The other day I was talking to JWM and we were talking about some shortcuts in Eclipse and Firefox and it struck me that I use a LOT of shortcuts all over the place and that I really like it. To me a good user experience is not only the eyecandy but also the usability and most of all – the shortcuts and the easter eggs !

Thinking back, I guess I started using shortcuts when a friend of mine challenged me to use Windows without a mouse ! I won that challenge. After that I started using Pine to check email and that had a lot of shortcuts too ! I guess that stuck around with me ! I still use pine to check email and love it !

To come to think of it – this is the reason why I love VI ( the editor) as well. VI is all about shortcuts and commands to enter to get the work done – no point and click ! This is also the reason why I love QuickSilver on the Mac !

Here are some of the shortcuts I use (and in the program that I use). These are not your regular Alt+F4 to close a window or your Ctrl+C to copy text !

FIREFOX

  • Ctrl + T                 : Open a new tab
  • Ctrl + W                : Close the current tab
  • Ctrl + R                 : Refresh a page
  • Backspace             : Go back one page (in the history stack)
  • Alt + Left Arrow    : Go back one page (in the history stack)
  • Alt + Right Arrow  : Go forward one page (in the history stack)
  • Ctrl + L                 : Jump to location bar
  • Ctrl + Shift + L     : Force jump to location bar – good for those pesky Flash pages (thanks JWM !)
  • Ctrl +Shift + R      : Force a reload of a page (override the cache)
  • Ctrl + Tab             : Move between tabs in the forward direction
  • Ctrl + Shift + Tab : Move between tabs in the reverse direction
  • Ctrl + Shift + T     : Open the last closed tab (Very helpful when you accidentally close a tab)
  • /                           : Brings up the search dialog. Same as Ctrl+F or  Ctrl+G. BTW Ctrl+G also searches for the next occurrence of the keyword that you were searching for
  • F11                       : Full Screen mode
  • Ctrl + Enter          : After you type something in the URL bar it appends .com and loads the page at that url
  • Shift + Enter          : After you type something in the URL bar it appends .net and loads the page at that url
  • Ctrl + Shift + Enter  : After you type something in the URL bar it appends .org and loads the page at that url

Find more at : http://www.mouserunner.com/FF_Shortcuts1Printable.html

ECLIPSE

  • Ctrl + Spacebar     : Suggestions for completion or auto-completion if only one suggestion exists
  • Ctrl + Shift + O     : Autaomatically organize imports (in Java)
  • Ctrl + Shift + T     : Brings up a dialog where you can search for classes in your project and open the files that contain them
  • Ctrl + Shift + R     : Same as Ctrl+Shift+T but it also searches for other resources such as XML files
  • Ctrl + Shift + F     : Format code (with correct indentation)
  • Ctrl + 1                : Quick Fix (gives you recommendations when there is an error in your code)
  • Ctrl + L                : Goto a specific line number
  • F3                        : Open declaration
  • Ctrl + Shift + /    : Toggle block comment
  • Ctrl + /                : Toggle comment
  • Ctrl + D               : Delete a line

Find more at : http://eclipse-tools.sourceforge.net/shortcuts.html

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

  • F                                      : Toggle between different screen modes (full screen)
  • TAB                                  : Hide/Show the different toolbars
  • Ctrl + D                           : Deselect (if there is any selection in the image)
  • Ctrl + Shift + N               : New layer
  • z                                      : Zoom tool
  • Ctrl + +                           : Zoom in
  • Ctrl + -                            : Zoom out
  • Ctrl + 0                            : Zoom to fit in screen
  • x                                      : Switch foreground and background colors
  • m                                     : Marquee tool
  • Shift + m                         : Cycle between rectangular and circular marquee tools
  • e                                      : Eraser tool
  • v                                      : Move tool
  • i                                      : Eye dropper tool
  • w                                    : Magic wand tool
  • c                                     : Crop tool
  • s                                     : Stamp tool
  • Ctrl + L                           : Levels
  • Ctrl + Shift + L               : Auto Levels
  • Ctrl + M                          : Curves
  • Ctrl + Alt + D                 : Feather selection (when there is a selection on an image)
  • Ctrl + Alt + I                  : Image size
  • Ctrl + Alt + C                 : Canvas Size
  • Ctrl + F                          : Run last filter
  • [                                     :  Increase brush size
  • ]                                     : Decrease brush size
  • Spacebar + left mouse click + drag   : Move canvas around
  • Ctrl + Alt + 0                 : Load Channel 3

Find more at : http://morris-photographics.com/photoshop/shortcuts/

VI

Note: These are case sensitive so r and R (Shift + r) have different commands associated with them

