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Useful Keyboard Shortcuts: Do you use them?

Started by April 08, 2009 12:33 AM
15 comments, last by curtmax_0 15 years, 7 months ago
Hi, I'll be short. I've got an assignment for a Human-Computer Interactions class, and I need some participants to fill out a short questionnaire. http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pzEiGXvInlPWK8cAOviKzIQ It's anonymous, takes a couple minutes, and you might learn some useful keyboard shortcuts that you didn't know. I'd appreciate it if anyone could participate please. :) I'll share the results at the end.
Filled and submitted [smile]

I took HCI as part of my Software Engineering degree program to fulfill in the Specialized Domain requirement we had to have. I ended up taking all 3 courses and loved it a lot. I think HCI should be mandatory for all programmers. Certain topics it encompasses point out a lot of things that you would think are common sense things, but usually those things are easily overlooked as most programmers rarely step back and look at the big picture about the code they are writing.

As for the survey, I use shortcuts all the time. The only one I do not use is F6. You are missing an important shortcut though, Alt+Home! The reason I don't use F6 is because I just hit Alt+Home (brings me to Google) and type the domain I want to go to there; just a habit.

I hope your course goes as well as mine did. I learned quite a lot from those classes and they were definitely some of my favorite in college.
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Submitted. I'm an avid Vim user. You bet I use shortcuts all the time [grin]

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Sander Marechal<small>[Lone Wolves][Hearts for GNOME][E-mail][Forum FAQ]</small>

Done.

Those browser tab shortcuts would be of more use to me at work, except that they still insist we use IE6 there. Don't really do much multi-tab browsing at home.

All the text-editing ones are pretty much second nature though.
Filled out with the following comment:

Quote: "Do you have a general opinion about Google Chrome?"
I neither hate nor love it. I actually don't care, though I have chosen 'hate', as this is more appropriate, still not the truth.

Also, for some tasks, like entering to address bar, can also be done with other shortcuts (<ctrl>+l, <alt>+s, etc.). I don't always use the exact shortcut as you mentioned, but I've chosen the answers in terms of tasks to accomplish. For example, I prefer <ctrl>+l over F6, but I have chosen "always", because I never use the moues to get to the address bar.

If this survey targets programmers, there are missing some more features, like "duplicate selection", "duplicate line" (the latter two are standard in scintilla based editors), "move to matching opening/closing brace", "open search/replace window / do incremental search, etc.", "compile", "run". I could name a thousand more places where I use shortcuts, but then those are rather arbitrary.

All in all, nice survey :)



edit:

I'd like to add more shortcuts for firefox/iceweasel:

  <shift> + "/": do incremental search  <shift> + "'": do incremental search on links only   <ctrl> + "f": do incremental search (with some more settings)


Also, what I find pretty awesome and recently learned here, you can open the context menu when you are in a html-form (e.g. right click onto an input box), then click "add keyword for this search", et voila, you can have some really nice and arbitrary shortcuts. E.g., I've setup it so that I can type "man printf", and this opens. Naturally, I also have "google <search words>", "parashift <...>", "dict <...>", and many other searches. Try and love.


edit2: Oh, and, here are of course the shortcuts for the searchplugin features:

   <ctrl>+"k": focuses on search box   <ctrl>+<up>/<down>: selects a search plugin
I was part way into it and hit the required answer for Words Per Minute.. at which point I didn't feel like finding it out and bailed on the thing...
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Done. I wonder if anyone ever uses the numpad on a laptop. I do on a desktop with a regular keyboard, but I find the average notebook version pretty awkward.
I use ctrl-f4 instead of ctrl-w , and I often use ctrl-insert and shift-insert instead of ctrl-c and ctrl-v , perhaps you would want to ask about alternative shortcuts as well. Also, if you want to time how long it takes to fill this survey, just add a timer to page, i did not time it.
I don't use some of the specified shortcuts, but use their equivalent (eg I'll use the standard Ctrl+F4 to close a tab and Ctrl+Z to "undo" the close and re-open it; Alt+D is generally the shortcut to select the address bar etc).

I also use keyboard shortcuts a lot less in a browser than most other apps (as web page navigation is usually graphical), using mouse gestures instead.

[Website] [+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++]

Filled it in. Hey, could you post the results of the survey somewhere when it's done? Thanks :)

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