Column view keyboard navigation

May 04, '01 05:04:34PM

Contributed by: Anonymous

An interesting thing I found: let's say you're about at the 4th level of your hard drive -- /users/you/documents/stuff/.

If you use the tab (and shift-tab) key when the Finder window is active, it will go through each active folder in your filepath forward (and backward) and essentially flip through all the columns you have. NOTE: It takes one extra "tab" to get back to the top level of the drive, as the tab prior to the last one seems to take you to the column containing the preview.

This is different than using the left/right arrow keys, which actively move your selection; the tab key simply changes the highlight column.

Once the column of your choosing is highlighted (the highlight is on the folder that contains your furtherest-right window), you can use the up and down arrow keys to move down into other folders within that column.

[Editor - Tip from Gorgonzola; modified by yours truly as I experimented with it. Pretty nifty way to navigate the finder, actually!]

Comments (3)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20010504170434752