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Quickly select the desktop from any Finder window Desktop
I found this out when I was trying out Finder shortcut keys. If you have any Finder window selected, and you hit Command-Shift-Up Arrow, it will take the focus off the current window and select the first icon on the desktop, usually the Mac HD icon. A simple little shortcut that might come in useful sometime.

[robg adds: I thought we had this documented here somewhere, but a search seems to show that it's not yet listed. On my 10.4 machine, the first icon on the desktop isn't highlighted automatically; I have to hit Tab to actually highlight the first item.]
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Quickly select the desktop from any Finder window | 6 comments | Create New Account
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Quickly select the desktop from any Finder window
Authored by: rbenezra on Jul 21, '05 10:05:01AM

...and then hit the down button and the folder/disk opens in a new window. Pretty cool.



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Quickly select the desktop from any Finder window
Authored by: elmimmo on Jul 21, '05 10:29:34AM

Just so you know, this predates Mac OS X and worked back to OS 9 at least.



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Quickly select the desktop from any Finder window
Authored by: MJCube on Jul 21, '05 12:43:01PM

It dates from System 7. I used it then. And yes, it selects nothing by itself.



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Quickly select the desktop from any Finder window
Authored by: vonchez on Jul 22, '05 08:39:32AM

Command-Tilde will also switch to the desktop from a finder window... if you have multiple finder windows open, though, it might take a while to get through all of them to make it to the desktop.



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Quickly select the desktop from any Finder window
Authored by: caesurae on Jul 22, '05 05:49:09PM
this shortcut is documented in the Help Viewer section "Shortcuts for the Finder".
if you're still using Panther, here is the location for viewing in your browser:
file:///Library/Documentation/Help/MacHelp.help/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/pgs2/cdb_fndr.html
in fact, you could copy the following code, paste it into a text editor, save
as "shortcuts.html" or something, and have a handy index of all the
shortcuts available in Help Viewer for viewing in your browser:
<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Shortcuts</title>
<base href="file:///Library/Documentation/Help/MacHelp.help/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/">
<link href="sty/custom_style.css" rel="stylesheet" media="all">
</head><body><a name="xicnfndr"></a><div id="caticon">
<img src="gfx/xicnx.gif" alt="OS X logo Icon" height="32" width="32" border="0">
</div><div id="pagetitle"><h1 class="icon">Shortcuts</h1></div>
<p>Use these shortcuts to work with Mac OS X 10.3, "Panther".</p>
<table width="40%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3"><tr class="xhead">
<td><h2>Title</h2></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_dcks.html">1. Shortucts for the dock.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_dlgs.html">2. Shortcuts for dialogs.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_fkyacc.html">3. Full Keyboard Access shortcuts for activating access.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_fkyacm.html">4. Full Keyboard Access shortcuts for highlighting items.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_fkyacn.html">5. Full Keyboard Access shortcuts for selecting an action.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_fndr.html">6. Shortcuts for the Finder.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_frzs.html">7. Shortcuts for freezes.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_moskys.html">8. Shortcuts for Mouse Keys.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_strtup.html">9. Shortcuts for starting up.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_sys.html">10. Shortcuts for the system.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_unackys.html">11. Shortcuts for Universal Access.</a>
</p></td></tr><tr><td class="rule" valign="top"><p>
<a href="pgs2/cdb_wndws.html">12. Shortcuts for windows.</a>
</p></td></tr></table><p></p></body></html>


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Not the Desktop : it selects the boot volume (if present)
Authored by: VRic on Jul 23, '05 06:17:46AM

As others said, this is a very old kb shortcut (I thought it was older than System 7, but I can't check right now).

It always selected the boot volume and still does if the Finder's prefs are set to display hard disks on the desktop. So it doesn't select the Desktop: that's only a side effect of not showing hard disks.

The boot volume is the first to mount, so it has always been at the top-right of the main monitor.



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