  • i                                           : Insert mode
  • esc                                      : Command mode
  • 0                                         : Goto beginning of line
  • $                                         : Goto end of line
  • w                                         : Move to beginning of the next word or punctuation mark
  • b                                         : Move to beginning of the previous word or punctuation mark
  • :1                                        : Move to the first line in the file
  • Ctrl + f                               : Move forward one screen
  • Ctrl + b                               : Move back one screen
  • G                                         : Move to the last line in the file
  • r                                          : Replace a character
  • R                                         : Replace multiple characters
  • x                                         : Delete a character under the cursor
  • p                                         : Paste (character, word or line – depends what you copied with)
  • cw                                       : Delete the word and go into insert mode
  • /keyword : Forward search for a keyword
  • ?keyword : Reverse search for a keyword
  • :w                                        : Write to file
  • :q                                        : Quit
  • :q!                                       : Quit without saving
  • :wq                                      : Write to file and quit
  • yy                                        : Copy a line
  • y3y                                      : Copy 3 lines
  • y$                                        : Copy from cursor till end of line
  • dd                                        : Delete a line
  • d3d                                      : Delete 3 lines
  • dw                                       : Delete a word
  • d3w                                      : Delete 3 words
  • d$                                        : Delete from cursor till end of line
  • :%s/keyword1/keyword2/g : Search for all keyword1 and replace it with keyword2
  • ma                                       : Set beginning marker a
  • m’a                                      : Set end marker a
  • y’a                                       : Copy from beginning marker a to end marker a (used in conjunction with ma)
  • %                                         : If the cursor is under a parantheses then it finds the matching opening/closing parentheses
  • :linenumber : Jump to line number linenumber
  • ~ : Changes the case of the character underneath the cursor
  • >                                        : Indent right
  • <                                        : Indent left

VI has so many options and commands that it is why many people don’t like it – makes it too compicated ! For me – its just the reverse. It intrigues me and makes me love it ! Find more shortcuts for VI at :

Microsoft Word

  • Ctrl + B                  : Bold the text
  • Ctrl + I                   : Italic-ize the text
  • Ctrl + U                 : Undeline the text
  • Ctrl + [                  : Reduce the font size
  • Ctrl + ]                  : Increase the font size
  • Ctrl + E                 : Center align the paragraph
  • Ctrl + L                 : Left align the paragraph
  • Ctrl + R                 : Right align the paragraph
  • Ctrl + J                  : Justify the paragraph
  • Ctrl + arrow keys  : Move from word to word (word boundary)
  • Ctrl + Backspace  : Delete 1 word back from the cursor (This works in a most other editors as well)
  • Ctrl + delete  : Delete 1 word forward from the cursor (This works in a most other editors as well)
  • Ctrl + Shift + arrow keys : Select entire words
  • Ctrl + Shift + C      : Copy the format of the selection
  • Ctrl + Shift + V      : Change the format of the selection to the format copied previously using Ctrl+Shift+C
  • Ctrl + Enter            : Page break (Start a new page)
  • Shift + Delete        : Delete the whole line

Find more at : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290938

GMAIL

  • ga         : Go to All mail
  • gi          : Go to Inbox
  • /           : Jump to search mail text edit box
  • j            : Move to next email
  • k           : Move to previous email
  • s           : Star an email
  • c           : Compose a new email
  • r           : Reply to an email
  • a           : Reply to everyone
  • f           : Forward an email

ADOBE PDF

  • Left Arrow                :P revious page
  • Right Arrow             : Next page

iPHONE

  • Home Key  twice      : Go to favourites (or ipod – depends on how you have set it up in  Settings. If you are playing music then it opens up a dialog with ipod controls. If the screen is locked then also it shows the ipod controls.
  • Camera button (on screen) : Hold the camera button and it clicks when you let go of it. Useful to take pictures of yourself – no need to hunt for the camera shutter release button on the screen !

iTUNES

  • Space bar                   : Start playing / pause a song
  • Right arrow                : Skip to next song
  • Left arrow                  : Skip to previous song
  • Ctrl + Up                     : Increase volume
  • Ctrl + Down                 : Decrease volume

Not only do I use the built-in shortcuts in an app/system, but if there is a way to extend that app/system to have more/better shortcuts then I will go to great lengths to get that ! I hate to do grunt work like moving the mouse pointer all the way across the screen for a click ;) and given the choice I would rather use a shortcut combination.  Here are some of the extensions that I have added to my system/apps

FIREFOX

  • I browse a lot of images on flickr and I wanted a way such that if I press the left key then it would navigate to the previous image in the photostream or the set. As it turns out there is a GreaseMonkey scrip to do this. Get this script here
  • I also browse a lot of galleries that have thumbnails and they link to the high resolution versions. I also had a need to save all of these high resolution images. I achevied this using 2 firefox extensions: One that opened all the links (selected using right click and drag) in new tabs and the other extension that saved all the images in the Tabs (right of the current tab) !! You can set a minimum resolution of images to save from these tabs ! voila – work done. Galleries that contain about 300 images saved in a matter of minutes. Here are links to the 2 extensions
  • I visit a few sites regularly (facebook, gmail, google etc. ). Nearly every time I pick up my laptop. I wanted a quick way to launch these sites once I am inside firefox instead of having to go to the URL bar and type in the url . As luck would have it, there is an extension that allows you to do this. Here is the extension. It is called Site Launcher. With this plugin I save myself a lot of time not having to type in www.google.com !!

Windows

    • When I started using Windows XP I figured out that Windows+E opened Windows Explorer and Windows+I started Internet Explorer. I always wanted to extend this to start other apps but couldnt until I found out about QLiner Hotkeys. This little app runs when you start windows and allows you to have your custom mappings to your apps. It also has a UI (when you want it) so that configuring shortcuts is as easy as dragging apps to the virtual keyboard shown on the screen. Here are my mappings
      • Windows + a                  : Apple iTunes
      • Windows + e                  : Windows Explorer
      • Windows + c                 : Command Prompt
      • Windows + r                  : Run menu
      • Windows + x                 : Firefox
      • Windows + s                  : ssh
      • Windows + p                 : Adobe Photoshop
      • Windows + n                 : Notepad