Hi,
On Nov 20, 2008, at 3:37 AM, Slau wrote:
Hi Anne,
One more thing to add to your excellent tip: I believe that when you
add a shortcut, the application for which you're adding the shortcut
must not be running in the background. I'm not 100 percent certain
but I seem to remember that from a couple of years ago. That
might've changed but, for what its worth, if anybody has any
trouble, it might be something to keep in mind.
Cheers.
To expand on the reason your application must not be running when you
use the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab of "Keyboard & Mouse" under System
Preferences: adding shortcuts is part of your customization, so
keyboard shortcut definitions are stored in the preference file for
that application on your computer. This file gets opened and read
every time you open the app, and any changes you make to your default
settings modify the temporary version of your preferences that is read
in and gets saved and written back to the preference file when you
close the application. So if you assign a keyboard shortcut through
System Preferences while the application is open and running, this
gets overwritten by what's in the temporary buffer of preferences
assigned through the application when you close the app, and is never
seen.
So the rules for assigning keyboard shortcuts through the "Keyboard
Shortcuts" tab for "Keyboard & Mouse" under System Preferences are:
1. Application specific shortcuts should be made when the application
is closed.
2. System-wide keyboard shortcuts require a reboot of your computer to
show up.
A good thing to do before you make a shortcut assignment is to check
this sequence in your app beforehand. Also, keep in mind that some
shortcut sequences only get activated in certain menus or after you've
selected files. This is why there's no easy answer for people who just
ask for a list of all keyboard shortcut definitions on the Mac. This
is also why it's hard to find good shortcut key combinations for
system-wide assignments -- so this should be done sparingly and only
if needed.
Finally, you can also assign keyboard shortcuts to AppleScripts, since
these act like extended menu options.
Cheers,
Esther
----- Original Message ----- From: "Anne Robertson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 2:40 AM
Subject: Creating shortcuts
Hello everyone,
In an earlier post, I suggested creating a shortcut for Hang Up in
Skype. You can create a shortcut for any menu item which does not
already have one. Here is how to do it:
To set up a shortcut for a given application, open System
Preferences,
Go to the Keyboard&Mouse pane,
Select Keyboard Shortcuts,
Click the Plus button to the right of the Outline,
A dialogue box will appear,
Click on All Applications,
Select the application for which you want to create a shortcut by
pressing Return,
You must type the exact title of the menu item as it appears in the
application,
Move to the Keyboard Shortcut field and enter the key combination
you wish to use,
Note that it does not check for conflicts with other commands you
may have created,
Click Add and you will be returned to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab
and you can add more if you want to.
Cheers,
Anne
