Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'varying philosophies on shortcut keys' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
varying philosophies on shortcut keys
Authored by: martinx on Aug 11, '03 01:37:50PM

Coming to Mac from a Windows environment, shortcut keys were one of the first things I noticed as being "weird". Now after a while I have gotten used to it, but I wonder if anybody could shed some light on the Apple philosophy of shortcut keys versus the Windows philosophy.

The difference seems to be: Windows shortcuts point both to specific menu items and to the menus themselves, whereas Apple shortcuts point to specific menu items only. Yes, there is a way to bring up the Apple menu but then you have to use arrow keys to get to where you want to go. Sometimes its just easier to remember what menu something is under and hit a key to open that menu. Yes, shortcut to the menu items themselves is quicker, but most applications have a lot of items that don't have shortcut keys, and for those that do, sometimes its easier to remember what menu its under - the learning is broken into pieces, the menu and the item in the menu, rather than a single big list of shortcuts.

Why doesn't Apple provide menu shortcuts? Are they afraid it will confuse users? I'm just wondering what their philosophy is behind this and if they are going to do it any differently in the future. (Hey, we've got arrow keys now, so...)



[ Reply to This | # ]
varying philosophies on shortcut keys
Authored by: TvE on Aug 11, '03 03:19:31PM

I fully agree

I work in a mixed enviroment - mainly Mac OS (from before Mac OS 7.6) and (started a couple of years ago) Win NT 4 & 2000.

I have evolved to be a keyboard shortcut freek since it's a lot faster, easier, and more ergonomic... ;-)

I miss the Windows feature that you specify - the capability to target a specific menu (EG Alt-F for the File menu) - yes the underscored "F" looks ugly but it's effective!

I wonder if it could be possible to create this kind of functionality with a piece of shareware since Apple apparently have chosen NOT to implement this kind of feature!

I have previously been addicted to QuicKeys, but after I found LaunchBar I hav'nt really had a use for QK anymore...

So far I have tried to get used to the Full Keyboard Access and configured CTRL-M for menu - unfortunately there is a bug that - periodically - disables this feature until next reboot (it's specific to Carbon App's as far as I recall - I have submitted a bugreport to Aple and they have reproduced it and it should be fixed in a future OS release - Panther I presume).


Sorry I can't explain the logic - but only agree to the frustration...

:-) TvE



[ Reply to This | # ]
Yeah Full Keyboard Access isn't great
Authored by: jason mark on Aug 11, '03 06:51:31PM

The big problem I had with full keyboard access is unless you use function keys, it only works in some applications.

My wife is a keyboard freek, and she's always missed her Windows computer because of that. Lately she's been so frusterated trying to use the open/save dialogs (which thankfully are going away) and the painfully slow UI of OSX, that she's considering going back to Windows.

I keep trying to tell her that launchbar makes up for all 3 of those issues... but she's not buying it. I have a 866mhz 12in AlBook, and the othe day I sat down at a 350mhz iMac running OS9 the other day and I thought "Wow, Word and Filemaker are so responsive on this machine!" It's a little sad when a 3 year old machine can make me envious.... :(



[ Reply to This | # ]
Yeah Full Keyboard Access isn't great
Authored by: TvE on Aug 12, '03 04:25:13AM

You don't HAVE toi use the function key in order to use Full Keyboard Access - you can configure it to use any shortcuts you like.

I chose the preset that uses "Letter Keys" - EG CTRL-M for menu and CTRL-D for the dock...



[ Reply to This | # ]
[OT] speed of AlBook
Authored by: hayne on Aug 12, '03 10:01:36AM
I have a 866mhz 12in AlBook, and the othe day I sat down at a 350mhz iMac running OS9 the other day and I thought "Wow, Word and Filemaker are so responsive on this machine!" It's a little sad when a 3 year old machine can make me envious
How much RAM do you have in your AlBook? OS X does need lots of RAM to make it fast. You should have at least 512MB.

[ Reply to This | # ]