On 18 Aug 2005 at 8:33, Phil Daley wrote:

> Using "Windows" key
> 
> Minimize all open windows Windows+M
> Bring them back Shift Windows+M
> Reveal the desktop Windows+D
> Bring them back Windows+D again
> Another way to switch programs Windows+Tab Enter use multiple tabs to
> cycle

The traditional method being Alt-Tab. The difference is that Alt-Tab 
uses a separate window to display the icons for the running programs, 
where as Windows-Tab uses the TaskBar. Alt-Tab will show programs 
that don't have a TaskBar icon.

> Using shortcut keys in Windows
> 
> Activate the menu bar in programs F10 

The Alt key by itself does the same thing, which, to me, makes far 
more sense than using F10, since you're going to need Alt to choose 
something from the menu with the keyboard.

> Carry out the corresponding command on the menu ALT+underlined letter in menu 
> Close the current window in Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
>    programs. CTRL+F4 
> Close the current window or quit a program ALT+F4
> Copy CTRL+C 
> Cut CTRL+X 

Paste Ctrl-V

> Delete DELETE 
> Display Help on the selected dialog box item F1 
> Display the current window’s system menu ALT+SPACEBAR 
> Display the shortcut menu for the selected item SHIFT+F10

Or the Windows context menu key, the orphan key in the righthand 
shift key row, between the right Windows key and the right Ctrl key.

> Display the Start menu CTRL+ESC 

Or the Windows key by itself.

> Display the system menu for MDI programs ALT+HYPHEN (-) 
> Paste CTRL+V 

Why so out of order for this?

> Switch to the window you last used
> -Or-
> Switch to another window by holding down ALT while repeatedly 
> pressing TAB
> ALT+TAB 
> 
> Undo CTRL+Z 

This is not fully implemented system-wide in Windows, and it's not 
always implemented in every aplplication. But it's worth trying any 
time you want to UNDO something. And I'd add:

Redo Ctrl-Y
OR
Redo SHIFT-Ctrl-Z

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Using Shortcut keys in dialog boxes
> 
> Cancel the current task ESC 

And Escape can be used multiple times to cancel multiple tasks. For 
instance, the reason ESC cancels a dialog box (if it does) is that 
the programmer has set the Cancel or Close button as the default key 
to respond to ESC. So, you could, say, drop down the Look In list, 
and hit ESC to collapse it, and then hit ESC again to close the 
dialog.

> Click a button if the current control is a button
> -Or-
> Select or clear the check box if the current control is a check box
> -Or- 
> Click the option if the current control is an option button 
>    SPACEBAR 

Option groups (radio buttons) can also be navigated with the arrow 
keys, once the option group has the focus.

For buttons, the ENTER key may also work as equivalent to the mouse 
click or the SPACEBAR, but in a dialog it may also activate the OK or 
CLOSE button (which may be mapped as the default for the ENTER key). 
This is a confusing aspect of the implementation of Windows dialog 
boxes in which there are really two focus points, the one highlighted 
with the dotted line outline inside the button, and the dark 
highlight around the outside of the 3D area of the button. The former 
shows which button the SPACEBAR command will be sent to, while the 
latter indicates the default button in the dialog, the one that will 
receive the ENTER command. The ENTER key will work on command buttons 
only when no default has been mapped for the ENTER key, something you 
can tell only by looking very carefully at the OK/CLOSE button.

> Click the corresponding command ALT+underlined letter 
> Click the selected button ENTER 

Again, whether or not this will work as expected will depend on the 
context, as outlined in the paragraph above.

> Move backward through options SHIFT+TAB 
> Move backward through tabs CTRL+SHIFT+TAB 
> Move forward through options TAB 
> Move forward through tabs CTRL+TAB 

Note that some versions of the Mozilla browser family have 
implemented this differently. Non-Windows UIs define different 
behaviors for Tab/Ctrl-Tab, and those were implemented in the first 
tabbed versions of Mozilla. Firefox implemented Windows standard 
behavior (as above) from the beginning, because one of the missions 
of the Firefox project was to create a version of Mozilla that was 
very specifically adapted to the UI conventions of the OS on which it 
was running (and they started with the Windows version, in part 
because at the time, the Windows version of Mozilla was quite slow, 
because of the overhead of the XUL layer in which the UI was 
implemented; i.e., it was using non-native UI widgets). After Firefox 
adapted Windows-standard Tab/Ctrl-Tab navigation, the keyboard 
shortcut was folded into the larger Mozilla project. All current 
versions of Mozilla use Tab/Ctrl-Tab for tab navigation.

But this is an area where there is a wide variety of implementations, 
partly because Microsoft over the years has provided many different 
versions of tab strip controls for their programming tools, some of 
which supported Tab/Ctrl-Tab by default, and some of which did not 
(i.e., the programmer had to explicitly add the keyboard navigation 
support, and sometimes chose non-standard shortcuts).

> Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or
>    Open dialog box BACKSPACE 
> Open Save In or Look In in the Save As or Open dialog box F4

Actually, it depends on where the focus is. If you're already in a 
dropdown list, F4 drops down the list (that's a standard Windows 
command -- any dropdown list should respond to F4, no matter where 
it's used in an application). F4 only drops down the Look In list if 
you're not in a dropdown list, or are in the Look In dropdown list.

> Refresh the Save As or Open dialog box F5 

F5 is the standard Windows Explorer Refresh command.

Indeed, all of the commands above for dialogs work in Windows 
Explorer, because every File dialog box is actually a specialized 
subclassed instance of Windows Explorer.

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Using shortcut keys for Windows Explorer
> 
> Collapse the current selection if it is expanded
> -Or-
> Select the parent folder
> LEFT ARROW 
> 
> Collapse the selected folder NUM LOCK+MINUS SIGN (-) 
> 
> Expand the current selection if it is collapsed
> -Or-
> Select the first subfolder
> RIGHT ARROW 
> 
> Expand all folders below the current selection NUM LOCK+*
> Expand the selected folder NUM LOCK+PLUS SIGN (+) 
> Switch between left and right panes F6 

Tab and Shift-Tab will do the same thing. But there's an interesting 
difference between navigating around the Windows Explorer tab order 
with Tab/Shift-Tab and F6/Shift-F6 -- F6 has only one tab stop per 
window, cycling between the folder pane, the file list and the 
Address bar, whereas Tab adds the Close X in the folder pane to the 
tab order. Actually, it seems like F6 puts the focus on the Close X 
in the folder pane, and *not* in the treeview, as one would expect, 
and therefore requires a Tab to move the focus from the Close X to 
the treeview.

F6 is a justified choice for this kind of tabbing through open 
windows, though, because in MDI documents, Ctrl-F6 (and SHIFT-Ctrl-
F6) cycles you through open document windows. But it's something of 
an area of confusion, since Windows Explorer is not, strictly 
speaking, a standard MDI interface. It's really a docked toolbar 
application, which has a completely different set of rules from MDI 
document windows, but that's probably a distinction of use only to 
programmers, and not to users!

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Using Shortcut keys for My Computer and Windows Explorer
> 
> Close the selected folder and all of its parent folders SHIFT while
>    clicking the Close button (My Computer only) 

No, it's not a My Computer issue. This applies to single-pane Windows 
Explorer views (i.e., without the folder pane). And it only works if 
you've got your folder options set to open new windows for each 
folder, instead of re-using the existing window (if you're doing the 
latter, there aren't any pervious Explorer windows to close). That 
this is not My Computer-specific can be demonstrated by opening up 
Windows Explorer (Windows-E) and then closing the folder pane, then 
going to folder options and setting it to open folders in new 
windows. If you then click down several layers of the folder hiearchy 
and Shift-click the Close X for the last Windows, it will close 
everything up to the original parent window. 

> Move backward to a previous view ALT+LEFT ARROW 
> Move forward to a previous view ALT+RIGHT ARROW 

These two only work in contexts where the previous command does *not* 
work. That is, these commands work only in the 2-pane view. They are 
actually adapted from Web browsers, mimicking the behavior of the 
<<BACK button (try the first two in your web browser -- it works in 
all the ones I've tried).

> View the folder one level up BACKSPACE 

This is simply standard Windows Explorer. Indeed, most of these 
keyboard commands that are segregated into file dialog and Windows 
Explorer shortcuts are simply Windows Explorer shortcuts, and work in 
both contexts, except insofar as they operate on UI objects that may 
not exist in all contexts.

The important point to keep in mind here is that My Computer, Windows 
Explorer and all file dialogs are simply different presentations of 
the same underlying application, Windows Explorer, so it shouldn't be 
at all surprising that there is a common group of keyboard shortcuts 
that works in all of them.

For instance, F4 is very narrowly defined above as dropping down the 
Look In list in a file dialog. But if you're in Windows Explorer with 
the Address bar displayed, F4 drops it down. 

Of course, you'll also note that if you're in your web browser, F4 
drops down the Location list (in Internet Explorer it's unnecessarily 
hardwired to the location list, and doesn't work for dropdown lists 
in a form, which is a very unfortunate Microsoft-created 
inconsistency -- it violates Microsoft's own guidelines for Windows 
UI). In Mozilla, F4 is correctly implemented, and only drops down the 
location list if the location list has the focus (you can use the IE 
shortcut to get there, Alt-D). Firefox, on the other hand, fails to 
implement F4 to drop down the list, but provides the handy up/down 
arrows as alternate (Mozilla also supports that, but with the added 
wrinkle of using it to provide access to the default search engine 
functionality as well as just providing access to the list of URLs in 
the location dropdown).

So, I think it's a mistake to divide this list of shortcuts up the 
way it's done, as it tends to suggest that the shortcuts apply in 
circumstances narrower than they actually are. If you have a keyboard 
shortcut that you like in one context, try it somewhere else -- it 
just might work!

-- 
David W. Fenton                        http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associates                http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc


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