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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs Desktop
A previous hint here explained how to use the "Go to folder" in Cocoa apps' Open and Save dialogs -- just hit / or Shift-Command-G and the box will appear. You can then enter a path, and use the Tab key to auto-complete fields.

But what if it auto-completes to something you didn't want? For instance, you type ~/D and hit tab. The box completes to "~/Desktop." But maybe you didn't want to go to ~/Desktop, so pressing Tab was not a good thing. Instead of pressing Tab, you could have used Option-Escape two times. The first time you press it, the path will expand to ~/Desktop. But the second time you press it, the path will expand to ~/Documents. So using Option-Escape might be preferable to Tab when you have multiple directories that start with the same letter; you can then just cycle thru them and pick the one you want.
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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs | 7 comments | Create New Account
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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs
Authored by: seancorfield on Sep 28, '04 05:20:38PM

This doesn't work for me. First off, when you start typing in the path dialog (after pressing /), if you wait, the path is auto-completed automatically although the auto-completed part is highlighted so you can type over it easily. However, any combination of ESCape simply canceled the dialog box altogether.

BTW, you can type ~ to popup the dialog too.

So, pressing ~ opens the dialog with ~ alread in the dialog.

Then press /d (so you have ~/d) and wait. It auto-completes ~/Desktop but with esktop highlighted. Press o (so you have ~/Do) and wait. It auto-completes ~/Documents and now you can press return.

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"If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive."
-- Margaret Atwood



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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs
Authored by: pecosbill on Sep 29, '04 01:13:22AM

Worked fine for me once I re-read that it's option-ESC (brain fade). May be that it only works with 10.3.5?

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Pecos Bill



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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs
Authored by: MJCube on Sep 29, '04 09:37:28AM
Option-Esc works for me, and also Shift-Option-Esc to go backward. Seems like it'd be most useful when you don't remember what sub-folders are in a certain location. But in that case it'd be easier to just go to that location and have a look.

For a power user, waiting for auto-completion is a drag. You can type ~/Do and then Tab without waiting for anything. And it's case sensitive: ~/d will not get you to your Desktop folder; you need a capital D.

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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs
Authored by: DavidRavenMoon on Sep 29, '04 09:37:47AM

Doesn't work for me either... just cancels the file dialog.


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G4/466, 1 GB, Mac OS X 10.3.5



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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs
Authored by: DavidRavenMoon on Sep 29, '04 09:40:24AM

D'Oh! I just realized this works with Cocoa apps only... and I was trying it with a Carbon app (Adobe Photoshop CS).

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G4/466, 1 GB, Mac OS X 10.3.5



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Does not work as expected...
Authored by: simonpie on Sep 30, '04 10:20:45AM

It work as expected until I hit tab, then it auto-completes d to /Desktop/ (notice the second shlash) then option-escape cycles through whatever is on my desktop and not to Document as expected.



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Cycle through possible folders in Open/Save dialogs
Authored by: magnamous on Oct 02, '04 02:37:58PM
you don't even have to type a first letter. if you already have
/
or
~
showing, you can press Option-Escape, and it'll cycle through all available folders.

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