Shortcuts !

Rohit Mordani — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:49:41 +0000

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/

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 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
- Snap Links Extension : To right click and drag to select the links to open in tabs
- Save Images Extension : To go through all the tabs and save images of a particular resolution
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

Why I am at my computer for so much time (besides work)

Rohit Mordani — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:43:31 +0000

Well – everyone, including my wife, thinks I spend wayyy tooo much time at my computer and they always wonder what the hell is it that I do ! Well over the years the technology has improved so much that now I can do pretty much anything using my computer. Be it watching TV, writing a blog, reading news, seeing a gallery of photos, planning a trip, checking mail or just listening to music. Here are the tools that I use – I bet there are more, but here is what I use.

Watching TV/Videos

NFL : I use SOPCast to watch those games that aren’t aired in my area. As I write this blog entry, I am watching the Colts vs. Bucaneers game. Want to know where I find the appropriate channel addresses to watch the games? Here is a link to the page that has links to all the games – This is updated weekly.
Bollywood Stuff :Want to watch Zee TV, Sony and other hindi movies? Check out muft.tv
Joost : Ye, I do have a Joost account. A friend of mine invited me to it and I have been using it for a while. It is a great software tool and I really like it, though it does have a long way to go where content is concerned. The quality is really good. I think Joost is now open to anyone who wants to use it – they can download the software from the official site
YouTube : YouTube of course is the tool that I use to search for all the videos that I might have missed over the week. It is awesome though not as awesome after Google bought it out – They had better content before that !! Nevertheless – they still do have some good stuff. For example they have an official page for clips from late night shows like Conan and Jay Leno.
Online shows : ABC, Fox, CBS and all others now host their recent past shows on their websites. So if you missed the last Desperate housewives episode or Heroes or Lost episodes then check out the respective channels – though they are put up online a day later

Photography Tools

Adobe Photoshop CS2 : A Graphic Designers best friend ! This is by far the best softwareI have ever used ! Read my blog entry about Adobe Photoshop here
Panoramas : I take a lot of photographs and I use the best stitching tool that I have come across so far – Autostitch. I love this tool and the guys over at University of British Columbia have done an awesome job ! There is no other tool that I consider better than Autostitch
HDR Composition : Recently I started taking a lot of HDR photos and to compose them I use Photomatix. There are a lot of other tools there including Adobe Photoshop, however I think Photomatix does a good job – it has some presets for noobs.
Online Hosting : My brother hosts a web server at his house and we run Gallery. We have been using Gallery from a very early version and we have a lot of photos now ! I also use Flickr and Picasaweb.

Downloader/Conversion Tools

SUPER : SUPER is an awesome tool that I found a little while ago. You can convert a lot of media from one format to another. The biggest plus – its FREE – woo hoo ! I love these guys who make awesome software and distribute it free of charge !
flvconvert : flvconvert is another great tool based on an open source tool called ffmpeg that allows you to convert flash videos (flv videos used by nearly ALL online video sites like YouTube etc.) to mpeg or avi files. You can then transfer these to your iPod or any other PMP.
Audacity + lame encoder : Audacity is another free tool that I use. I love ringtones and Audacity is what I use to create my own ringtones from the mp3 files that I own. lame is the encoder that is used to export the snipped songs as mp3s. You can then transfer these to your phone. Someday soon I shall write an entry about how to create ringtones.
AVI MPEG RM WMV Joiner/Splitter : Join or split the video files. Sad to say its a paid utility.
SDP Downloader: Some time ago, I wanted to download some wma and wmv files and I couldn’t. I grabbed this tool and voila !
Firefox +DownloadHelper add-on : Download all those flv videos from any site using the DownloadHelper add-on with Firefox 2.0

There are ton of other tools that I use. I shall update this blog entry whenever I find out about them and use them !

Rohit Mordani's Blog » Internet

Shortcuts !

Why I am at my computer for so much time (besides work)