Shortcuts -- Add keyboard shortcuts to contextual menus

Jun 28, '06 07:30:05AM

Contributed by: robg

The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 8 out of 10]

Dan Frakes wrote up Shortcuts in a recent MacGems entry; it was the first I've heard of it, despite having picked a couple of Abracode projects as prior Picks of the Week. You can read Dan's review for an in-depth look at Shortcuts, but here's my nutshell version.

Shortcuts lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to some, but not all, contextual menu items. You can't assign shortcuts for built-in items such as Get Info, but you can for any added contextual menu entries, such as those from Abracode and others. For me, though, the real key is the ability to add shortcuts for Automator-created Finder plug-ins. I have a bunch of these that I use for all sorts of things, including uploading files to various servers via Transmit. Using Shortcuts, I can now send those files with a simple keyboard shortcut, instead of having to navigate into my ever-growing Automator contextual sub-menu. As seen in the image at left, the red-colored entries are those that have hotkeys assigned. So to upload an image to the hints site, I just select it and hit Shift-Control-Option-I.

The Shortcuts interface takes some getting used to, since contextual menus exist for three types of items (text selections, files, and folders). Once I figured out how it worked, though, I was hooked. I've long wanted an easier way to access some key contextual menu entries, and now it exists.

You can't see your shortcut definition in the contextual menu itself, though, so you'll have to remember what you assigned (or open Shortcuts to see the list). Still, that's a minor trade-off for the added functionality Shortcuts brings to the contextual menu. Read Dan's reviews for more on exactly how it works, but if you're a keyboard and contextual menu junkie like me, it's a must-have.

Comments (4)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060628064718307