337Studio

Cycle Through Applications

• Keyboard shortcut: cmd + tab / cmd + ~
• What it does: switches between open applications. cmd + tab will advance one application forward, cmd + ~ will advance one application backward.
• How often I use this: I use this shortcut the most
• Notes/Tips:
  • You can also press cmd + shift + tab in place of cmd + ~
  • Use your mouse to hover over the application you need to select it even quicker. This method is much quicker especially when you have many applications open.
  • For PC users, this shortcut is similar to alt + tab in Windows, but much much better.

Cycle Through an Application's Open Windows

• Keyboard shortcut: cmd + ~ (tildae)
• What it does: switches between an application's open windows.
• How often I use this: daily!
• Notes/Tips:
  • Press cmd + shift + ~ to go the opposite direction.
  • This shortcut works with both the Finder and most applications. Doesn't work with all applications though.
  • For instance, in Photoshop you have to press ctrl + tab to cycle between windows.

Close an Application's Selected Window

• Keyboard shortcut: cmd + w
• What it does: closes the selected application window.
• How often I use this: daily!
• Notes/Tips:
  • This shortcut is equivalent to clicking the red x found on all floating windows. However, if the application allows for tabs, the red x usually closes all the tabs and not just one window.
  • Doesn't work with all applications. For instance, in CSSEdit, you cannot close individual tabs using this command.

Quickly Edit a File Name

• Keyboard shortcut: Select a file and press enter
• What it does: In Leopard (Mac OS 10.5.x), this will make the file name editable and highlight the file name BUT not the extension.
• How often I use this: almost daily
• Notes/Tips:
  • Before Leopard, the entire file name, including the extension would be highlighted.
  • Press enter again to accept the changes or just click outside the file name.

Quickly Change Finder Files View

• Keyboard shortcut: cmd + 1 / cmd + 2 / cmd + 3 / cmd + 4
• What it does: Changes the file list in Finder to icon view, list view, column view or cover flow view respectively.
• How often I use this: very often
• Notes/Tips:
  • The cmd + 4 shortcut will only work in Leopard as Cover Flow is new to Leopard.
  • I always use column view but sometimes it's handy to switch to icon view in order to see thumbnails.
  • Tip: To find a file that was modified earlier in the day, switch to List view and sort by Date Modified to quickly find that file.

Quickly Send a File to the Trash

• Keyboard shortcut: Select a file and press cmd + delete
• What it does: Quickly sends selected files to the trash.
• How often I use this: almost daily
• Notes/Tips:
  • If you're new to Macs, you may think deleting a file should be as simple as pressing the delete button, but in Mac OS X, it's a little different.
  • Although it's great being able to freely drag and drop in Mac OS X, it's noticeably slower than performing a shortcut. This shortcut has definitely saved me a ton of shaved seconds.
  • Once you have items in your trash, you can quickly empty the trash by pressing cmd + shift + delete (Must have Finder selected).

Look Up a Word Without Opening Dictionary

• Keyboard shortcut: Hover over a word in TextEdit, Mail or any web browser with your mouse and press ctrl + cmd + d
• What it does: Pops a small window defining the highlighted word.
• How often I use this: fairly often
• Notes/Tips:
  • Dictionary is a handy application, but Mac OS X allows you to look up words without opening the application. Great for when you're reading a blog or news article and you quickly need to look up a word.
  • nytimes.com actually does this too but with JavaScript. They don't require a keyboard shortcut, however. Very cool.

Quickly Find the File Path for a File

• Keyboard shortcut: cmd + left mouse click on the top title of any Finder window
• What it does: Pops a small window showing the complete file path for the selected file.
• How often I use this: fairly often
• Notes/Tips:
  • This isn't exactly a keyboard shortcut, but it's definitely a time saver for me. This comes in handy when I need to quickly know the file path to a certain file or need to navigate to an earlier directory.
  • This is especially useful if you have multiple hard drives and you're wondering which drive houses the file in question.
  • Tip: Try this in Safari and you'll see the directory path from the page you're on down to the root home page.

Quickly Navigate to the Desktop

• Keyboard shortcut: cmd + shift + d (with Finder selected)
• What it does: Takes you directly to the Desktop directory.
• How often I use this: fairly often
• Notes/Tips:
  • Often times, I'll need to temporarily save a file to the desktop, so this shortcut is a life saver when I quickly need to access the desktop.
  • This shortcut will work in Save Dialog windows as well, which is when it is really convenient.

Create Your Own Mac OS X Shortcuts

In Mac OS X's system preferences, you can create your own shortcuts (System Preferences… → Keyboard & Mouse → Keyboard Shortcuts) for many commands or applications you use quite often. For instance, on every mac I own (5), I create a shortcut for opening System Preferences… since I find myself fiddling with System Preferences quite often.

I usually assign cmd + shift + , for this shortcut seeing as most applications similarly use cmd + , to open up preferences for that application.

Check out a video tutorial from Apple's Business Theater to learn how to do this.