Keyboard Tips

These started piling up a bit, so I decided to group them together in a single section.

• Spend some time getting used to the accelerator and "special" keys. They make sense after a while, but having the extra Command modifier key and a different meaning for Home and End plays havoc with some people's reflexes. (See below for a way to change this if you really want to, but I recommend opening a text editor and playing around for a while to get used to the way things work on a Mac).
• Windows users will like to know that Alt-Command-Esc will display the "Force Quit Applications" dialog. You can also force quit an application by clicking on its dock icon while holding down Ctrl+Alt.
• The Command-Tab bezel doesn't just let you switch between applications - you can also select an application and quit it immediately by keeping the Command key down and doing Command-Q.
• Remember that Command-H will "hide" applications (i.e., there's more to life than minimizing windows)
• The screenshot key combos are mostly well-known, but here's a brief summary:
  • Command-Shift-3 to snapshot the whole screen (doesn't work in DVD Player, though). A PNG file will be saved to the desktop (you can change the file format by manipulating a preferences file, but PNG is good enough for most purposes).
  • Command-Shift-4 to get a selection cursor. In this mode:
    • Hit Space to snapshot a specific window.
    • Hold down Control when clicking to save the snapshot to the clipboard (instead of the desktop), ready to paste into any application.
• There is a set of startup key combinations here that you might find useful.
• People using a Mac mini with standard PC keyboards are likely to have trouble with the way keys are mapped (especially non-US layouts, which swap accent and symbol keys), so I strongly recommend getting an Apple keyboard.
• If you're using a desktop Mac with a non-US keyboard, the screen brightness control is often unmarked - try the function keys above the help key.
• PowerBook and MacBook users will also want to know about Command-F1 to toggle between mirrored and extended desktop modes (a lifesaver when you have a bum LCD screen) and Ctrl-Alt-Command-8 to toggle 'white on black' display in low-light situations. (Command-Alt-8 will also toggle zooming). But those who really want to get to know their laptop keyboards will want to look at this 15-inch PowerBook G4 Developer Note, which is still mostly applicable to MacBooks.
• If you use Remote Desktop with a Portuguese keyboard layout at both ends, the Alt Gr key can be emulated by using Ctrl+Alt (so the "@" symbol is on Ctrl+Alt+2, etc.)
• If you use VNC and non-US keyboards, I've found VNCThing (2.2 is what I have) to have the most accurate keyboard mappings. Its main website seems to have vanished from the Internet, but it can be found via Google.
• If you're keyboard-oriented, go into System Preferences | Keyboard and Mouse | Keyboard Preferences and Turn on full keyboard access. Now you can deal with dialog boxes the way you're used to, as well as accessing menus and toolbars with the keyboard.
• If you hate digging through Applications to find what you want, get Quicksilver. Think of it as a keyboard-based application launcher. It's much, much more, but it takes a while for its power to sink in.
• Can't stand the apparently useless extra enter key that Apple put where Alt Gr ought to be on laptops? Try using fKeys to remap it to something more sensible.

Finally, if you're a Windows user and the Mac's way of dealing with Home and End really bugs you, here's a tip from Aaron Adams -

To change the Mac's home and end keys to behave like Windows, create a text file named /Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict (if the folder doesn't exist, go ahead and create it) and add these lines: /* Home/End keys like Windows */
{
"\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLine:"; /*home*/
"\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLine:"; /*end*/
"$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /*shift + home*/
"$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:"; /*shift + end*/
}
Logout and login, and the home and end keys will work like Windows.