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how-to-os-x.md

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How to OS X

The mouse is slow, especially on a laptop. There are tons of hotkeys, tricks, and techniques, to make your usage fast and easy entirely from the keyboard. You will certainly learn many of these during your career, we'll start by learning just a few.

Keys

  • ⌘ (command)
  • ⌥ (option/alt)
  • ⌃ (control)
  • ⇧ (shift)
  • fn (function)
  • ⇥ (tab)
  • ↩ (return/enter)
  • ␣ (space)

Hotkeys

Basics

  • ⌘s - save current file
  • ⌘c - copy current selection
  • ⌘x - cut and copy current selection
  • ⌘v - paste last copied content
  • ⌘z - undo last action (can use multiple times)
  • ⌘⇧z - redo last undo

Cursor & Selection

  • ⌘a - select all contents of current window
  • ⌘l - select current line
  • ⌘<directional arrow> - Move cursor to maximum point in given direction
  • ⌥<left or right arrow - Move cursor one word in either direction
  • ⇧<cursor movement command> - select the content between start and end location of the cursor

System Navigation

  • ⌘w - close the current tab (window if single tab)
  • ⌘⇧w - close the current window (all tabs)
  • ⌘q - quit the current application
  • ⌘⇥ - switch applications, continue to hold ⌘ to display all open programs, each tap on ⇥ will switch to the next app.
  • ⌘ backtick - (backtick is below esc), switch windows in the current application
  • ⌘␣ - open Spotlight. Spotlight is a tool to search applications, files, and perform some basic function like math and conversions

Common Application Hotkeys*

  • ⌘⇧[ - move one tab to the left
  • ⌘⇧] - move one tab to the right
  • ⌘⇧t - open the last closed item
  • ⌘f - find, opens a panel to type a search term
  • ⌘⇧f - find all, searches all files (text editors only, Atom, Sublime)
  • ⌘n - open a new window (or file depending on the application)
  • ⌘t - open a new tab (includes file search in text editors)
  • ⌘r - reload page (Browsers only)
  • ⌘, - open settings pane
  • ⌘/ - make selection or line a comment (text editors only)

* Hot keys can be at the system level or specific to a certain application. Not all application will respond to these hotkeys, but the majority that we use (Terminal, major browsers, Atom, Sublime)

It takes some practice but after you use these enough, they will become intuitive. Many of the hotkeys I use, I couldn't tell you what they are, my hands just know how to do them. Resources. Pick top 5 Hotkeys you'd like to use, and force yourself to use them.

Hotkeys can be added or changed under Keyboard in the OS X System Preferences

Making sense of Mac keyboard symbols