Visual cues for bookmark keyboard shortcuts in browsers

Jul 11, '07 07:30:06AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

I try to do as much as possible from my keyboard using shortcuts, because I think it's more efficient than using a mouse. As such, I frequently employ the Safari (and Camino, not sure about Firefox) keyboard shortcut Command-(1 through 9) that triggers your Bookmark Bar bookmarks. The problem is this actually slows me down because I can never tell at a quick glance whether a particular bookmark is Command-4 versus Command-5, or Command-6 versus Command-7, etc.

Here's the fix: in the Mac OS Character Palette (under the International icon in your menu bar), select the All Characters view from the View drop-down. Select the by Category tab, and then under the Symbols section in the left frame, select Numbers and Number Symbols. Scroll about two-thirds of the way down and look for the rows of seemingly-normal number characters right below the fractions. The first row of 0-9 are actually superscript characters, and the second row are subscript (I prefer subscript, but either will work):


Switch over to your Bookmarks editor in your browser, set your cursor in the bookmark's name field, and then select that bookmark's corresponding number in the character palette. Hit Insert and that's it! I usually put a space between the character and the name of my bookmark, which makes it more readable. It also helps to make the bookmark name all caps. Detractors will say, of course, that you could just put normal number characters in there, but I like my solution better. They don't take up too much space, but they're still quite readable without being distracting.

[robg adds: You might also try some of the white numbers with black backgrounds, as I found they stand out for easy readability.]

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