Posts Tagged ‘keyboard’

We’re big fans of keyboard shortcuts here. OK, so it can take a little while to learn some commands, but used often enough, they tend to become second nature (many Windows users will be only too familiar with ‘Ctrl-Alt-Delete’ for example). Keyboard shortcuts  (also known as ‘hot keys’) are especially useful when typing (alleviating the need to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse).

‘Smashing Magazine’ has a nice summary of over 200 ‘hot keys’. Although aimed at web developers, they include commands for commonly used applications such as Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Outlook.

For example, if you use internet explorer, try pressing the F11 key, and the display should switch to full screen. Press F11 again, and the display will revert to normal… much quicker than using a mouse!

Smashing Magazine

Image by visualdensity

We’d like to think that we’re pretty good typists, but the truth of the matter is that we never learnt to ‘touch type‘. As such we still find ourselves hunting around the keyboard for an ocassional letter or punctuation mark.

Whilst we’re busy looking at the keyboard, it means we’re not looking at the screen (as we should be) and sometimes we realise that we’ve aCCIDENTALLY hIT tHE cAPS lOCK kEY wHILST tYPING.

This is most annoying. Not only do we feel foolish for making a mistake, but then we have to take the extra time to correct our sILLY eRROR.

Thankfully there is an ‘accessability’ feature in Windows (both XP and Vista) that comes in very handy. It’s part of an application called ‘toggle keys’ (originally designed for people with vision impairment). When activated, you will hear a beep whenever the ‘CAPS LOCK’ or NUM LOCK’ key is pressed.

Simply press and hold the ‘NUM LOCK’ key for 5 seconds to activate the feature. This method will work on most machines, but if it doesn’t work for you, there’s an alternative method detailed at the How To Geek and Microsoft sites.

Obviously, you will need your speakers to be turned on, and volume turned up to hear the beep!

Image by outlan2000

We’re assuming that most of you currently reading this, will currently have your right arm outstretched, clutching an oval(ish) shaped piece of plastic, which is attached by a cable to your PC. Naturally there will be some of you who are ‘left handed’, and the ‘flashier’ amongst you may even have a wireless mouse… but you get the general idea.

When we first started using computers, there was no such thing as a ‘mouse’. If you wanted to ‘get something done’ in an application, you would need to learn to use a series of keyboard shortcuts (does anyone remember Word Perfect for example?). We often considered this to be a bit of a pain (you had to remember the key combinations after all).

In the last couple of years few years however, we’ve ‘gone back’ to keyboard shortcuts. Yes, they do take a little time to learn, but they can really boost your productivity. Rather like driving a car, once you learn them, they simply become second nature.

With practice you will find it much faster (and easier) to use shortcuts (e.g. ‘CTRL + C’ and ‘CTRL + V’) than remove your hands from the keyboard and mess around with the mouse (e.g. ‘Edit, copy, edit paste’).

Our recommendation is that you a learn a few shortcuts at a time, and build up your knowledge as time goes on. You can find a nice list of (over 200) shortcuts, covering a range of applications at Smashing Magazine:-

Smashing Magazine

Image by Digital Shotgun

When using Microsoft applications (including Internet Explorer) you can press and hold the ‘CTRL’ key, followed by the ‘F’ key to bring up a search dialogue box. We’ve been using this ’shortcut’ for several years, and we assumed that most people already knew about it. A recent meeting with one of our clients however, revealed that they were unaware of the command (they stated that they will find it really useful in the future). The trick works particularly well when searching through long lists (such as in Excel or Word).