[bastion]

VictorBishop, on 04 March 2011 - 09:37 AM, said:

StevenFisher, on 04 March 2011 - 09:06 AM, said:

"Mastering more, along with other efficient ways to control your Mac without reaching for the mouse, will help you get your work done faster"

I'm one of the biggest keyboard junkies I know, but didn't Apple definitively prove this wrong years ago (despite what keyboard junkies like me thought)?

I think the mouse made things easier - not necessarily quicker. And, it depends on what you are doing.

In general, the mouse makes a lot of things faster. Not everything, but a lot even when there are keyboard invocations available and your hands are already on the keyboard.

[maartenh]

"with a quick Power Button-Tab-Space sequence, I can put my computer to sleep in an instant"

I can better you one keystroke on that, and it doesn't even need the full keyboard access enabled: PowerButton-S
And for restart: PowerButton-R

[cinemachine]

The utility KeyCue also comes in handy for learning every applications shortcuts. After triggering a hot key it pops up an HUD with all of the possible keyboard commands for that particular app. I love having it...that is, when I remember to use it.

[geochase]

For even advanced Cut, Copy, Paste, I use CopyPaste by PlumAmazing.com and have for at least 10 years.

[orangermac]

Alternatively for sleep, after hitting the power button, hit the 'S' key.

[Aryugaetu]

The qwerty keyboard has been around for so long and is so ubiquitous that its current ineffectiveness goes completely unnoticed. From its scattered key arrangement to prevent jamming within the typewriter to its poor portability to different languages and a tremendous obstacle to the millions with physical disabilities, it is an extraordinarily poor method of placing language on media and a sluggishly tedious way of communicating to a computer.

While a person's ability to navigate the computer keyboard can be as impressive as a concert pianist, humanity could be served far better by taking some of the billions of unused clock cycles per second, and diverting them to a more modern and human form of input so the isolated millions can more readily join the world's digital chorus.

I applaud Apple's efforts in giving Lion better text-to-speech abilities, I wish they would give the same attention to the OS for those requiring the opposite function, regardless how the user pronounces the words.

The internet will never be open and free as long as the antiquated keyboard is kept in place to prevent the millions (billions?) of people from accessing it effectively.

[nbuck]

I like Control-Eject (especially now that Eject is located above the right-hand Control key, instead of at the far right corner by the Number Pad in previous Apple Keyboards) to bring up the Shut Down, etc. dialog box, then R, S, Command-., or Return to choose Restart, Sleep, Cancel, or Shut Down.

[winsmith1984]

Is there a quicker way to open a file than Command-O? Coming from Windows, I really miss the ability to open files just by pressing Enter.

[SprayPass]

maartenh, on 04 March 2011 - 10:26 AM, said:

"with a quick Power Button-Tab-Space sequence, I can put my computer to sleep in an instant"

I can better you one keystroke on that, and it doesn't even need the full keyboard access enabled: PowerButton-S
And for restart: PowerButton-R

Come on guys. Is reaching across your desk and around behind your iMac for the Power Button really faster than grabbing the mouse? Besides, if you want to put the computer to sleep in Snow Leopard, just press f13.

[zarmanto]

winsmith1984, on 04 March 2011 - 11:55 AM, said:

Is there a quicker way to open a file than Command-O? Coming from Windows, I really miss the ability to open files just by pressing Enter.

I'm a cross-platform user and frequent keyboard junkie on both platforms myself, and while the advantages of keyboard shortcuts over shoving a mouse cursor all the way across a 24-inch screen (or two 20-inch screens, depending upon which system I'm using) are probably pretty apparent to most people, I'd have to say that this level of nit-picking takes things a wee bit too far for my tastes. I mean, you're seriously complaining about the difference in speed of having to use two keys instead of one key for a particular action?

But for the record: No, I'm pretty sure there isn't a default single key command which will do what you want... but I'm also pretty sure that you could just define one yourself, if it's that important to you. To quote Apple's documentation on the matter: "Modifier key assignments can be changed in the Keyboard & Mouse preferences pane of System Preferences."

(BTW, thanks for posting that link, icerabbit... it saved me the time it would have taken to go look it up for myself, in order to properly respond to winsmith. )

This post has been edited by zarmanto: 04 March 2011 - 01:18 PM

[zarmanto]

SprayPass, on 04 March 2011 - 12:57 PM, said:

Come on guys. Is reaching across your desk and around behind your iMac for the Power Button really faster than grabbing the mouse? ...

I briefly considered posting a similar critique -- but the thing is, more and more people these days are exclusively using laptops, wherin the power button is typically not too far from the keyboard... so I wouldn't be too surprised if some of the people who cited the power button are entirely clueless of it's varied locations on different desktop Macs. So for them, using the power button sounds like perfectly reasonable advice.

[zarmanto]

zarmanto, on 04 March 2011 - 01:14 PM, said:

So for them, using the power button sounds like perfectly reasonable advice.

Actually, having said that... personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the power button returned to the keyboard on desktop machines, as it was back-in-the-day before Apple replaced it with an eject key.

[moose_n_squirrel]

sockimaging, on 04 March 2011 - 09:58 AM, said:

I've found the fastest computing comes from using the mouse and keyboard shortcuts in conjunction. Certainly navigating files in the finder is faster with a mouse.

I wouldn't be so certain. By using type-ahead in conjunction with Finder up/down nav shortcuts and the shortcuts in the Go menu, you can blow through folders faster than somebody dragging their mouse around. I often drill right through to my other Mac across the network, in the Finder, with just the keyboard.

SprayPass, on 04 March 2011 - 12:57 PM, said:

Come on guys. Is reaching across your desk and around behind your iMac for the Power Button really faster than grabbing the mouse? Besides, if you want to put the computer to sleep in Snow Leopard, just press f13.

If my hands are on the keyboard, it's faster to just hit something on the keyboard instead of getting up for the ol' reacharound. Also, if on a Mac that isn't mine, I can't assume they programmed the Power button for sleep, and finally, since Apple does not ship an extended keyboard with most Macs, the vast majority of Macs shipping today have no F13 key.

winsmith1984, on 04 March 2011 - 11:55 AM, said:

Is there a quicker way to open a file than Command-O? Coming from Windows, I really miss the ability to open files just by pressing Enter.

Even though I have always been a Mac user, this has always bugged me about the Mac. Come on Apple, when a file is selected, most of the time we want to open it, not rename it! Windows does this right.

[bastion]

zarmanto, on 04 March 2011 - 01:25 PM, said:

zarmanto, on 04 March 2011 - 01:14 PM, said:

So for them, using the power button sounds like perfectly reasonable advice.

Actually, having said that... personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the power button returned to the keyboard on desktop machines, as it was back-in-the-day before Apple replaced it with an eject key.

Unfortunately, this broke conformance with the USB spec.