Hotkeys that you know and love?
 

Operations:
CTRL and A - Select all
CTRL and C - Copy selected
CTRL and F - Find files [also Windows+F], [sometimes F3].
CTRL and N - New file/window
CTRL and O - Open
CTRL and P - Print
CTRL and S - Save
CTRL and V - Paste copied
CTRL and X - Cut selected
CTRL and Z - Undo
CTRL and F4 - Close
CTRL+SHIFT+Arrow - select word blocks, replace arrow with pageup/down for larger sections.
ALT+F4 Close the active item, or quit the active program
F2 - Rename selected item
F5 - Update/Refresh
F11 - enlarge browser window [IE only?]
Windows Logo+M - Minimize all windows
Windows Logo+SHIFT+M Restore the minimized windows
Windows Logo+ L - Lock the keyboard
Windows Logo+R - Run dialogue box

Navigate:
F6 - Cycle boxes [good if you want to get to the address bar, also try Alt+D]
ALT+TAB - Cycle forward open items
ALT+SHIFT+TAB - Cycle reverse open items
ALT+ESC - Cycle through items in the order that they had been opened
TAB - Cycle fields
CTRL+TAB - Cycle forward through tabs
CTRL+SHIFT+TAB - Cycle reverse through tabs
SPACEBAR - [de]Select check box, also used as pagedown

Useless keys never to use:

F1 - the most useless key ever.
Windows Logo+F1 - These two keys together are the worst pair of keys ever.


For browsing I usually like avoiding much of the mouse, except the mousewheely. I find myself also clicking and dragging on empty parts of websites to scroll sometimes, or click on an empty spot and hit backspace.

If I'm on firefox at home I'll be hitting ctrl+t a lot to open tabs, at work ctrl+n because they have IE.

commonly it will go a little like this: ctrl+t, alt+d, www.techwarelabs.com/community, ctrl+t alt+d, google.com/ig, tab tab login, ctrl+shift+tab, tab tabtabtab, login, spacebar, ctrl+tab spacebar

Kinda wild but I sorta do it secondnaturedly.

any speed tips from you browsing gurus?

I like using the most universal shortcuts I can find because I never know what computer i'll be on, but usually i'm on public computers and they run windowz.

I'm slower with a mac, until I open the CLI, but as far as navigating OS X, it's not too quick for me.

share!

k - up
j - down
h - left
l - right
G - bottom
gg - top
dw - delete word
dl - delete letter
dd -delete line
s/.*regex/replace/
Shift-V - select
.......
<3 gvim

plus most of what you have there, but none of the windows key combos, as a) i don't use windows and b) my laptop doesn't have windows keys

ctrl-alt-(shift) - arrow keys - move through workspaces (with selected window)

ctrl-L location bar in most programs
ctrl-K search bar in firefox

i'm sure there are more. i rarely touch a mouse, but i really don't know what i'm doing with my hands. I think "action" my hands take care of the rest

what about yy & p?
or to delete # number of lines: d#d
) and ( for sentence navigation? as well as w and b for word navigation

I use vi and vim exclusively to produce my website (which isn't saying much because most of it is one page right now). But if you look at the previous versions they have been done in vi/vim as well.

That's a very good list! Well done!

Oh also if you ever get a chance try mouse gestures, on my desktop I love using opera and using gestures.

If you have opera, just click and drag left or right quickly. It's not so handy on my laptop, backspace and alt+arrow works nicer. you can get gestures for most browsers if you look for the plugins for ffox and such.

if you want to go faster in firefox, get your fav links in the bookmarks toolbar, then open bookmarks and middleclick on the folder... it'll open everything in a tab. The same goes for middleclicking on "latest headlines".

random tips on speeding up firefox using "about:config" in the address bar:

http://mozillazine.org/misc/about:config/

Windows + D is kind of like a "Force Minimize". I use that if some games don't like Alt + Tab.

Windows D means desktop. Pressing it again brings the same windows back up.

Re: Hotkeys that you know and love?
 

Actually, since most programs use F1 for their help item, it may be useful for some. I have to admit I used it a couple of times, after I was having some difficulties with the program.

I think that was his point. I agree with win-f1... that help program sucks and even takes up a service (even if you disable it)

<3 Opera :). I think I probably actually use [hold right click] + [left click] and [hold left click] + [right click] more than the [hold right click] + [drag mouse left/right] for forward and back, but I [hold right click] + [drag mouse down] and ctrl+d (Paste and go) quite a bit too. [Hold right click] + [drag mouse up, then down] to refresh gets used occasionally too, as does [hold right click] + [make an L shape] to close the tab. I use these things so naturally now, that when I'm on another computer, or in windows explorer (browsing my files), I occasionally try to use mouse gestures (without success :(). [.] for in-line find on a web page, [ctrl] + [left/right] for forward/back, [1/2] for previous/next tab, [h] for address bar, [ctrl] + [up/down] to navigate through links (commonly following a [.] in-line find), and [hold right click] + [scroll wheel up/down] to navigate through tabs, and [middle click] on a tab to close it are high on my list of Opera shortcuts too. (Have I mentioned I like Opera? :D)

Aside from Opera, though, I also use:
Windows Key + Pause = Bring up system properties ... quick way to get to device manager, etc.
Right click on a file, [Shift + D] to permanently delete the file (quick, keeps one hand on mouse with minimal movement, other hand in home row)

I've also bound a few shortcuts to ctrl-alt-p for putty, ctrl-alt-o for opera, ctrl-alt-c for calculator, ctrl-alt-n for notepad, etc...

you can also shift-delete for a confirmation to skip the recycle bin.

