KeyCue - A cheat sheet for keyboard shortcuts

May 06, '04 12:58:00AM

Contributed by: robg

KeyCue imageThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[Score: 8 out of 10]

This week's Pick of the Week is chosen primarily for it's unique premise -- as seen at left (larger image) KeyCue is a way to see every existing keyboard shortcut for the currently active application. Yes, keyboard shortcuts are documented by their very existence. But many are buried in sub-menus and may not be seen often. KeyCue makes it easy to see all of them in one spot. The yellow highlights reflect the keys that are currently pressed (command and option in the screenshot), which is an easy way to see which shortcuts are available; they change as you press and release the various modifiers.

Using KeyCue couldn't be any easier -- double-click it to launch it, then just press and hold Command. After a couple seconds (the delay is configurable), the KeyCue menu pops to the foreground, showing all the active app's shortcuts. To configure KeyCue, you can either double-click it in the Finder when it's already running, or use its shortcut, listed last in the pop-up window. Configuration options include the delay before appearing, what actions make the palette vanish, how to group the shortcuts, and whether or not to include the Services menu's shortcuts.

Reasons for markdowns: KeyCue only "sees" real keyboard shortcuts that are listed in menus; it doesn't, for instance, show Control-K in Excel, which is a shortcut for Delete Row. This is clearly not KeyCue's fault; those shortcuts don't report themselves to the OS, as I understand it. One other annoyance, to me at least, is that the menu pops up in the center of the screen. I'd prefer it if it popped up under the cursor, as that's typically where my eyes are looking. With two displays, it's even worse, as the center of the main screen can be quite a distance from whatever window you might be working in. Finally, I was a bit irked that KeyCue added itself to my startup items without even asking -- there's a preference to disable it, but it defaults to "Load at startup." I'm seeing this in more and more apps, and liking it less and less each time.

KeyCue isn't the kind of application that I'd use regularly (I spend so much time in my few key apps that the shortcuts are second nature by now), so I don't think I'll be purchasing it. However, I thought it was a unique concept, and one that could definitely help you learn the shortcut keys in a hurry, so I thought it deserved a spot as a (late, sorry!) Pick of the Week.

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