10.5: Use Help to select menu items via keyboard
One of the cool new features of Mac OS X Leopard is the search field in the Help menu of each application. Entering a search term in this field will pull up not only help topics related to your search, but anything that appears in the current application's menus (this includes history and bookmarks in Safari). As you highlight each menu item in the search results (using the arrow keys), that menu item gets pulled down automatically and highlighted with a colored floating pointer. You can then hit enter to activate that menu item. When I first saw it, I wondered if there was a shortcut key for the help menu, so I didn't have to use the mouse (like hitting Command-Space to do a Spotlight search). Well, there is: Command-? (i.e. Command-Shift-/). This shortcut key is documented in the Mac Help system (under Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts), but it is so awesome, I had to s...
published on Friday, the 2. November 2007, macosxhints
10.5: Set different modifier keys for external keyboards
I use a PC keyboard to go with my MacBook at home, which is fine until I need to use a keyboard shortcut that starts with Command. Then I sometimes get pretty confused figuring out just where the Command key is. In Leopard, I can set different Modifier Keys for different keyboards, so I remap ALT to Command and WIN to Option on my PC keyboard. Here's how: Plug in a external keyboard to your Mac Go to System Preferences and open the Keyboard & Mouse pane Click Modifier Keys under the Keyboard tab Select External Keyboard, and change the modifier keys End of confusion!
published on Friday, the 26. October 2007, macosxhints