Yup, I know, but I generally click (right hand on mouse) on the file I want to delete, and my left hand stays in its home row position. Pressing shift+delete would require one of my hands to move, since delete is on the right side of the keyboard (and not accessible from a home-row positioning anyway), so it's less efficient most of the time for me. And, since hotkeys/shortcuts/gestures are all about efficiency in performing tasks, that's the deciding factor.

we're such geeks... analyzing the efficiency of hotkeys... :D

:lol: :nod:

Why not, actually has anyone heard of the keyboard formatting dvorak?

My desktop has all the keyboard keys arranged in dvorak, not that I look at my keys anyway. It's kind of interesting to have a qwerty user use my keyboard though ;)

I am sub-proficient at it, and can comfortably interchange whenever. It's also good to use on a portable machine so people will have that much less probability of being able to use your machine. Here it is if you don't know what I'm talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

The basic idea with QWERTY was that the keys were archaically separated to prevent actual mechanical jamming at high speed keying on typewriters. Most typists learned this way because of the mechanical builds of the typewriters of the age.

Dvorak is a format that came out and it put all the most used keys on the home row, and the lesser used keys surrounding those. This makes typing more efficient in that your fingers move less distance for most actions of common letters. for example one hit's 'E'very often and it takes more of a movement on QWERTY than that of Dvorak.

There's my little spiel, if you want to learn more you can actually read about it at the link I provided.

it might be nice to learn dvorak, but I don't want to rearrange the keys on my keyboard... :/

You don't have to, just change your format. It says how on that page:

WinXP "Control Panel → Regional and Language Options → Languages → Details...."

for other OS's go check the link.

Yeah but since i'm not familiar with the format i'd not know what I was hitting.

Also on the above link..........

http://www.fonlow.com/kptypingtutor/

I love it! Starting out as a mac user many years ago, it took me a while to get onto hotkeys but they save me now.

Of course, my favorite one would be 'open in another window' lol.

I'm having to learn all the mac hotkeys... it's like reinventing the wheel!

firefox tip:
ctrl-shift-delete

delete history stuff on public computers (cookies, passwords, form and password data, temp files).

IE tip:
ctrl+h and delete the items in the history folder.

If you know the 'delete history' shortcut by hand...then not only does it say that you're a teenager, but that you have lots of stuff to hide :rolleyes:

Long time since I visited :)

Windows + pause/break for system properties is good

So? ;)

the whole "dvorak is more efficient than qwerty" thing is not true. the myth extends from a (i believe military) study done by dvorak's friend/cousin/uncle's brother (something like that) in the 40's. The results were disputed and have not been repeated. From Wikipedia: "Stanley J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, two economists who have investigated these claims in several academic and popular papers, argue that the actual evidence in these cases does not support a claim of market failure or lock-in; as they put it, "the claim that Dvorak is a better keyboard is supported only by evidence that is both scant and suspect." [1]" Knowing Margolis (have read a number of his articles, his book, and took a class with him), I would tend to believe his claim. Economists have a nasty habit of using "stylized facts." One thing I've learned is that these stylized facts have a nasty habit of being wrong. This is probably one of those cases. That, combined with the problems of switching shortcuts (OMG cut,copy,paste,undo on Dvorak, shudder), is enough for me to not consider switching.

No I'm not a teenager. Privacy is a concern to me. I don't really like leaving my forum logins sitting in the fields, email addresses sitting in fields. I also don't like leaving forum cookies on public computers.

I can be pretty paranoid, I may have stuff to hide, but it's not likely that it's what you seem to be assuming. I'm usually on public access computers at either of my two jobs or at school.

Suit yourself, I'm only providing the information to those who would like to be a sport and try it out. For me the learning curve was really easy, just a matter of association. Once you have the association down you really start to feel like you barely move from the home row. I learned to do it in a few hours, and memorizing the keys works as fast as you can memorize things.

If you don't think it's efficient that's fine, but the way they designed qwerty was to separate the most used keys, forcing your fingers to travel farther and avoid mechanical jams. I happen to enjoy my fingers travelling less often and at shorter distances. Dvorak is also popular among handicap people as dvorak provides a right hand and left hand keyboarding solution.

Shooting down the format says nothing to me as you have not experienced it first hand. If you were to tell me some significant feature that makes it less efficient or appealing it would make more sense than trying to "myth bust" when you have no motivation to be open enough to try it in the first place.

As for the shortcuts, I could really care less. It's just a matter of using what you thought was intuitive before and seeing which things work for you. Besides, I can map the keys to copy paste and the other junk if I really wanted.

In fact with dvorak the layout is very intuitive when hacking out code in vi(m), and the keys are nearly all comfortable to use. The movement is a little shifty but I usually use the arrow keys anyway. Not that any of you use vi, how inefficient right? I guess I should be using M$Word or something.