will notice that halo jumps about from button to button. Here is the best part; hit the space bar and the active button is selected hence performing that action. So enter or return selects the hot button, and the space bar selects the active button. Once you get used to this you will never use your mouse on such panels again. You’ll notice this blue halo in everything you do now, not just on controls. You’ll notice it in your web browsers where it can be particularly useful. Play around with it and see what else is you can accomplish