Hacker News Reader

Comment by dsego | Hacker News Reader

Usually the option key uncovers more available options in context menus.

> How does one discover Cmd-Opt-V?

Keyboard shortcuts are not usually meant to be "discovered" (how do you discover ctrl+x?). You can learn and memorize them. Although, there is a common theme with the option/alt modifier on the mac.

View on HN

They are indeed meant to be discovered -- they are usually listed on menu items. You can hold down modifier keys like Option, Command, Ctrl and Shift to see how the menu item's text actually changes to reflect the action that will be taken if you press the respective key command. Very discoverable. I've never seen any other OS that does this (not that I look for it specifically). Also note when ellipses at the end of a menu item disappears when you are holding Option or whatever -- this means the action will be taken immediately, instead of asking the user to confirm (quick example is on "Empty Trash" in the Finder menu).

> Keyboard shortcuts are not usually meant to be "discovered" (how do you discover ctrl+x?).

Of course they are, don't be silly. Even in Finder, the "Édition" menu (I don't know how it's called in english) lists the keyboard shortcuts next to their names (copy, paste...). When you don't select anything, it even shows "Cut (Cmd+X)" grayed out! It just disappears when yous elect a file/folder

Microsoft Word is an example of software which allows keyboard shortcut discovery pretty well [1]

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/keyboard-shortcuts...

> Press the Alt key to display the ribbon shortcuts

Seems pretty similar to apple, you have to know that pressing Alt shows additional information.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com