Hacker News Reader

Comment by chao- | Hacker News Reader

Using this to bring up something related, which I have always wondered: How do you orient your hands when performing ⌘+Z/X/C when using a Mac keyboard? Which finger presses the ⌘?

Having used Windows as a child and Linux for many years since, I'm sure a large part is "you get used to whatever you use". However, any time I borrow a friend's Apple laptop to demonstrate something, I always waste a few cycles thinking about just how I should really be dealing with the keyboard, and never really settle on an answer.

At its core, I love the idea of the ⌘ key: Something for shortcuts in GUI applications so that Ctrl can remain for sending Unix Signals. But it's position, combined with the lack of discrete Home, End, PgUp, or PgDn, is a majority of what keeps me from buying a Macintosh laptop. Also the whole function key deal. The keyboard is such an important source of my productivity.

View on HN

I tend to just thumb it (the left side one, I only tend to use the right one for the command-delete trash shortcut), same as I do with alt- shortcuts on Windows layout keyboards. I find the mental shift from using command on OS X to Ctrl on Windows pretty easy to do, but then I spend a lot of time on both platforms.

One of the things I find quite difficult to mentally adapt to when switching is the behaviour of the Enter key, since in Windows it is open, and in OS X it is rename (which I find much more useful, since you can command-down arrow to open which is used for folder navigation with command-up for opening the parent folder).

There are a bunch of little-advertised command key shortcuts for Home, PgUp, etc too, so you figure out a way to make it work pretty quickly (some work inconsistently though, I tend to mainly use the word/line based stuff rather than page/document). See http://ss64.com/osx/syntax-keyboard.html .

>One of the things I find quite difficult to mentally adapt to when switching is the behaviour of the Enter key, since in Windows it is open, and in OS X it is rename (which I find much more useful, since you can command-down arrow to open which is used for folder navigation with command-up for opening the parent folder).

For future reference, you can rename in Windows/Linux using F2. Works in Windows Explorer, and in most Linux file browsers that I have tried, though who could ever claim to have used them all? ;)

As for [Modifier]+Down to enter a folder, that makes a lot of sense and I like it. The last time I used a Windows machine (Win7 I think), I noticed that they had finally adopted Alt+Arrow navigation in Explorer. Alt+Up goes to the parent folder, same as Linux (and OS X it seems!), and Alt+Left/Right goes backward/forward in folder history. I'll probably try and add Alt+Down to one of my Linux file managers sometime, because it makes much more sense than having to switch to Enter for going into something, and Alt+Up to go back out.

Thanks for that, I didn't know about Alt-Up (and had always been annoyed at the removing of the parent directory button in Win7). F2 is one I'll have to remember too. Context menus and click-pause-clicks are annoying.

I was just perusing that link, and my god you have just saved me so much frustration. The shortcut:

⌘+` Switch between document Windows in current application

Solves the single most confusing thing I have dealt with on OS X! By happenstance of populations, almost none of the Mac-owners I interact with are power users of any sort (programmer, accountant, etc.). When using their keyboards and fumbling around like an idiot, I always ask "How do I go to the other window of Chrome?" or similar, and they don't know what I mean. I have Googled for this before, but could never figure out how to phrase the action to get an answer.

If I could reduce my karma just to be able to increase yours more than one for this comment, I would. Thank you very much.

This doesn't work for me in Chrome (28.0.1500.71). Other apps work fine. Is there something that needs to be done to get it to work?

I, and all OS X users I know, use the thumb to press command. I rarely need to use home/end, since control-A and control-E work in all text fields. PgUp and PgDn are fn+up/fn+down, but I never use those.

>I rarely need to use home/end, since control-A and control-E work in all text fields.

Interesting. If I can remember that and keep it in mind, I'll be far less jumpy and clunky next time I'm typing on a Mac. Thanks!

On the note of PgUp and PgDn, I suppose I mostly use them for tab navigation: Ctrl+PgUp and Ctrl+PgDn works as a "Next Tab" and "Previous Tab" in pretty much every tabbed Linux application I've used. I recall it being almost universal in Windows as well. Is there an OS X equivalent shortcut for Next/Prev Tab?

Command-shift and square brackets seems to be pretty common (well, it works in Terminal and Chrome, so there's about 80% of my usage there).

Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab work as next/previous tab in Safari, Firefox and Chrome.

My Mac Keyboard rant: https://plus.google.com/115308028547191805295/posts/7YQfngLP...

I remember using an older mac laptop and the keyboad was hard up against the screen with small function keys. Any time I wanted to use one, I'd bang my fingers against the bezel.

Thanks, I enjoyed that ;-)

Thumb, and incidentally, mine is remapped to Alt/Meta for better Emacs support. I'm not a big fan of the Apple key layout either, but the reason I use an Apple keyboard with Emacs in Cygwin is that it just feels right. Maybe it's because I've been using laptops for such a long time, but something about the pitch and the tactile feedback just seems to hit a sweet spot. Plus, I guess compared with the other HP, Dell and Logitech crap we have around the lab, it's probably the best option (at least for me).

On the Mac, the Ctrl key can be used for Home and End using the Emacs/bash keys (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E).

I'm also a thumber.

You can make it so that F-keys are F-keys by default, and the other actions require Fn. It's in the settings.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com